All visitors to Britain requiring visas will have to be fi ngerprinted with new rules having been recently implemented.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said a programme for installing biometric visa controls had been completed three months ahead of schedule.

He said: “It is done. It has been done three months early, and it is done several million pounds under budget. “We will now check everybody’s fi ngerprint wherever they apply for a visa around the world.”

Mr Byrne said the new system – the fi rst of ten key changes to the UK’s border controls to be implemented during this year – was already having an effect. “We have already found about 500 cases of people who have chosen not to give us their identity correctly, and we have checked them against databases that we hold in the UK and found out that they have been lying to us,” Mr Byrne said.

“Obviously that has allowed us to stop them coming anywhere near Britain.”