UK Borders Bill

Public Bill Committee, 6 March 2007.

Further written evidence to be reported to the House

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. First, hon. Members may remove their jackets if they wish. Please will all Members ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode during our proceedings? I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with this Bill, copies of which are available in the room. Last week, the Committee sat to take oral evidence, but we are now back on the more familiar territory of clause-by-clause scrutiny.

Clause 1

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 35, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) The Secretary of State shall, by regulation, make provision for the regular inspection of immigration officers designated under this section.’.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 36, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, after ‘period’, insert ‘of not less than six months’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I feel compelled to re-welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Illsley, as we return to a comfortably old-fashioned way of scrutiny after last week’s exciting innovation. I am not being satirical; it is an extremely good innovation, for which I am happy to commend the Leader of the House. Some of my remarks on these amendments arise from the evidence that we heard. It would be extremely useful to show that taking witness evidence helps us to have better debates during the scrutiny stage of the Bill.

Both the amendments are to do with ensuring that immigration officers, who will have new powers under the clause, are aided in doing their new jobs correctly, are properly trained and have the experience and skills to meet the new challenges that the Government are putting to them. Amendment No. 36 would allow the Secretary of State to designate immigration officers for the purposes of detaining people under clause 2 for a minimum specified period of six months. That would ensure that the designation could not be made for a short period, which would make the officers less able to do the job. Amendment No. 35 would require the Secretary of State to set out a mechanism for the inspection of new immigration officers. As we heard from a number of witnesses, the oversight of the new powers that the officers are to be given is of particular concern to practitioners in the field.

The need for such an amendment is backed up by some of the written evidence that we received. I was struck by the remarks from Liberty that once an immigration officer has been designated, he or she will enjoy considerable power, covering not only detention but search and the use of reasonable force. Indeed, anybody who absconds from the custody of an immigration officer who holds the new powers will be committing an offence. Liberty acknowledges that there might be occasions when no police constable is present on which it is appropriate to detain and search. It also notes, crucially to the amendments, that the extension is part of a general trend to grant powers traditionally reserved for the police to those who have not received police training. Indeed, the Government state in background notes that a person must be fit and proper and suitably trained.

In this and other amendments we are seeking to strengthen and tighten the definitions. Clearly, if the extra powers given to immigration officers are to work, they will require substantial extra training, probably at considerable expense. Therefore, amendment No. 36 seeks to protect the taxpayer, inter alia, by seeking to ensure that there is no great turnover of designated officers and that people trained at public expense are not designated officers for only a short period. I imagine that that is in no way the Minister’s intention, but for the reasons I have outlined, it would be useful to have provision in the Bill to ensure that once someone is a designated immigration officer, they are expected to be so for a considerable period. Throughout the public service and in the private sector, anyone who has managed an organisation will recognise the benefits associated with continuity of service. In particular, when we are asking people to do not only a difficult job, but a difficult job that they have not been asked to do before, with all the powers that they have been given, maintaining the benefits of continuity of service seems particularly important.

I was struck by a concern pointed out to me by an immigration lawyer, which was not just the cost of training, but the availability and suitability of staff. She was particularly concerned about the treatment of asylum seekers and the need to monitor the scheme very carefully in order to ensure fair treatment; she was worried about the assumption of criminality that seems to infuse that approach, although that debate is for another part of the Bill. She made one important point that affects the issues raised by the amendments: the fact that the possibility of criminal charges means that the immigration officer should be working with the criminal standard of a presumption of innocence, rather than with the current code followed in immigration matters, which works on the balance of probabilities.

Again, that individual issue is not a matter for the amendments, but I think it illustrates an important point. These challenges will be new ones for immigration officers. It would therefore be unfair for the legislation to ask the officers to proceed with the new powers without expecting that they will do so for a considerable period and also, under amendment No. 36, an awareness that they will be properly inspected.

I should like to pray in aid some of the oral evidence that we heard from Mr. Richard Thomas in our second sitting:

“If immigration officers were to be given these powers, the only benefit would be if they were properly trained. If there were to be specialist people at ports who had a specialist understanding of the needs of foreign nationals who are entering and of the certain circumstances that arise, there would be a benefit from it. There is not a benefit from creating an ad hoc further police service at the ports when those people do not have the appropriate training.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2007; c. 40-41.]

I think that that is probably true, and moving specifically to amendment No. 36, it is also true that the people exercising the new powers need to know that someone is looking at them. As I said, the Government have stated that such a person must be “fit and proper”, and the Bill is awarding to immigration officers some of the strongest policing-type powers that can be afforded to an individual. On amendment No. 35, the explanatory notes make no reference to any sort of public accountability or redress for people who feel aggrieved or have complaint, which is why we feel that there should be a mechanism for the inspection of new immigration officers.

The whole Committee will be aware of the sensitivity of immigration as a public policy issue. If we are to regain confidence in a system that has clearly lost public confidence, people will need to know that the system is fair to those who go through it, robust enough to protect our borders and well managed. The vast majority of people will wish to see that those who arrive at our ports seeking to enter are decently treated. An inspectorate along the lines of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary would go some way towards instilling confidence in that respect.

I am aware that the Minister has proposed bringing together various regulatory bodies that affect the immigration service, but I hope that he recognises that the amendments are designed to improve the Bill. If he accepts them, they will make it clear that the immigration officers, who have been given the new powers, will be expected to exercise them for some time and so improve their own professionalism in the knowledge that there is a properly funded, properly constituted inspection authority that will reveal regularly to the public how good their performance is. In that spirit of helpfulness, I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I join the hon. Member for Ashford in saying how glad I am to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Illsley, now under the more traditional arrangements that we are used to in Committee. I congratulate the Leader of the House on the constitutional innovation that we experienced last week. I thought that the opportunity to listen to a wide-ranging debate on some of the subjects that we will consider in detail over the next few weeks was extremely valuable.

I shall make a few points in response to the hon. Gentleman. I should like to thank him for the thoughtful and constructive way in which the amendments were presented and the arguments constructed. He is right to say that the powers are considerable. They are important, because it is vital that immigration officers have the chance to play their role in the fight against crime and in the battle for national security. Different proposals to strengthen our border have been discussed by Opposition parties. There are no real legal barriers to a greater alignment of powers at the border, but there are certain police-like powers that it is important for immigration officers to take if they are to play their part effectively in the challenges ahead.

The powers that we propose have been constructed carefully. They are considerable; as the hon. Gentleman said, they include the power to use reasonable force, but they have not been constructed so as to encompass arrest. The obligations that we put on immigration officers include summoning a police constable as soon as is reasonably practicable to conduct arrest or interview or to carry out other core police functions. We do not propose that immigration officers take on those responsibilities, so it is important that the oversight arrangements that are put in place are matched to the powers that we give to immigration officers. The slight concern that I have about the amendments is that they would delay implementation; they would add a burden of secondary legislation and constrain the tactical ability of chief immigration officers to designate immigration officers to secure our border at times of particular crisis. I shall offer a few words of reassurance in the hope that the hon. Gentleman will see fit to seek to withdraw the amendment.

The first point that the hon. Gentleman made concerned training, which is an important area. We have already worked closely with the police in putting together quite a wide range of training that is appropriate to provide immigration officers with the skills and the capabilities that they will need in order to do a very difficult job, with the type of professionalism that we see day in, day out in the immigration service. Against these powers, we will need to put in place new training proposals and we are working closely with Centrex—the Central Police Training and Development Authority—which provides the police training programme. That partnership will be important in ensuring that there is police support to provide the type of training that will be necessary if immigration officers are to do this job effectively in future.

There are four or five points that I shall make in order to explain the oversight arrangements that we envisage coming into place. Those arrangements should give the hon. Gentleman some of the reassurance that he is seeking when he asks, quite rightly in my view, for greater transparency and accountability about how immigration officers are asked to perform their jobs.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am listening patiently to the Minister. Before he moves on from training, I should like to make one point. Although he has made a distinction between detention and arrest, as he has accepted, force may have to be used in the process of detention, and the difference between detention and arrest may be lost on those who are subject to one or the other. He has also told us about the training that will take place with the police. What consultations has he had with those who represent the immigration officers about the safety elements involved in this process, given that, in some cases, the use of force by immigration officers will be required?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point. He may know—

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

Order. I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I should like to say that the point made by the hon. Gentleman and the matter of training will be covered in the debate on the next amendment. I intervened rather than have the Minister necessarily repeat the same point, but it is obviously up to him to decide.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Illsley, and I hope that I will be able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman at a later stage.

I want to make four or five points about the type of oversights that we envisage coming into place. Of course, the first is that immigration officers are subject to a number of administrative oversight arrangements, which will be used in order to monitor the powers contained in the clause. Those arrangements will be similar to the oversight arrangements that are already in place. Immigration officers already exercise quite a wide range of powers, including, for example, the power to detain foreign nationals. So there are a number of oversight arrangements and review arrangements that are administrative in nature and they will be helpful as a first layer of defence in this system.

The second point is about the right to redress, to which the hon. Member for Ashford referred. That right is important. Currently, there is an independent complaints procedure, which the immigration and nationality directorate operates, I believe very successfully. That would also be available to help to provide the type of accountability and transparency that he is seeking.

The third point about oversight transparency and accountability relates to the power of detention. The detention facilities provided for and by the immigration service are subject to oversight by three organisations. First, many hon. Members will know about the independent monitoring boards, which are extremely important, giving members of the community a chance to serve and to help us to get facilities and procedures right. Secondly, there is the prisons and probation ombudsman. Thirdly, there is Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons. The immigration service and I often rely on the chief inspector’s reports in helping us to get many of our arrangements correct.

My fourth overall point is that section 41 of the Police and Justice Act 2006 provides a role for the Independent Police Complaints Commission also to examine specified immigration functions. This area is currently the subject of discussions between the immigration service and others. We hope that the consultation on precisely which immigration functions will be subject to IPCC scrutiny will be commenced on 7 May. We hope that by about the end of July or into the summer, the consultation will be complete so that over the summer we will be able to lay regulations. That will provide a great deal of reassurance.

My fifth and final point about accountability and scrutiny relates, as the hon. Member for Ashford may have guessed, to what we call the single inspector. When I was first asked to take the job that I currently perform for the Home Secretary—to greater or lesser degrees of success—I was surprised to see that about 11 different organisations were responsible for providing scrutiny and accountability for the immigration service. I think that that is far too many. It is very difficult for 11 organisations to provide effective scrutiny and to present conclusions with the force and punch that is required for the immigration service to take a sustainable path to improvement over the next few years.

It is not possible for the immigration service to implement the radical reform that the Home Secretary announced last year unless there is much stronger oversight. I believe that the oversight should be independent and include the opportunity for communities to understand how the immigration service is performing in their area. I will be seeking to table Government amendments that provide for much stronger independent inspection arrangements. I envisage that they will apply to the enforcement functions that we are asking the immigration service to perform, under powers available already and those proposed in the Bill. With these reassurances in mind, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will seek to withdraw his amendment.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I welcome what other Members have said about your organisation, Mr. Illsley, and that of the Officers of the House in what we did last week. It was a very valuable and useful process that we can build on in our more formal deliberations.

I support the amendment. I believe that, as the Minister said, we have extended the powers of immigration officers considerably over the past few years, and the Bill builds on that process, recognising as it does that the work of police officers at ports has become increasingly busy. If they are to concentrate on some of the more important or pressing issues such as trafficking and drug running, the use of immigration officers provides a useful addition to their ability to stop people. However, it is important that there is a very clear framework within which these officers work to give them certainty about their powers and their role. I thought that the earlier intervention on that particular matter was quite important, because if an officer uses force inappropriately, they can be subject to some sort of sanction through the courts. It is therefore important that the powers that officers have are set out clearly and that before they take on those powers, they are given proper training.

