To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many foreign nationals resident in the United Kingdom the Government expect to be required to hold a biometric immigration document by (a) January 2009, (b) January 2010 and (c) January 2011. (181604)

The UK Borders Act 2007 confirms the introduction of ID cards for foreign nationals from 2008. The programme will first pressure test the technology, before cards are issued later this year.

We will publish our roll out strategy shortly and this will be based on improved efficiency and will tackle high risk groups first. We will publish details of these groups in the roll out strategy.