Last week

I forgot to record two questions last Wednesday, on the Country of Origin Information Service, and on the appointments to the Electoral Commission in Kenya

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/
ldhansrd/text/70131-0001.htm#07013187000006

Last Wednesday was my swan song on the EU Committee's Justice and Home Affairs subcommittee, after a three and a half year stint. Members are supposed to be rotated off after three years, but I remained to help complete the work on Schengen Information System II, a very large database that will bring in the new Member States, containing details of European Arrest Warrants, missing persons, persons to be excluded from the EU, stolen and missing passports, stolen vehicles etc. Ultimately SIS II will contain biometric data, which may be used first on a one to one basis to confirm identification, but later on one to many searches, where somebody's fingerprint (or other bodily characteristic) is compared with all others on the database, to find a match. It is a complex and interesting subject, and I hope our report, due to be published at the end of the month, will be useful.

Today was bright and sunny, and I played ping-pong for the first time since last autumn, beating JW 2-1 and his friend Nic 1-0, by which time it was getting dark. Nic and his girlfriend Christen, and Olly, went back to Nottingham, but JW and Verity are staying till tomorrow morning