I would like to refer Members to the comments made by Richard Thomas last week:

“Our concern is that from the 1999, 2002 and 2004 Acts, there have been extended powers to immigration officers. What has not gone on at the same time has been the support provisions that go with that for training officers and ensuring that they have access to the relevant Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 training.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2007; c. 39.]

That is very clear. We have had three immigration Acts that have extended immigration powers considerably. The immigration and nationality directorate and the Government have so far failed to give the necessary training that they have promised in the past. I appreciate what the Minister has said and I look forward to seeing the amendments that he tables. However, if we are to rebuild the immigration and nationality directorate as being fair, effective, transparent and trusted, as set out in the review, we must ensure that training is built in at the start of the process, not as an afterthought. That has not happened before.

I appreciate what the hon. Member for Ashford said about officers who are designated to act in a quasi-police position. It should not be the case that when there is pressure at a port someone without any training can be designated for that purpose. The six-month stipulation would give certainty; it would provide a period during which training can take place and ensure that people gain experience that comes only with using the powers over a considerable time. Police community support officers who operate on our streets get far more training than is given to immigration officers. I am happy to support the proposal, but I hope that the Minister, too, will table amendments.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I join hon. Members in welcoming you to the Committee, Mr. Illsley, for the first part of our formal consideration of the Bill. You were right to call me to order in your initial ruling on the question that I sought to ask the Minister. I had perhaps not sufficiently co-ordinated my question regarding amendment No. 37, to which we will come later, which calls for consultation on the code of conduct to which immigration officers will be subject. I mentioned the word “consultation”, which is dealt with in that amendment.

However, I want to make a different point now, Mr. Illsley. The code of conduct relates to the behaviour of immigration officers; it is the substance of that later amendment and of our debate this morning, which has been a proper debate, with proper questions put by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and proper answers given by the Minister.

The subject of the debate is the conduct of immigration officers, how they will be designated and how they will exercise their responsibilities in relation to a person who can be detained for up to three hours pending the arrival of police officers. My point now is that we should consider the matter from a slightly different point of view, without taking anything away from the need for immigration officers to have high standards of behaviour in how they use their powers.

I am slightly concerned about the question of guaranteeing the safety of immigration officers, because the Bill gives them a power that may involve the use of reasonable force to detain a person. It does not take a great leap of imagination to realise that there will be situations in which problems give rise to the exercise of that power. As I said, a person who is subject to that power may not see the necessary distinction between being detained and being arrested.

As a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, I visited immigration officers carrying out their duties at ports and other places, and I and other hon. Members know that when immigration officers exercise their current powers people can become very heated. I foresee some very heated situations indeed if they have to exercise the power of detention. I want reassurance from the Minister that immigration officers’ safety will be borne in mind and that they will be given the necessary training and equipment to carry out their responsibilities safely.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I was interested in and, in part, gratified by the Minister’s response. He recognises the need for better oversight than exists at present or will be available through the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere and the hon. Member for Rochdale said, that is a widespread concern on the Opposition Benches and beyond. The Minister will have heard Keith Best of the Immigration Advisory Service say in his oral evidence that one of the material aspects of accountability, to make it transparent and acceptable, is independence. Without that element of independence, he feared that any system would fall down and would not gain public confidence.

I am sure that the Minister is as interested as anyone in ensuring that there is proper public confidence in the system. With that in mind, I am gratified that he will be introducing Government amendments to allow us to look at his proposals for inspection of the immigration system. I hope that before we conclude the debate on these amendments, he will let us know when that will happen, because I have been around long enough to have seen Bills radically changed in their lordships’ House with only a short amount of time allowed for the Bill’s remaining stages on Third Reading in the Commons. In such cases, legislation is passed that the House of Commons has effectively not scrutinised at all. I am sure that he wants to avoid that happening in this case, not least because he will have seen the widespread concerns. I hope that he can give us some reassurance that this House will have a decent opportunity to look at his proposals.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

We hope to introduce the amendments this week.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

That is extremely good news. I am delighted that on the first group of amendments on clause 1 we have already seen a positive response from the Government. In that spirit of mutual good will, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 34, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) The Secretary of State shall, by regulation, make provision as to the necessary qualifications and training for a designated immigration officer.

(5) Regulations under subsection (4) shall be published no less than six months before the commencement of Section 1 of this Act.’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

As you observed earlier, Mr. Illsley, it may seem that some of the debate has already taken place. Amendment No. 34 is about the vital issue of training the designated immigration officers who will be given the extra powers. It specifies that the regulations that we want to add to the clause should be published no less than six months before the commencement of clause 1 of the Bill. The interaction of the commencement of various provisions of the Bill, and the ability of the public and those who are particularly concerned with this to scrutinise it, seems to me particularly important. Too often—this is a wider point than the one that I just made about parliamentary scrutiny—important regulations are consulted on over the summer or at Christmas, which makes it extremely difficult for those who want to contribute to do so in a coherent way. Heaven forfend the cynical suggestion that that is precisely why that tends to happen.

Amendment No. 34 would require the Secretary of State to specify the qualifications and training requirements of the designated immigration officers before the Bill comes into force. Over the past half hour, the Minister will have observed that I have said how important many people consider that to be. For example, in evidence that we took last week, Mr. Richard Thomas made the point that there are not enough trained officers to do the new jobs. I am sure that the Minister is aware that the training of the new officers will be crucial in deciding whether the Bill has a positive effect. The first time that a badly trained and badly prepared officer makes a mistake using the new powers, the wrath of many people will be brought down on the head of the Minister and, indeed, of the Home Secretary. The Minister and the Government therefore have an interest in ensuring that the training of designated officers is as good as it can be.

The problem is that substantial powers are being granted, but we cannot tell from the Bill what they will be. It is not unreasonable for Parliament to know about the calibre of the people being granted the extra powers and the training that they will receive. As I have said, those who suffer at the hands of an ill-trained officer will certainly be angry. Turning that around, however, it is important for the House to do its duty by immigration officers as well, because they will find themselves in potentially violent and dangerous situations. We must insist that they are adequately trained for the job that they are being asked to do.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

Does my hon. Friend agree that immigration officers, who occasionally face violent and angry people, should spend time being trained in self-defence techniques and Centrex holds to enable them to detain suspects without hurting them?

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

On the principle that politicians should not micro-manage professions for which they have responsibility, I would not seek to specify the exact balance of training. However, my hon. Friend has made the valuable point that training should be relevant to the day-to-day jobs of immigration officers and, indeed, of all front-line staff in the public service, who should be adequately trained to deal with the situations in which they are likely to find themselves. I shall resist the temptation to say that training should be provided by Centrex, because it closed a police training college in my constituency.

Amendment No. 34 asks for, among other things, the advanced publication of the regulations, which is not new or unusual. It will allow this House, immigration officers themselves, the relevant trade unions and other interested parties to know what officers are being asked to do and how they will be trained to do it, and to seek to improve the regulations. Liberty has raised a vital point: for the first time, immigration officers will be given quite extensive powers over British citizens, who will be brought under the control of the immigration service. Such powers will be even more sensitive than other immigration powers, particularly when they involve detention. We have had a mild debate already about the difference between detention and arrest, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere that for those on the wrong end of it, it might involve a distinction without a difference.

There is particular concern about how immigration officers will be trained to deal with such matters, because there is no need for the suspected offending to be related to border control. Liberty has argued that if the powers are to be created, they should be limited to situations in which the offence is concerned with immigration. I do not agree with that point, because such powers would be too narrow, but it illustrates the valuable point about the sensitivity arising from the extra powers. There may well be British nationals involved in, for example, people trafficking, and extra powers will clearly be extremely welcome in such areas. However, I invite the Minister to consider the absolute centrality of good training for the successful application of these new powers not only to those arriving in this country from abroad, but to the millions of British citizens who travel through our ports and airports every year and who, on returning to this country, will be going past immigration officers who have been given these powers.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I thank hon. Members for praising the professionalism of our immigration service; they are absolutely right that it does an extremely difficult job. The number of passengers travelling through our ports is not decreasing but rapidly increasing, which is precisely why we have tripled the number of warranted officers in the IND over the past few years, with about 70 per cent. of those officers serving on our borders. We have ensured strengthened training provisions as we have increased numbers, so that those new officers are able to operate with the pride and professionalism that is a hallmark of the immigration service.

I want to respond by coming back to one central point: we have to ensure in our arguments here that we are calibrating both the training and the oversight to the power that we are seeking. It is perfectly appropriate for the training and the oversight to be slightly different from and not symmetrical to the arrangements that we already have in place for the police. We are not asking immigration officers to conduct the same activities as the police or equipping them with the same powers.

My point to the hon. Member for Hertsmere echoes that made by our director of border control, Tony Smith, who last week said quite rightly that immigration officers occasionally find themselves in confrontational situations—at the moment, those situations are not so much with British citizens as with foreign nationals. Dealing with situations that are often difficult, confrontational or heated is not outside the ambit of today’s immigration officers. Those situations require the use of reasonable force or detention. Immigration officers have those powers currently, and they must exercise them in relation to foreign nationals. Because immigration officers are having to do that, many of the training and oversight provisions that we would need to put in place to support them in exercising the powers that we ask for in this Bill that relate to British citizens are provisions and capabilities that we have already had to put in place.

Secondly, the point about training is so important that we do not believe that the Secretary of State should have the power to designate an immigration officer who he does not believe to be a “fit and proper” person. So, there are a number of hurdles that immigration officers must pass before they can put themselves into the category where they might receive such a designation, and there are a number of checks about which the Home Secretary must be satisfied before he can designate somebody as “fit and proper”. Adequate and appropriate training would, of course, be integral to that definition.

The hon. Member for Hertsmere raised a valuable point about whether this matter has been discussed with unions; the answer is yes, and they are satisfied with these new arrangements provided that training is given and that clear guidance is in place. That is already happening in the immigration service under a programme we have in place called “Developing enforcement capability”, which is designed to reduce our reliance on the police not only at the border but in-country and to create the kind of operational independence that we think that the immigration service will need in future.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I want to take the Minister back his point that the Home Secretary will be very careful about how he creates a designated immigration officer, and to the need to be certain about the appropriate level of skills and training. What percentage of existing immigration officers will become designated immigration officers?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for that intervention. During one of our evidence sessions last week, the director of border control, Tony Smith, said that he imagined that possibly as many as 25 per cent. of immigration officers could be so designated. We would need to keep the number under review, because it might have to go up—we would have to adjust it in light of operational realities and the changing picture at our borders. As I said a moment ago, the volume of traffic through our borders is going up, not down. The patterns of immigration, migration and travel through our borders might change and the number of British citizens as a fraction of the total travelling might increase if the budget airlines continue to expand at the rate at which they have in recent years. We would need to keep that under review.

However, the checks that the Home Secretary must be satisfied about before designating somebody as a fit and proper person are important. They might include background or health checks. They would certainly include a particular kind of training. I mentioned a moment ago the training that has been developed by Centrex. That is a pass or fail course, so immigration officers would need to pass before they could be designated as fit and proper.

We will seek to discuss with both the Association of Chief Police Officers and the policing standards unit the process of designation and the criteria on which an officer must satisfy the Home Secretary before he can be deemed fit and proper. I can give the hon. Gentleman a couple of points of reassurance. The first is that once we have had those discussions we will seek to make the criteria public so that they can be subject to scrutiny. The second is that I fear that the effect of the amendment would be to make it rather difficult not only to implement regulations but to adjust them. Given the dynamic and changing nature of our borders and the traffic going through them, it might well be that best practice will emerge quickly. I do not think that hon. Members would want to slow down the speed with which we could introduce improvements and refinements to the guidance.

If there is no parliamentary check on the implementation of the regulations through secondary legislation, that poses an important question about how the House can be satisfied that there are appropriate scrutiny arrangements to ensure that we do not designate officers who do not have the right training. That is why I think that it is so important for enforcement to form part of the terms of reference of the proposed new single regulator. The new regulator should have the ability to scrutinise the way in which the IND performs its enforcement responsibilities. The hon. Gentleman will know that a little while ago we published a consultation document on how we envisaged that new regulator coming into being. That posed some questions about the number of organisations that should be folded into the new regulator and the scope of that regulator’s responsibilities.

I hope to be able to table the relevant amendments by Thursday. At the same time, we will seek to publish the Government’s response to the consultation and a summary of the consultation responses that we received. It is important that the House has not only the Government’s take on the subject but that of the organisations that responded. I do not think that I will get into too much trouble with the parliamentary authorities if I say that the responses to the consultation were overwhelmingly supportive, not least from the existing regulators. They recognised that 11 different regulators are far too many to hold the IND to account. It is much more important that we have regulator punch.

With those reassurances in mind, and with my concern that we can modify and update regulations to reflect best practice as quickly as possible, subject to having more effective scrutiny arrangements in place, I hope that the hon. Member for Ashford will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I support the remarks of the hon. Member for Ashford. It is important to set out in the Bill that regulations will be put in place and that they will come into effect before the commencement of the Act. It has already been said that our immigration officers do a fantastic job, often in very difficult circumstances. The Minister mentioned that. For example, on Sunday morning three large jumbos arrived at Manchester at the same time and it took people an hour and a half to get through immigration. Nevertheless, the immigration officer could only apologise for the delay and everyone was dealt with extremely well and speedily. I was interested in what the Minister said, particularly his point that the regulations may change over time and that there should therefore be some parliamentary scrutiny of them. If the Minister is assuring us that those regulations will be subject to some form of affirmative resolution, I would support that.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I enjoyed the sting in the tail of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, about affirmative resolutions. I am sure that the Minister will want to respond at the appropriate time, perhaps when he moves the amendments later this week. I am grateful for his response. Obviously he wants designated immigration officers to have proper training, but I sense that he accepts the other half of the thinking behind the amendment, which is about the transparency and the accountability that we all want. I hope that his proposed amendments will achieve that too. One aspect that he did not discuss was the cost. Clearly if we are to have something like 25 per cent. as an initial target for designated immigration officers, the Department must have some figures about what sort of training costs will be needed. I hope that as this Committee progresses we can discuss that too.

The Minister will be aware from submissions that have been made that there is concern not just about the costs of training but about the necessity for it because of the patchy nature of the Department’s current reputation. Members on both side have rightly paid tribute to those on the front line of the immigration service, who work at our ports and airports doing a vital job. The Minister will be aware as anyone that it would be an exaggeration, and indeed untrue, to say that there is huge and widespread public confidence in the IND. The Secretary of State himself famously described it as not fit for purpose. Therefore this combination of proper training and transparency is particularly essential if public confidence in the new system is to be maintained.

I take what the Minister has said at face value. I am sure that he said it in good faith. We will look forward to the Government amendments that will be moved later this week. In eager anticipation of those, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 37, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) The Secretary of State shall issue a code of practice relating to the conduct of designated immigration officers for the purposes of section 2.

(5) Before issuing a code of practice under subsection (4), the Secretary of State shall consult—

(a) representatives of the Immigration Service;

(b) the Director General of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate;

(c) representatives of relevant trades unions;

(d) representatives of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association; and

(e) such other persons as he thinks fit.’.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 67, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) Designated immigration officers will conform to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984) Codes of Practice.’.

No. 68, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) Complaints against designated immigration officers may be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

The amendment would require the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice for immigration officers and to consult relevant bodies and individuals. It is a natural successor to the previous debate. Proper consultation, about not only the training of immigration officers but their conduct when they do the job, is important. [ Interruption. ]

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

Order.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

Thank you, Mr. Illsley. The most effective heckle I ever received was from my three-year-old daughter, who, at a constituency function, asked in that piercing voice that only three-year-olds have, “Mummy, why is Daddy being so boring?” I have long experience of heckling from the young.

I shall refer briefly to amendments Nos. 67 and 68, but I shall leave the hon. Member for Rochdale to speak to them in detail. Amendment. No. 37 would ensure a proper level of consultation in relation to a properly published code of practice for when the new powers are in operation. I share Liberty’s concern that the Bill and the explanatory notes make no reference to any sort of public accountability or redress for people who feel aggrieved or have complaint. We are all waiting agog for the proposals for the new regulator and the amendments to them, as we will have something against which to test them.

The code of practice would be hugely important, not only for potentially aggrieved members of the public, but for the designated immigration officers themselves, particularly in the early months and years of the operation of the new powers. The officers will want to know that they are acting correctly, that they are not pushing boundaries and that what they are doing would not be regarded as unacceptable by their political masters, let alone by the general public. At present, this area of the Bill is a bit vague and therefore inadequate to achieve what the Minister hopes.

We have suggested in the amendment a number of bodies that should be properly consulted: the immigration service, which goes without saying; the director general of the IND; the relevant trade unions, which I hope would commend the amendment to some Government Members; representatives of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, who spend their daily lives in contact with the effects of the actions of immigration officers; and such other persons as he thinks fit, as it is not an exhaustive list. It would be foolish to try to put in the Bill an exhaustive list of those who should be consulted before a code of practice is issued.

I think that the Minister will recognise that the issue is so important that it is worth having a proper consultation and, equally, a proper code of practice. Without it, one can foresee all sorts of obvious pitfalls for the legislation and those who have to implement it. I hope that the Minister will cast a sympathetic eye over the amendment.

I will leave amendments Nos. 67 and 68, which are grouped with my amendment, to the hon. Member for Rochdale to speak on at length. I would merely make the point that, while the amendments might well achieve some good things, I suspect that the hon. Gentleman would agree that they would be unnecessary were the proposals before us for a properly integrated border police force. That is what his party and mine—indeed, almost everyone else in the country—want to see, leaving the Minister and the Government on their own in not wishing to see such a force.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

Again, I echo and support the remarks of the hon. Member for Ashford on his amendment and on my amendments. We are attempting to place a little bit more detail in the Bill on what code of practice should apply to immigration officers when they exercise a police function.

I would again like to remind the hon. Members of and refer them to the remarks of Mr. Richard Thomas in our deliberations last week, when he said that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was first introduced for the very reason that we are proposing now: to give police officers some support and assurance about what their powers were and were not. We are proposing a sizeable extension of immigration officers’ powers; we are asking them to act in a quasi-police position. I know that the point was made on Second Reading, but it is important that the actual code of practice that the immigration officers will work under is well known and is published and in operation before they are asked to exercise those powers.

PACE is relevant because those regulations are tried and tested. We have already had a discussion about the training and when it takes place. As other hon. Members said, there needs to be a clear framework not just for the person who is being dealt with by the immigration officer but for the immigration officers themselves. There needs to be certainty about what powers the officers have and what training they have. We believe that the PACE regulations, which are tried and tested and have the support of all the various people involved, offer the way forward. They may need adaptation; there is no reason why the Minister cannot lay regulations before the House that would set out which provisions were being put in place.

Amendment No. 68, which is also in my name, has already been referred to by the Minister and is about the ability of persons who feel that they have not been properly treated to use the IPCC. I should be interested if the Minister would outline which provisions of the IPCC he proposes to apply to immigration officers. I believe that the use of the IPCC will only occur very rarely; as I said earlier, immigration officers will operate to a high standard. However, when something goes wrong, how someone makes a complaint, how that complaint is dealt with and investigated and how any necessary action is taken are an important part of the Bill. I hope that the Minister can outline some of the discussions that have already taken place and what provisions from that process will apply. If he does so, we will have made progress on this part of the Bill.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I start by reassuring the hon. Member for Ashford that no one on the Committee shares his daughter’s analysis, although she might have a degree of insight that we do not. However, we are following his argument with great attention to detail and he made it with much thought and insight.

That said, I am very sympathetic to the ambitions of the amendments and I hope that my words will provide reassurance sufficient for hon. Members to see fit not to press them. Amendments Nos. 37, 67 and 68 effectively would provide for three things to happen: for the introduction of a code of practice subject to consultation with stakeholders, for designated officers to conform to PACE, and for them to be referable, as it were, to the IPCC. The points with which I have particular sympathy are twofold. First, it is essential that operational guidance is in place, that immigration officers understand the role that they are expected to play and that the public can see what kind of guidance we are putting in place.

Secondly, it is important that that operational guidance is discussed at length with stakeholders in order to get what is often very valuable advice from organisations such as the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association, ACPO and the Police Standards Unit, and from trade unions, particularly the Public and Commercial Services Union, which have to bear on the decision. The operational guidance that we propose to put in place will be discussed with the immigration service, ACPO, the Police Standards Unit, the mainline staff of the IND, and trade unions. It will also be shared and discussed with the IND’s wider group of stakeholders, from whose advice we profit daily. I am delighted to say that that stakeholder group includes ILPA. As the hon. Member for Ashford said, that organisation is in daily, if not hourly contact with many of the consequences of the immigration system. Its advice is often extremely helpful and we are grateful for it.

Therefore, the guidance that we draw up, on the basis of that consultation with stakeholders, is and must be publicly available. It is vital that it be subject to public scrutiny and to the degree of transparency to which I alluded earlier. My only concern about the amendments is that they might impose, through the parliamentary process, delays, and administrative and regulatory burdens, when refreshing guidance quickly enough to take account of best practice as it is developed on the front line.

I offer two or three points by way of reassurance. If oversight is not to be provided by a parliamentary scrutiny process, another form of scrutiny must take its place. That said, it is important to re-emphasise this point: we are asking immigration officers not to supplant, but to support the police. That is why we have stated in the Bill that it is important that immigration officers summon a police constable as soon as is reasonably practicable, in order, where necessary, to make arrests, as well as to conduct investigations. We are not asking immigration officers to conduct investigations, which is why we do not think that it is appropriate to subject immigration officers to the provisions in PACE.

If immigration officers, as a matter of course in all their activities, were subject to PACE, we would of course have to introduce PACE facilities at all our ports. For example, we would have to introduce recording facilities and many of the other protections. That might be a step too far for many private sector operators at ports, but the Committee can be reassured that we are not extending the orbit and remit of immigration officers to such a dramatic extent that PACE protections would be important.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

If I may, Mr. Illsley, I want to probe the Minister on the substance of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. The Minister will know, because we discussed it last week, that my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth has not received satisfactory answers in respect of the number of compensation claims made against the IND and immigration officers, which is troubling, and he has therefore had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Does not the Minister believe that there would be a causal link between including the code of practice in the Bill and the reduction of vexatious and malicious complaints against the immigration service?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me that I must follow up on my commitment last week to respond to the hon. Member for Monmouth.

If we accept that there are problems with the application of PACE to the functions conducted by immigration officers, not least the practical costs that we would impose on ports that would be required to make PACE facilities available, it would still leave us with the question of what is the most appropriate and transparent form of oversight and scrutiny of the immigration service—an issue to which the hon. Member for Peterborough rightly drew attention.

An important triple check is in place to provide guidance to steer immigration officers in carrying out their duties, and to scrutinise their conduct when doing so. It is important for independent monitoring boards and for the prison and probation ombudsman and Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons to review detention facilities, and to provide detailed and frequent reports to Ministers and to the House about what they find, and for the Home Office and the IND to state clearly how they intend to respond to them.

Secondly, section 41 of the Police and Justice Act 2006 provides for an augmented role for the IPCC in specified functions. I had the privilege of taking the Bill through its Report stage in that heady fortnight in May last year during my brief sojourn as the Minister with responsibility for police and counter-terrorism. It is important that the scope of that remit is not just something that the Home Office or the IND makes up, but that it is subject to public consultation. Having secured Royal Assent to the 2006 Act, we plan to embark on that consultation to open up a debate on what precisely the IPCC’s remit should be. As I said, we hope those regulations will be commenced, debated and scrutinised by October.

The third check is the single regulator on which my arguments greatly rely: I underline that it is important that the regulator is given the chance to scrutinise the enforcement activities that immigration officers perform in relation to foreign nationals and British citizens.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

Can the Minister confirm that the regulations and codes will be subject to negative or affirmative parliamentary approval?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify the issue. We would impose what could be a very inappropriate delay if we subjected a code of practice and regulations to parliamentary approval. Instead, it is important that we have the flexibility and ability to update those regulations with speed. When we find that there is good practice somewhere, it is important that that becomes good practice everywhere. Therefore, the flexibility to update regulations quickly is important. I accept that that leaves a question about how we ensure transparency, accountability and scrutiny, and that is why the triple check that I have outlined is essential. I hope that my argument provides some satisfaction for hon. Members and that they will see fit to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

The Minister has said the same thing twice, namely that a level of parliamentary scrutiny would introduce a degree of inflexibility. He is now moving on to territory that I find quite disturbing, and also, frankly, not very realistic.

We all agree that there should be a proper code of practice. It is clearly sensible that that should be consulted on as widely as possible, and published, and that Parliament should be able to examine it. It is just not the case that the existence of that degree of parliamentary scrutiny would, in some way, impair the operational efficiency of the immigration service.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

It is important that Parliament has the opportunity to scrutinise the code of practice, but I fear that, if we gave Parliament the role of approving it before its implementation, that might create a delay that is disproportionate and possibly dangerous.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying what he meant, but I disagree with his clarification. First, as a matter of principle, I become extremely uneasy when representatives of the Executive say that they want to change something but that it would be inefficient to allow Parliament to approve it. After all, that is what we are here for. It is why we are sent to this place: to approve or disapprove of proposals by the Executive. It seems to me that, if the Minister would listen to his own words, he would recognise in private moments that they are not an acceptable expression of the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature in this system.

However, I should like to return from the theoretical to the practical. The Minister argued that, if good practice were to appear anywhere in the system, the need to have parliamentary approval for a code of practice would, in some way, inhibit the immigration service from spreading that good practice around. I just do not believe that argument; in practice, that would not happen. Clearly, any code of practice would be written with a degree of generality that would guide officers into proper streams of activity as they carried out their job daily, but it would not restrict them from producing innovations or adopting innovations that had been successful at other ports or airports.

The Minister is setting up a straw man to knock down; I do not think that there would be any reduction in operational efficiency. Also, the doctrine that he has espoused, of unnecessary delay being caused by the need for parliamentary approval of regulations, is quite dangerous.

Having aired those views, I do not wish to press the amendment to a vote, so I will beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. However, I hope that the Minister has taken note of my remarks.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I believe that the Minister has been genuinely helpful this morning, in outlining what the Departments are planning to do. I look forward to seeing the amendment when we receive it on Thursday, and, based on what he said, I believe that we are moving in the right direction. The consultation with and involvement of a range of organisations, including the independent regulator, is important.

Nevertheless, as the hon. Member for Ashford said, there is an important principle at stake here. All organisations and all laws should be accountable to this House. I would ask hon. Members to look at the problem in the US at the moment with their border police, who are virtually a law unto themselves. Last week, a 19-year-old young man who went over to the US to spend some time with family was summarily arrested and deported back to Britain. If we are to introduce new powers that give immigration officers the powers to stop and detain and to ask questions that, if anybody responds to them inappropriately, can be subject to criminal sanction, then I believe that the code of practice and the framework that we are setting in place need to be subject to some form of recourse to this House. I do not believe that that would be a time-consuming and lengthy process. We do not have these codes of practice. I mentioned earlier our concern that the last three immigration Acts had promised that regulations and codes of practice would be introduced and it did not happen. We have waited since 2001. I believe that if the Bill is to operate successfully and efficiently, those regulations and codes of practice must come back to this House.

Therefore, although I shall withdraw the amendment, I do believe that when we see the Minister’s amendments we may wish to amend them further to ensure that that Parliamentary scrutiny is built in.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

For clarification, the hon. Gentlemen’s amendments have not been moved but simply debated as part of a group and we will arrive at the amendments later on in the grouping as we move through the Committee. The only amendment that we are considering at the moment is amendment No. 37 in the name of the hon. Member for Ashford.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I beg to move amendment No. 70, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end add—

‘(4) After section 11(1)(m) of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) insert—

“(n) designated immigration officers in England.”’.

We have had a discussion in this section about the powers that we are asking immigration officers to accept. Clause 1 gives them the power to detain foreign nationals and British citizens, and that can include children. The effect of my amendment is quite simple and straightforward. At the moment immigration officers are not subject to the Children Act 2004; they are specifically excluded from it. We believe it is vital for the protection of the officer, as much as for the person that they may come into contact with, that the provisions of the 2004 Act apply. That will ensure that certain checks take place and that certain procedures are followed. At the end of the day, that can only be for the protection of the officer as much as for the person.

It is an important point, which several people who have submitted written evidence have mentioned. I refer Members to the written submission by the Refugee Children’s Consortium, which particularly expressed concern about this. It is a small amendment but an important one. It ensures that immigration officers are subject to the 2004 Act, which in my view can only be a strengthening of their position and something which I hope all hon. Members can support.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I think this area of immigration policy is as difficult as any. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise it because there are two genuinely conflicting principles here and I am sure that the Minister feels as strongly about them as anyone. The first is that we need a proper, efficient, secure immigration system and the second is that we should pay particular regard to the interests of children. It is not easy to reconcile those two principles at our borders at a time when something like 3,000 unaccompanied children per year are arriving in this country. It would have been particularly valuable to hear oral evidence from the Refugee Children’s Consortium because both sides of the Committee could have explored those genuinely conflicting principles—that is why that particular decision was so regrettable.

The amendment before us, as has been said, simply adds the designated immigration officers to those subject to the various conditions of the 2004 Act. That means that they would have to give primary consideration to the needs of children and families. When the Act was passing through Parliament, the Refugee Children’s Consortium sought to insert such a provision and only narrowly lost a Division in the House of Lords.

The then Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights criticised opposition to such a provision on the basis that the omission of refugee children from the institutional arrangements designed to fulfil the state’s positive obligations to children under articles 2, 3 and 8 of the convention on human rights raises the question whether that gives rise to unjustifiable discrimination in the enjoyment of convention rights. At the time, the Minister argued that the duty to have regard to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children could severely compromise our ability to maintain an effective asylum system and strong immigration control—and there lies this clash of moral principles.

The Minister and the Government have come down on the side of, as they see it, an effective asylum system and strong immigration control. I have some sympathy with that as, over the past few years, we have not had an effective asylum system or strong immigration control. I can therefore imagine why the Government felt unable to add this apparently simple clause to the 2004 Act as it would potentially have made what was already a terrible situation even worse.

In those debates, the Minister went on to argue—as I suspect it is possible he will today—that in undertaking its function, the IND will do things that will be judged as inconsistent with the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. That is quite a strong statement and is what he was arguing in the House of Lords. To say that we will do things inconsistent with the welfare of children is quite eye-opening as a statement of Government policy. As he argued—again I have some sympathy with this—in practice, that could be used as a means of delaying or preventing people from being returned home. We cannot do that. Again, I imagine that this is the basis of his case: if we are going to run an effective asylum system and strong immigration control, we must have the power to return people home who have no entitlement to be in this country, even if they are children.

To be fair, the Refugee Children’s Consortium welcomed the assurance given in the Home Office’s consultation paper on unaccompanied children that the Government will take those things seriously, but it goes on to argue that it is alarming that the Government cannot offer refugee children the protection afforded by section 11 of the 2004 Act, in relation to the institutions and bodies responsible for their care and welfare. Their argument that section 11 is not an absolute duty is reasonable. It simply requires agencies to make arrangements to have regard to the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare in the discharge of their functions.

When the Act was passed, the Minister at the time argued that the Government had worded the clause very carefully. She said that they

“do not put a duty on agencies that would make them unable to fulfil their primary functions”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 995.]

This is clearly not a debate across the Floor of the House. Ministers who have been responsible for both immigration and children’s welfare in this and the last Government have had to grapple with a genuine problem, and while acknowledging that it is difficult, they have come down against the view expressed in the amendment. I would like to hear the updated version of the ministerial briefing that I suspect has gone to Ministers from both those Governments about how the obligations that we all recognise as essential under the Children Act 2004 can be properly balanced with the need for an effective immigration system.

One argument put by the Refugee Children’s Consortium is that the police are included, for example. When we talk about giving immigration officers powers that move towards those of a police constable, it seems even more difficult than before to have set one set of duties for police officers that are not being required of immigration officers when in other respects their powers are being merged. The explanatory notes on the Bill that became the 2004 Act stated:

“This duty is intended to ensure that agencies are conscious of the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare in the course of executing their normal functions”.

The Refugee Children’s Consortium has taken legal advice telling it that the duty under section 11 of the 2004 Act does not give rise to a free-standing duty to safeguard or promote a child’s welfare, but qualifies the manner in which existing duties and powers can be exercised.

I suspect that the nub of the problem with which successive Ministers and Governments have grappled is whether the section 11 duties actually preclude removal. That must be the heart of the matter, because if they do not preclude removal, the arguments against the amendment will tend to fall away.

The Refugee Children’s Consortium points out that the omission of the immigration service from section 11 is brought into sharp focus by the proposals before the House, precisely because of the broadening of designated immigration officers’ powers. It argues—I do not go all the way with it on this—that it is impossible to reconcile the Government’s assertion that “every child matters” with the exclusion of key agencies responsible for the care of refugee children from section 11 of the 2004 Act. It also argues that extending the powers of immigration officers should not be approved unless safeguards including the specific application of section 11 to the immigration service are in place, and the hon. Member for Rochdale has argued the case for that.

As I say, I have sympathy with the Minister and his many predecessors who have had to argue this case. However, I hope that he can address the central issue before us: whether applying section 11 would, in any material way, make it impossible for immigration officers to do their job properly, and in particular, whether he sees it as precluding proper removal of children at a time when more and more are coming to this country.

The point was again made in oral evidence, this time by Keith Best, who said that there are

“about 3,000 children a year coming into this country ... They need particular care ... they need care that will give them direct and immediate access to legal advice, so that they can be assisted in their claim”.

On another aspect, which I hope that the Minister can address when he responds on this amendment, Keith Best went on to say that

“they also need to be treated sympathetically when they reach that magic age of 18 because it is a traumatic event to be told that, on your birthday, you will no longer be given any kind of protection and you will be removed. So there needs to be sensitivity.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2007; c. 59.]

Whatever our attitude to the amendment, we would all agree on the need for sensitivity and acknowledgement that the likelihood of removal at 18 will be traumatic for the individuals concerned, although that in itself is a symptom of the wider point that striking this balance is not easy.

Unusually, I have sympathy for the Minister over the dilemma that he faces in opposing the amendment, but the terms of the argument that he uses are important. Like many, I have grappled with the moral aspects of this issue. In a sense, I would hope to be convinced by him that if we are to proceed with not incorporating section 11, it is because its legal effect would be to render our immigration and asylum systems much less effective. If he cannot make that case, the moral case for including section 11 is extremely strong. I shall be interested to hear what he has to say.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for the thoughtful way in which the hon. Members for Rochdale and for Ashford spoke to the amendment. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Ashford for his sympathy about some of the decisions that we have to make and for the reminder about the number of predecessors that I have enjoyed as an Immigration Minister. Indeed, the Home Secretary advises me that when I go along to meetings I am to introduce myself as the Immigration Minister for now. I am not quite sure what he means by that.

My remarks fall under three headings. My first heading comes by way of clarification. I will not roam too widely on the subject of refugee children, because I understand that the provisions of the clause do not apply to such children. I anticipate that they will apply to British children. The powers that we are asking for in clauses 1 to 4 relate to the detention not of foreign nationals—those powers are already on the books in the Immigration Act 1971—but of British children.

There is also a helpful distinction to draw between the immigration service and the police. The police have a far more wide-ranging set of responsibilities than the immigration service. Police officers may arrest children, and they may have to visit children in their home. They may be investigating crimes that involve the abuse of children. My final remark under this heading is that it is a highly unusual for immigration officers to detain British children. My expectation would be that the number would be extremely low.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I am interested in what the Minister is saying. While that may be the practicality in terms of what might happen at a port, we are making law that applies in general. In that sense we are talking about circumstances in which an immigration officer might detain someone. I accept that there may be a distinction between someone coming into the country and someone going out, but nevertheless one cannot say that asylum seeker children will not be detained in any circumstance.

May I refer the Minister to the report published by the chief inspector of prisons, and in particular her comments on short holding facilities and the fact that many detainees felt unsafe in those centres, and her remark about John Lennon airport in Liverpool? It holds children for short periods and she noted that there was evidence of the need for staff training in the protection of children. We are already getting reports that that is needed. Surely, all that we are seeking to do is ensure that when the Minister introduces his code of practice and regulations, he takes account of the Children Act 2004.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He anticipates some of my remarks. The caveat that I would place on them is that the powers relate to people who are liable to arrest or who immigration officers think might be so liable. I would expect the exercise of those powers with regard to British children to be rare. The detention of asylum-seeking children is a matter for a different area of legislation.

Nevertheless, it is important to sketch out a response to some of the issues raised by the hon. Members for Ashford and for Rochdale. Let me echo some of the points that were made by Stuart Hyde, the director of enforcement, in last week’s evidence session. First, the IND does indeed have specially trained staff at ports of entry to deal with minors. That is important. Secondly, comprehensive guidance is in place; I shall be happy to ensure that copies of it are available in the Library. A good example of the kind of work that is done at ports is what happens at Heathrow, which accounts for nearly a third of passenger movements in and out of the UK and where a joint team of immigration staff and Metropolitan police child protection officers operates.

Our ambitions in that area are well illustrated by the fact that we work with airlines nationally and internationally to draw up best practice on the carriage of children. The immigration service was instrumental in bringing forward changes to immigration rules that required parents to demonstrate that adequate arrangements were in place for the travel, reception and care of children visiting the United Kingdom.

My third point cuts to the heart of the debate about section 11. It would be slightly unusual if we were to make one particular class of officer in the immigration service subject to the provisions of section 11. Despite what I said about the differences between the police—as the hon. Member for Ashford said, they are already subject to section 11—and the immigration service, there has to be a serious debate about whether the IND should be subject to the same provisions. The debate should not be on whether we ensure that a designated class of immigration officer is subject to section 11, but on whether IND as a whole should be subject to it. I hope that the Committee will draw some reassurance from the fact that the wider debate is taking place, and that discussions are ongoing between Jeremy Oppenheim, the IND children’s champion, and the Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, on how IND can, as a corporate body, can be subject to the provisions of section 11. Hon. Members should be able to draw some reassurance, even if it is not complete, from those remarks.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am fascinated by the Minister’s last remarks. I am grateful to him for sharing with the Committee the fact that those discussions are going on, but can he clarify whether it is possible that in the later stages of the Bill’s passage he will propose amendments that make the IND subject to section 11 of the Children Act 2004? If not, can he indicate over what sort of time scale the discussions are taking place? If another immigration Bill is introduced in the next session of Parliament, as has been widely suggested, might such an amendment be moved then? It would be particularly useful for the Committee to know how much of that he intends to introduce into the current Bill. Even if that is not the intention, some suggestion of the time scale for the future would be extremely helpful.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I fear that you are about to rule me out of order, Mr. Illsley, because this is so far removed from the contents of the clause that I may incur your wrath: I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of discussions currently under way, but if it is helpful, I will explore what information I can provide to the Committee at the earliest possible opportunity.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I welcome the remarks of the Minister, particularly those at the end. A move to make the whole of the IND subject to the Children Act 2004 would be widely welcomed. Obviously, we are dealing with a very specific clause and a very specific activity that certain designated immigration officers are being asked to undertake. That is the context in which I moved the amendment. I believe that most people will welcome the Minister’s remarks about extending the provisions to the whole of the IND, given the scope within which it operates. Perhaps the Minister will write and let us know about the consultation and when he expects to give us more information on when the IND will be subject to that particular revision. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

We have had a useful set of discussions on the clause in the context of the various amendments that the hon. Member for Rochdale and I have moved. The Minister now has the flavour of our concerns.

We have been dealing specifically with immigration officers and the new designation for 25 per cent. or so of them. A number of things are clear from the debates on the various amendments. First, there have been universal tributes to the skill and, in many cases, the bravery of immigration officers, whose job puts them always in a sensitive position and occasionally in a dangerous position. By and large, the officers do that job with great skill, purpose and dedication to duty, whatever the problems above them in the organisation, which has taken various buffetings over the past few years.

However, we are all particularly concerned—I know that that is true among Conservative Members—that the new powers given to certain designated immigration officers by the clause need to be set out clearly and properly. Those powers ought to be subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny and carefully consulted on with various bodies. Despite the Minister’s repeated arguments for greater flexibility, in the long run it is more important to get this right than to get it in operation as fast as possible. Also, the training should be appropriate and the inspection regime should be not only tough but transparent.

Those are all very big issues. If a number of those desiderata do not happen, then we will look back on the Bill and see it as a failure. If we find that immigration officers have been given powers for which they are not properly trained, that they do things that are unacceptable to the inspector or that the various stakeholders have not been adequately consulted or listened to over the particular powers, then the Bill will not work and will not do what the Minister hopes. He has given us some welcome assurances, especially on the amendments that he has said that he will table later this week, when we will no doubt return to those vital subjects.

I hope that the Minister has taken on board not only the breadth of our concerns but their depth, too. What unites the Committee is our desire that the immigration system should improve, that those on the front line should have the powers to do their job more effectively and that the public should have the ability to judge whether the powers are appropriate and whether they are being exercised appropriately. That is quite a mountain for the Minister to climb. He has assured us that he is aware of those problems and that he is taking steps to address them, and I hope that he is right.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I rise briefly to support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and to reinforce them for the Minister. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Rochdale have made some important points, which the Minister, who has been very patient, has sought to address. It is important that he does so to ensure that the powers in the Bill are exercised successfully and that the intention that lies behind them is fulfilled. I am confident that it will be, as I have confidence in the immigration officers themselves.

The immigration service is a great asset. During my membership of the Home Affairs Committee, I have visited a number of immigration posts in this country in Dover, Heathrow and several other places and overseas in Nigeria and Ghana. I never fail to be struck by the professionalism of the immigration service and how its officers bring their experience and judgment to bear upon particular situations. That experience and judgment is used in the interests of us all, and those qualities will assist immigration officers in discharging the powers in clause 1.

We already place a great deal of reliance on immigration officers, and I hope that we will value and cherish their experience and judgment, particularly in reaching a decision about admissions to the United Kingdom and granting visas to the UK. It is implicit in the Government’s proposals for a points-based system, which many immigration officers fear will downgrade their role, that there will be a challenge to the immigration service’s independence of experience and judgment. I will not pursue that matter too far now, Mr. Illsley, as we will return to it later, but it will need careful debate. The experience and judgment of immigration officers in dealing with issues on the ground in posts here and overseas is invaluable, and we would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I thank the Minister for contributing to a constructive series of debates on clause 1. Opposition Members tabled several amendments to strengthen the Bill, and he has listened to us and promised to table amendments incorporating what we seek to do, which is welcome. That shows the value of Committees in allowing hon. Members to raise issues that can be taken up by the Executive. One point of difference remains—the amount of scrutiny that the regulations will receive—but no doubt we will return to that matter at a later stage.

I welcome what is proposed in clause 1. I believe that it will go a long way towards strengthening and improving what goes on at our ports, improving co-operation between the various officers and the various branches and ensuring that our ports continue to operate to a high standard and that immigration officers themselves are given the comfort of additional regulation and training, which the new powers will place on them.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I start by associating myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Hertsmere. I have not been in this role very long, and I made it my first priority to travel as far round the immigration service as I could in a short period of time. I was fortunate to visit our visa operations in Islamabad last year and also to travel about 3,500 miles around Britain over the course of the last three months of last year. I have met and talked to between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the IND and the immigration service.

As I have said, this Bill is part of a package of measures that was very much co-authored by the front line. I do not believe that decisions on the detail of this kind of legislation can be made uninformed or can be polished and finessed in an office in Whitehall, because they need the dynamic input of people who do the job day in and day out with pride and professionalism. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hertsmere for his remarks.

I thought it might be worth sketching out why the Government think that this clause is so important. Over the past few years, we have tripled the number of warranted officers in the immigration service, 70 per cent of whom are at the border. However, putting feet on the ground is not enough if those officers do not have the power or the tools to do their job effectively in the 21st century. This Bill, and this clause in particular, is part of the strategy to ensure that we do not suffer from that.

There are already a number of provisions in the Immigration Act 1971 and the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 which allow an alignment of powers between the immigration service and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. There is also the Terrorism Act 2000, schedule 7 to which allows the police and customs and immigration officers to act as officers for the purposes of the schedule. There is already some degree of alignment of powers, and this Bill will allow us to go a step further. Where there are particular police-like powers, this clause allows us to equip our front line with them.

I am very grateful for the work of ACPO in helping to get these provisions right. With these powers, we see a course of reform which is different from that sketched out by the Opposition parties. I believe that a single border agency would be a recipe for disorder at our border. Given the alignment of powers which is currently possible, I fear that a single border agency would simply be an exercise in giving everybody the same cap badge, particularly because the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) has said that no new resources would be available for the plans put forward by the Conservative party.

This clause is a much more sensible way forward. In the future, such powers will be important, because the way in which we are introducing new technology means that we can detect far more British citizens who may be liable for arrest as they seek to move in and out of the country. I will talk about that point in future debates, but, for example, our e-border system, which tracks people in and out of the country, has already produced some 9,000 alerts and some 800 arrests. It is increasingly able to give our border security agencies the chance to detect people, and in the future it may be that an immigration officer is the first to encounter an individual who is of interest to the police and who should therefore be detained while a police constable is called.

This has been a helpful debate. The question is how to ensure sufficient flexibility to allow innovation to be introduced with as much speed as possible to the front line, balanced by the scrutiny that is important for any exercise of power. I think that we have got that balance right. The debate is not over, because we will revisit it when we introduce Government amendments on a single regulator.

Clause 2

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 20, in clause 2, page 1, line 14, after ‘individual’, insert ‘on an immigration or nationality matter’.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment

No. 26, in clause 2, page 2, line 16, at end add—

‘(6) For the purposes of this section, “an immigration or nationality matter” means an offence under the Immigration Acts.’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am delighted that we have raced on to clause 2 in two hours. I speak with feeling from my personal history of sitting on Bill Committees. When I was a member of the Opposition team on the Committee considering the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, we did not finish clause 1 until the end of the third day, at which point relationships in the usual channels rather broke down and the Government Whip introduced a 26-hour sitting, which we all, not least the Chairman, had to endure. I am therefore particularly pleased that we are making better progress on this Bill, not least because that 26-hour sitting was followed by a 19-hour sitting, during which Conservative Members spoke against a policy that my party sensibly adopted two years later. That was not the greatest ever use of time.

Moving swiftly on to the amendments, having considered the designated officers, we now turn to the key issue of the extra detention powers that they will be given and, in particular, the times at which they can exercise them. The amendments would limit the immigration officer’s power of detention to use against those whom he suspects of specifically transgressing the law on immigration or nationality issues. Like clause 1, clause 2 is widely drafted. It gives immigration officers the power to detain anyone whom they suspect of having committed an offence or who is subject to an arrest warrant, which gives the officers wide powers that go well beyond immigration matters.

Amendment No. 26 would restrict the definition of immigration and nationality matters to offences under immigration legislation. The amendments seek to ensure that people know that immigration officers are using their extra powers within their capacity as immigration officers, and there are a number of reasons why that is desirable. We discussed training under clause 1. If immigration officers have powers effectively to act as police officers as far as the public are concerned, which is to say that they are capable of detaining people for offences that have nothing to do with immigration, they need to be as well trained and accountable as police officers. I do think that anyone has claimed that that will be the case, for all the welcome assurances about clause 1 which we have been given.

We have already discussed the good job that immigration officers do, but if they are to continue to do that job to the best of their ability, they need to be properly focused on it. If their focus is diffused, it is likely that they will be unable to do their job as effectively as they have in recent years. In his closing remarks about clause 1, the Minister introduced the subject of a border police force, which I imagine that we will discuss throughout our debates and certainly when we reach the new clauses. However, it seems slightly perverse that he has set his face so firmly against that force and yet is trying to move towards it in small ways. For example, the extra powers that he is giving to immigration officers to make them a little more like a border police force are not accompanied by the appropriate guidance, which they would receive if they were full police officers.

I hope that the Minister paid attention to the remarks on this matter by Gareth Crossman of Liberty. The amendments seek to address what Gareth Crossman described as a general trend towards the devolution

“of what are essentially policing powers towards non-policing agencies, in this case towards immigration officers.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2007; c. 118.]

He also pointed out that

“The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 contained provisions that specifically set out the carrying out of arrest functions by non-policing bodies.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2007; c. 118.]

That is a development worthy of debate in itself. If we are—as we are—going through a phase in which society and the streets are becoming more violent, clearly we need to be extremely sensitive about the powers that the authorities, whether they are the police or other authorities, have to combat that growing violence, because those powers are likely to have to be used more often. Equally, when it comes to passing legislation, we must be careful that it is properly focused.

Liberty itself made the point that there is an argument that immigration officers should be able to exercise these powers, but if they are to do so, then it is worth remembering one of the better traditions that we have in this country. It is the tradition, as Gareth Crossman put it,

“of having an accountable, properly trained police force.”——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2007; c. 118.]

We all accept that the police have exceptional powers, but equally we accept that there needs to be proper accountability for the police. We know what the police are supposed to be doing and whether a police constable is exercising them well or not. If people were to turn their attention to immigration officers, they would find it entirely acceptable that immigration officers should have a set of powers that are quite large: that they can detain people; that they can question people; and that they can intrude into people’s personal lives. People will regard that as completely acceptable, as long as the immigration officer is pursuing their duty as an immigration officer. I suspect that the officers themselves would welcome clarification. They want to know that what they are doing is not only formally correct—that is, correct de jure—but that it would be correct in the view of the people against whom they will exercise their powers. The principal reason for these amendments is to ensure that that is the case.

We will come, no doubt, to inspection arrangements in future debates. However, the principle itself is well worth discussing; namely, that if we give extensive powers to officers, then the people against whom they will exercise those powers should know that those powers are being exercised properly. On the surface, it does not seem obvious that an immigration officer using powers of detention, and so on, against someone they suspect of having committed an offence that may have nothing to do with immigration is acting correctly; the immigration officer may well be worried that that is, in some ways, improper and they can be pretty sure that the person against whom they are exercising those powers will think that it is improper. Therein lies the potential not only for difficulties, but for active danger. People are more likely to react unpleasantly and possibly violently if they feel that powers are being used against them in an improper way, even if they will be entirely legal, if this Bill is passed.

These are serious concerns about the day-to-day activities that immigration officers will have to carry out if clause 2 is passed, and I hope the Minister will address the amendments with the seriousness with which they were tabled.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

During the course of our debate on clause 1 and the amendment which I put forward on the PACE regulations, the Minister said that the use of the PACE regulations was perhaps not inappropriate because the powers that were being designated to immigration officers were not those of police officers.

The concern I have with this particular amendment is that it does just that. As the hon. Member for Ashford has said, we are considerably widening the powers of detention for immigration officers. That might be appropriate in the context of the wider debate, which we may have, on a UK border force. Given that the Minister and the Government have set their face against that, however, what we are in danger of here is legislative creep in the sense that we are giving an officer new powers and then we are broadening the powers and the framework in which those powers can be used.

My view is that it would be far preferable if immigration officers were subject to the PACE regulations to allow them to receive the full gamut of training required to undertake those powers and to be aware of the effects of what they are seeking to enforce. At the moment, an immigration and nationality officer is just that. The training they have received is primarily to do with immigration and nationality.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

The hon. Gentleman appears to be arguing against the powers in clause 2 because of the principle of what he has described as “legislative creep”. Is that not rather an interesting principle, which we would not want to apply if immigration officers have somebody in front of them who is wanted on a serious offence. Surely we should expect that those immigration officers should use their power and their presence to detain that person until an officer arrives, otherwise people wanted for offences as serious as murder or robbery could literally be allowed to walk away.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I am sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman has said and have not argued that officers should not be able to do that. My point is that we are not only talking about what happens to the person who is detained, because we also have a duty and a responsibility to think about how these new powers will affect the officer concerned. It is important that when an officer is given powers, they should receive the appropriate training and be subject to the appropriate codes of practice for the powers that they are going to exercise.

The PACE regulations were introduced to give the police and police officers the certainty that they have the protection of the law in carrying out their duties. My concern is that clause 2 is all-embracing and wide-reaching, which may be a good thing. The hon. Member for Ashford and I agree that we would rather discuss a UK border force than the narrow addition that we have been talking about.

However, given how the Bill is, we need to ensure, for the sake of consistency and the protection of officers, that it defines the powers so that the relevant officer and the person being detained know what they are. If we do not do that, at some future date we will face challenges in the courts because of the exercise of unreasonable powers by someone who does not have training in, or an understanding of, the use of the powers. Given clause 1, our debate on it and the Minister’s response, the amendment is sensible, notwithstanding the fact that we may later broaden the powers and establish a much more encompassing system at our borders.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford properly seeks to ascertain the extent of the powers that we are giving immigration officers. I have one question for the Minister about the reference to Northern Ireland in subsection (1)(a). We do not have a Northern Ireland Member on this Committee, so it is proper to ask the Minister to say a few words about that reference. The explanatory notes refer to

“the equivalent powers in Northern Ireland”,

but say no more than that. Will he explain whether the Bill covers any offences particular to Northern Ireland, as opposed to those in the rest of the country? Will he spell out exactly how much more is covered by virtue of the specific reference to Northern Ireland?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I have followed the debate with interest, but also, I am afraid, with a sense of growing puzzlement and the first signs of alarm.

The amendment would effectively limit the powers that we propose for immigration officers simply to immigration and nationality offences. Frankly, those are not massively different from the powers that they already have. The amendment would undermine the rationale for this entire group of clauses. If we accept that the pressure on our borders may not diminish but grow in years to come, and that the security situation that we confront today may be with us for some time, it is important for us to bring forward measures that give the opportunity for immigration officers not to supplant the police but TO support them more considerably than they can today, given the powers that Parliament has granted them.

The first signs of alarm come from what is beginning to look like a pattern of behaviour. As I said, now that we have dramatically increased the number of immigration officers—by about threefold—it is surely important to ensure that they have the tools and powers to do the job. Critical among the tools must be systems that allow us to pin down people’s identities. It does not matter who stands at the immigration control desk; if we are unable to pin down the identity of the person presenting themselves, it will be harder than it should be for an immigration officer to do their job. That is why we propose systems such as biometric visas and why we shall later, I hope, come to a full debate about compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals. Surely, in an age of global movement when links between communities are much weaker than they were and people move around much faster, it is more important, rather than less, to be able to pin down and ascertain somebody’s identity. Opposition parties propose to remove those tools and not to allow security services, police and immigration officers access to the kind of technology that is available. The amendment does not propose to take away tools, but to take away powers. My fear is that it is part of a pattern of argument that points towards a much more toothless immigration service that will be less, rather than more, able to secure our borders.

I want to build on an argument made by the hon. Member for Monmouth, which involves a case where a British national appears in front of an immigration officer who has reason to suspect that the British national is liable to arrest. Is that an unusual scenario? No, it is not. It may become increasingly common in the future. I mentioned a system of electronic database checks that is now in place. It covers 20.9 million flights in and out of the country and 38 carriers operating from 71 non-UK ports. That system allows us to check the names of those people who check in against a range of Government databases and to flag alerts, some 9,000 of which have been flagged so far, resulting in 800 arrests. We made it clear in the IND review, which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary published last July, that we intend to roll out the system further. We want to use it to count people in and out of the country, which is an ambition that I know that Members from all parties share, but it allows us, too, to run names against a series of database checks. Scenarios such as those outlined by the hon. Gentleman might multiply in the future.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

The Minister is talking about an interesting idea, which is that passenger lists can be cross-checked with the police national computer to find anyone who might be wanted for serious offences. Has he considered extending it further and cross-checking with the Department for Work and Pensions to see how many people are flying out of the country while in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance or other benefits, as that would imply that they are not seeking work as assiduously as one might hope?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

An excellent point, about which we will hear considerably more over the course of this week. I hope that by the time we meet on Thursday I shall have considerably more to say to the hon. Gentleman on that point.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I can well understand that working in the Home Office one gets pessimistic, but I suspect that the Minister is being unduly pessimistic in his portrait of my motives and those of my hon. Friends. These are merely probing amendments, because we think that the provisions are sufficiently lax to open up a can of worms later. The intimation in the Minister’s remarks is that he supports profiling at points of entry into the UK. Is that his contention?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

Profiling is a word that is often used and misused, and so I am happy to engage in a debate about what precise definition the hon. Gentleman proposes. The truth is that database technology allows us to undertake risk assessments on particular flights, which can guide decisions about the number of immigration officers and whether they meet the plane at the gate rather than at the immigration desk, for example. Such a risk assessment becomes more possible with systems such as the one that we are using.

The scenario I wanted to paint in respect of the point made by the hon. Member for Monmouth was that of a flight that arrives at an airport in the UK. At immigration control a British national is identified as being the subject of a warrant for arrest for an offence such as grievous bodily harm. As that person is a British citizen, the immigration officer does not have the power of arrest under section 14 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. He is therefore unable to support the police, not supplant them, by detaining the individual and summoning a police constable to perform the arrest and conduct substantive inquiries. That scenario concerns me, as I believe it concerns the hon. Gentleman. With the roll-out of the e-borders system, such scenarios will not diminish but multiply in years to come.

The hon. Member for Rochdale made an important point about PACE. I return to the distinction that I drew between the powers that we propose in the Bill for immigration officers and the responsibilities and powers of a constable. We have been careful in the powers that we have sought for immigration officers. We have sought to give them the power to detain and said that there will be an obligation to summon a constable as soon as is reasonably practicable, and we have set a limit of three hours on the detention possible.

The difference between the powers of a constable and those of an immigration officer in the situation in question is important, because a constable will undertake the responsibilities of questioning, arrest, investigation and the collection of specific evidence. Those responsibilities are all appropriately covered by PACE and the police have to put in place a comprehensive infrastructure to exercise them. I mentioned recording facilities. I do not believe that it would be a proportionate use of PACE to extend its scope to encompass the responsibilities and powers of immigration officers that we are setting out in the Bill. It would entail substantial investment, probably on the part of ports, most of which are operated in the private sector, to provide PACE-like facilities at ports up and down the country.

That said, is it important to ensure that adequate training is provided for immigration officers to conduct and execute the powers in the Bill? Yes, of course, and that is why we had the debate on clause 1. Is it important that there is scrutiny and oversight? Yes it is, and that is why I set out that there will be the triple check—Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, independent monitoring boards and the prison and probation services—covering detention facilities on the one hand and the new single regulator on the other. It is why we believe that there may well be immigration functions that it is important for the IPCC to cover and why we introduced section 24 of the 2006 Act. It is why we will conduct a public consultation on precisely which functions performed by the immigration service it is appropriate for the IPCC to cover. I am concerned that the amendment would not strengthen the immigration services; I believe that it would weaken it.

I ask for the indulgence of the hon. Member for Hertsmere and ask whether I can write to him, detailing at some length the Northern Ireland provisions.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am grateful to the Minister for that response, and I am satisfied with it. To clarify the point that I wish to establish, what is being covered in respect of Northern Ireland that will not be covered for the rest of the UK?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification.

The amendment might not take us forward and might instead take us backward. I understand perfectly the real tenor of its purpose—to explore whether sufficient oversight arrangements will be in place for us to ask for, and exercise, the power in question. I believe that there will be. I accept that Opposition Members will not be completely satisfied on that point until we have had our debate on the single regulator, but with that ahead of us I hope that the hon. Member for Ashford will withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am sorry that the Minister has said that he is beginning to be alarmed. I am sorry if I have alarmed him. By contrast, his response rather cheered me up. The substantive part of his response—

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 26, in clause 2, page 2, line 16, at end add—

‘(6) For the purposes of this section, “an immigration or nationality matter” means an offence under the Immigration Acts.’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I repeat the new welcome that we decided to give to the Chairman, Mr. Amess, as we move on to the traditional phase of the Committee.

The Minister said this morning that I was alarming him with this group of amendments, to which I responded that he had cheered me up with his response to it. That is because in addressing the powers that he wanted immigration officers to have, in particular the necessity for the powers to extend beyond immigration matters and offences under the immigration Acts, he made an extremely cogent case for having a border police force standing at the border as our first line of defence. I can guarantee that I will hear quotes from what he said this morning coming from my own lips in the months to come as the debate continues.

In the wider scheme of things, the Minister is right. There will be people of criminal intent coming through our borders. There already are, and we want people there with the training, capability and specialist skills to enable them to be even more effective than our current immigration officers. The Government implicitly agree that the current controls at the border are not effective enough; otherwise, they would not propose in the early clauses of the Bill that the immigration officers should have extended powers. We accept that and we are glad that the Government admit it. The difference between us is simply that we wish to make the measures more all-embracing and coherent. I am sure that we shall return to that issue later.

The Minister’s other arguments were less strong. It seems to me perfectly sensible—I do not know why he is alarmed—that, as long as we have immigration officers, they should be focused on immigration matters. That is part of the problem with having officers with immigration officer powers at the border. He has made a cogent case, one that we wish to argue in the later clauses of the Bill, and in those circumstances it would be churlish of me not to withdraw the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 2, page 2, line 8, leave out ‘three’ and insert ‘24’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 38, in clause 2, page 2, line 8, leave out ‘three’ and insert ‘eight’.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

This Bill Committee has been an interesting experience for me. It is one of the first that I have served on, so I tread warily. I have noticed a bit of consensus on some of the general principles, one of which is allowing immigration officers to detain people under certain circumstances. I question whether three hours is long enough for an immigration officer to detain someone. In a busy port such as Heathrow or Gatwick, a police officer will be on the spot within minutes or seconds if they are not already there, so it will not be an issue in the places that we tend to think of; but in other ports there is not always a 24-hour police presence.

I am concerned that if the situation that we discussed were to arise, in which it became apparent to an immigration officer that somebody before them was wanted by the police, whether under warrant or in other circumstances, it might take longer than three hours for a police officer to arrive. The police tend to be fairly reactive; they are not always present in the numbers that we would like. I speak from experience as a currently sworn-in special constable. I imagine that in most cases three hours would be long enough, but I can envisage circumstances, in a remote area with police already out on various calls, in which it would not be. Therefore, I tabled an amendment that “three hours” be replaced by “24 hours”, on the basis that that would make absolutely certain that under no circumstances would somebody who was wanted for a serious offence escape.

However, I am open to suggestions on the amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford has spoken eloquently and sagaciously on many matters relating to the Bill, and he has suggested that eight hours, rather than 24, might be enough. I am open to persuasion on that point. I merely question whether three hours is enough and I hope that, given the consensus that we are starting to see on some measures in the Bill, the Government would also agree that three hours might be insufficient time in certain circumstances.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Is my hon. Friend aware of the findings of the Select Committee on Home Affairs in 2001 in its report, “Border Controls”, which specifically draw attention to the weaknesses of the current situation, specifically the lack of a coherent, statutory border agency? The Committee said that there was a lack of access to other agencies’ databases and that some officers on duty did not have full powers to carry out necessary border control functions on behalf of others. Would that situation not be remedied by the ability to hold people for longer, perhaps across duty rosters?

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, there is one other matter that should be addressed, and that is that the longer somebody is held by an immigration officer, the more likely it is that something may arise that could cause that person to make a claim—vexatious or otherwise—against the immigration and nationality directorate. That is why I was absolutely delighted when the Minister said, about a week ago, that he would shortly provide me with details on the amount of compensation that has already been paid out by the IND. I tabled the written question almost a year ago, and I thought that my staff and I would have to hold a birthday party for it, as it is yet to be answered. I look forward to seeing the details very shortly.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I congratulate my hon. Friend on tabling the amendment; he has raised an important subject and I am sympathetic to the arguments that he has advanced.

The onus is on the Minister to explain to us the genesis of the period of three hours. I note, for a start, that that is a maximum period. Looking at the Bill, it is obviously hoped that the police will come as soon as possible and take into their detention the person who has been detained by the immigration officers. However, I wonder why we need to have a maximum period of three hours. The Minister must explain where this period of three hours came from. Did it come from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, in order to align the powers of immigration officers with those of police officers? Did it come about as a result of consultation? Where exactly has the period of three hours come from, bearing in mind that it is a maximum figure and one would naturally want to give immigration officers as much flexibility as is reasonable in such circumstances? Obviously, balances must be struck, but if we are designating immigration officers, training them and, as was described this morning, going to all the trouble that we are going to—apparently rightly—one would ask why this limit of three hours has been set. Perhaps the Minister would also explain what will happen if immigration officers hold a person for three hours and a police officer is not able to attend within that period of three hours. We all know about the many demands that are made on the police these days, so we need to hear from the Minister as to what would happen in such circumstances. The onus is on the Minister to explain where the figure of three hours comes from.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I shall speak to amendment No. 38. I was pleased when my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth said that he was persuadable, as it is difficult enough to persuade Ministers to accept amendments without the added problem of trying to persuade my hon. Friends to accept them.

Fundamentally, we seek to achieve the same two things: first, to probe and question the Minister as to why three hours is the correct maximum time to allow for detention by immigration officers, and secondly to suggest alternatives—24 hours in my hon. Friend’s case and eight in mine.

The points that have been made are valid and it is worth exploring what will happen in practice, particularly at smaller ports. The Minister will be as aware as anyone that in the criminal underworld that is involved with illegal immigration, trafficking and so on, it is a given that it is easier to get people into the country through smaller ports and airports than through Heathrow, Waterloo or Gatwick—the big centres through which most people go, which have more people and often newer technology. Given that, it seems overwhelmingly likely that, particularly in some of the more remote ports, a period longer than three hours will be necessary, not least in the perfectly plausible circumstance of many people who need to be detained arriving at once. That sort of thing would rapidly become known about and if it happened once, it would happen again. The people traffickers and smugglers would know that it was what to aim for.

A lot of my complaints about the Bill and a lot of my amendments are attempts to put something concrete in the Bill so that not too much is left to regulations that we have not yet seen and that Parliament therefore cannot scrutinise properly. I am puzzled as to why, in one of the few parts of the Bill in which the Government commit themselves to something—the limit of three hours—it does not seem adequate to perform the function, which the Minister and all of us on the Committee want it to perform, of allowing the designated immigration officers to do their job properly. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere that during the various consultations on the Bill and in the course of the debates on it in the House, we have had no sensible indication of why a period of three hours was chosen.

It is not just a case of there being fewer immigration officers in the more distant and smaller ports; the local police forces in such areas are likely to be more stretched. To continue my litany of plausible examples, it would not be too difficult for somebody who was organising a major people-smuggling operation also to organise a normal criminal incident that would call away large numbers of the local police so that there could not be anyone available within the three hours. The provision would therefore not work. An equally likely scenario is that a large number of suspects would be detained and all be awaiting the attention of one constable, or maybe two, at the same time.

I hope that the Minister will not use the argument that he does not want suspects to be detained for too long. He and I might not have participated from the Front Benches in the debates in question, but our colleagues have participated in many debates in the past 12 months in which, by and large, we have been less keen than the Government on locking people up without charge for long periods. I know that the Minister would like to lock people up for 90 days, but we have managed to keep that down to 28 days so far. I urge him not to use a civil liberties argument about the difference between locking someone up for three hours and doing so for eight hours, as that would be inconsistent with everything that the Government have argued in this field in recent years.

I hope that the Minister will reconsider the matter. He must convince the Committee that a three-hour period is a practical solution, but it does not seem so to me. There will be a range of views on what the practical solution might be but, frankly, three hours seems too short.

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

I shall perhaps take a slightly different angle. We are considering a power of arrest without even reasonable suspicion. When a constable arrests somebody there has to be a reasonable suspicion. In this instance it is just on the basis of what someone thinks, regardless of whether there are reasons.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

When a constable stops somebody he will often run a check on that person on the police national computer and if that check comes up as “wanted on warrant” he will arrest that person. From what I can understand, the Minister has said that something similar would happen in an airport. The details will be put through and if the information comes back “wanted on warrant” the immigration officer will make an arrest. What does he think is different about that?

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

The words in statute are important. The words used for constables are “reasonable suspicion”. Here it is “thinks”. That does not require reasons. They may just “think”. There is an important distinction there. Which way should it be or how many hours should apply? There are circumstances where immigration officers would need to arrest somebody and await a constable. It would be concerning if, having dialled 999, one had to wait eight hours or 24 hours, but I am very interested to hear the Minister’s response on this because our responsibility is also to protect people against the arbitrary use of state power; and here we are giving someone potentially, according to amendment No. 1, the arbitrary power to arrest somebody for 24 hours without even a reasonable suspicion. That is obviously something that we should not do.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Not that long ago, the Government sought to do the same for 90 days—90 times as long. But that is a different issue and I will not go down that particular avenue.

I have a question for the Minister; I would appreciate a straightforward answer, which I am sure I will get. It seems to me that the question is, why do we have to have these powers exercised as standardised powers? As I understand it, they arise from section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, as amended by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. My understanding is that the standardisation of the arrest powers are similar to those for a police community support officer. My question is, given the significant threat that the Home Secretary and his Ministers have mentioned over many months—the volume of people trafficking and other issues—why are these powers so limited and why are the Government not willing to be a little flexible on this vital issue?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

May I add my words of welcome, Mr. Amess, and say how glad I am to serve under the constitutional normality of your chairmanship this afternoon? I look forward to the rest of the day.

The hon. Member for Ashford is very wise to adopt the tone that he has struck in relation to his hon. Friends. There was a very memorable interventionby the hon. Member for Monmouth from his own Front Bench during the course of Second Reading. I know that the process of accountability within the Conservative party is robust and strong, as it is on this side of the House. The hon. Member for Ashford is well advised to strike the pose that he has this afternoon.

May I start with a puzzle that was working through my mind as I listened to the valuable contributions to the debate on this amendment? In the amendment that has just passed we had an interesting debate about how we should be seeking to strip powers from immigration officers and link, for example, their power to detain people to people who might be suspects in offences relating to immigration and nationality. Now we are veering the other way and asking whether it would be more appropriate to take a different path altogether and dramatically extend some of those powers.

Let me try to pick up a few of those arguments. If I can offer one word of reassurance to the hon. Member for Ashford, I will not be deploying any of the arguments posed by Liberty in its briefing and I should be grateful if he would pick me up if I start veering towards that difficult terrain.

I start with the contribution of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. It is not without precedent to equip those working with or for the immigration service with the power to detain people. In the debates on the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, especially on sections 40 and 41, we discussed whether it would be appropriate for authorised search officers to be provided with the power to detain people pending the arrival of an immigration officer. The Liberal Democrats’ position was to oppose it. There is a parliamentary precedent; whether a period of three hours is a good or a bad thing has had the scrutiny of the House.

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

I am not disputing whether there is a substantial argument for having a temporary power of detention from time to time. My point is that the Bill does not state that there need to be reasons to believe; the word in the clause is “thinks”. It is a technical point.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for that clarification. This morning we discussed some important points of detail that are germane to the arguments advanced by the hon. Gentleman. First, we are not asking for the power of arrest with regard to British citizens, which picks up some of the points made by the hon. Member for Peterborough. These are not arrest powers; they are powers of detention pending the arrival of a constable.

We had a long debate about the period of three hours. I have some sympathy with the hon. Members for Monmouth and for Peterborough because the position that the former outlined in his amendment was precisely my starting point in the debates during the development of the Bill. My original instinct was to seek quite wide powers of detention. Two or three arguments were deployed to persuade me that three hours was the right approach. First, it was argued that if we were to propose a period of three hours and posit it being extended to eight hours or 24 hours, we would quickly encounter an argument that the protections we proposed in the Bill would be inappropriate, because to detain someone for 24 hours would be tantamount to arresting them.

If we were to equip immigration officers with that kind of power, the House would rightly ask for the PACE protections that are in place for police officers to be brought into being for immigration officers in exercising the powers in the Bill. As I said earlier, that would entail the implementation of a different regulatory regime and require ports up and down the country to invest, potentially substantially, in providing PACE facilities. I thought that that was a reasonable argument.

The contribution that persuaded me, however, was the view of the police and the immigration service. The evidence given last week by Tony Smith, director of border control, was helpful. The subject has been debated to some extent; we already bring together those agencies that are responsible for providing border security in a group called the border management programme. We are lucky to have an excellent representative from the police on that board. It was the view of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the immigration service that three hours was about right. When I am given such clear arguments by the immigration service and the police, I think I should listen to them.

In practice, we see three hours as the outer limit. We make it clear in the Bill that there is an obligation on immigration officers to summon a police constable as soon as is reasonably practical because the police are able to exercise the power of arrest, conduct investigations and so on.

At three hours, we are setting a time that we believe is about right, and it has the support of the police,the Association of Chief Police Officers and the immigration service. On the basis of the advice given to me, I was persuaded. I hope that I have persuaded the Committee to the extent that it will see fit to allow the amendment to be withdrawn.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am not convinced by the Minister’s argument, because there was no argument. He said that he started at 24 hours—a splendid consensus between my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth and the Minister, which I am sure we all note and cherish. He was then persuaded to come down to three hours by ACPO and the immigration service. That is interesting. However, he gave us none of the arguments that ACPO and the immigration service had used on him. It was an old-fashioned appeal to authority rather than a rational argument. The arguments of ACPO and the immigration service may have been fantastically convincing, but none of them have been shared with the Committee, so we are no further forward than before the Minister started speaking.

The Minister made the reasonable point that some of our amendments this morning would have reduced the power—and, he suggested, the effectiveness—of immigration officers, and he rejected them on those grounds. We are now trying to make immigration officers more effective, and he is rejecting that, too—and, frankly, with not much rational argument. I urge him to consider the matter again, because various Opposition Members set out perfectly plausible scenarios in which three hours would not be enough.

I am sure that none of us wants to read in the newspapers in years to come of people being held at ports who had to be released because a police constable was not available. The Minister will be more aware than anyone of the current spate of newspaper stories about illegal immigrants being caught by the police and put on trains, or let go in some other way, with the injunction, “Please go and report to the nearest immigration reporting centre.” And—surprise, surprise—few of them turn up. One can see that the Bill might easily lead to a repetition of that sort of embarrassing disaster for the Government.

I urge the Minister to reconsider the matter. We are trying to help him avoid an obvious elephant trap.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

May I apologise, Mr. Amess, for missing the start of the sitting? I had to attend my Select Committee in order to raise a question.

My party does not support the amendment. We believe, as the Minister suggests, that the powers of a three-hour limit are more than adequate given that we are asking immigration officers only to detain someone and then call the police. On most occasions, the police will be on site and will arrive fairly speedily. I cannot envisage a situation in which an immigration officer will detain someone for longer than that; we are not talking about such people being questioned or interrogated.

The provision is designed primarily to deal with the al-Qaeda suspect who leaves the country in a burqa. If an immigration officer suspects someone of attempting to slip out of the country, this power will allow them to be detained. That is right and proper. If we go beyond three hours, we come back to the earlier argument about whether we should have a border force or whether we should continue to have a separate police force and immigration service. I might agree that a border force would be more effective, but that is not what we are discussing. Given that we are dealing with a very narrow clause about the powers of designated immigration officers, three hours is more than adequate.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashford for having pointed out the elephant traps. In trying to steer my way around them, I shall listen to him with ever greater care over the days, if not weeks and months, to come. He rightly characterised my argument as an appeal to authority, which it is.

We often hear protracted arguments from Opposition Members about why Ministers should trust front-line professionals more. In my previous role as a social care Minister, I often listened to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) talking at great length about why Ministers should prescribe less and listen harder and in greater detail to front-line professionals, and there is some merit in a critique that says that Ministers should not try to prescribe operational activity to the nth degree. This morning, we celebrated at some length the contribution that our immigration officers make to our border security, and their reputation for professionalism is well justified.

On the one hand, the immigration service and ACPO have both argued that any extension of the power of immigration officers to detain individuals for longer than three hours would be to creep towards a power that is tantamount to the power of arrest. That would, rightly, trigger calls for PACE-like protection and investment by ports in PACE facilities. On the other hand, it is legitimate to ask whether a constable can be summoned within three hours. On that, I defer to the judgment of colleagues in the police forces, who understand what we are trying to do and the capabilities that we are trying to put in place at the border.

We have been extremely grateful for the input of the police in programmes such as e-borders. Just outside Heathrow, at Status park, we have a very successful joint-working operation involving Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, special branch, the police and the immigration service that processes the data that we screen from flights. Even in the short history of that operation, those data, which we talked about this morning, have provided some 8,000 or 9,000 alerts and resulted in some 800 arrests. The police are very familiar with the kind of capability that we are putting in place. In ACPO’s judgment, where immigration officers exercise their powers of detention at the border, three hours is adequate to summon a police constable. In fact, if anything, that is the outer limit.

Therefore, my appeal is to authority. If the police tell me that they are confident that they can work within the power, I accept their judgment.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I have heard the Minister’s explanation, which I know that I asked for. Is he telling us that the police are confident that they can get there in every case, bearing in mind that that is a maximum? Can he answer the question that I put to him earlier about what will happen in the case of a suspect who is dressed in a burqa, or, as the hon. Member for Rochdale has suggested, something of that nature, and the police cannot get there within three hours? What will be the legal position?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

As the law stands, an immigration officer would be in breach of the law if he were to detain somebody for longer than three hours, which is why I needed persuading that three hours is long enough. However, I accept the representations from ACPO that three hours is the right margin within which an immigration officer should seek to summon a police constable to conduct an arrest or investigation.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

You will know, Mr. Amess, that I am renowned for my moderation and for seeking a third way whenever there is one. Having listened to the excellent contributions by the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, whom I admire greatly, from the Front Bench, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps there is a happy medium. A third way would be for me to withdraw my amendment suggesting 24 hours and for all of us who believe that we should do our utmost to prevent terrorists or other criminals escaping the clutches of immigration officers to support my hon. Friend’s amendment of eight hours.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I am trying not to sound pompous, but it is usual that if a Member has tabled an amendment that is not the lead amendment, when they speak, as in Mr. Green’s case, they should indicate to the Chair that they might press their amendment. However, on this occasion we will proceed.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 39, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, leave out ‘designated’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment

No. 40, in clause 2, page 2, line 15, at end insert—

‘(aa) detain the individual for not longer than two hours whilst waiting for a constable or designated immigration officer to attend, and’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

The amendments to this clause can usefully be divided into those that seek to focus powers so that they are appropriate and those that seek to extend powers, where we think that that is appropriate. This amendment seeks to extend powers so that they are appropriate. The argument for this amendment has been strengthened by the rejection of the previous amendment. What I have said about potential elephant traps still applies, and I hope that those who voted against the previous amendment will not live to regret it if something horrible happens in a few years’ time.

Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 would extend the possibility of immigration officers pursuing individuals. Amendment No. 39 would remove the word “designated”, so that any immigration officer may return an individual who is trying to leave a port, and the Committee will appreciate the evident practical merits of that. It is right and proper that appropriately trained immigration officers are the only ones given the power to detain people, but that situation is very different from one in which someone is trying to leave a port. All that is being asked for is the power to pursue and return an individual who has already been identified and attempted to be detained. It would clearly be nonsense if somebody were able to slip through the net just because a designated officer is not available, or—I suspect that this is more to the point—if enough designated officers are not available.

That point returns us to the issue of smaller ports and airports, where, I imagine, only one designated official, if any, will be available in many cases. This morning, the Minister told us that roughly 25 per cent. of immigration officers will be designated. It therefore seems highly likely that one designated official at most would be available in many ports and airports at certain times of the day or night, which, if somebody fled, would leave that individual in the invidious position either of leaving their post or of pursuing somebody that they suspected of committing an offence. Amendment No. 39 would make it less likely that that invidious choice would have to be made.

Frankly, I again invite the Minister to consider what would happen in practice. What if he—or a successor, given the rate of change in his job—were forced to answer to the House about a potentially dangerous criminal who was at large because they could not be pursued out of the port or airport from which they had fled, because there was not a designated immigration officer available when perfectly capable immigration officers who did not happen to be designated were available? I suspect that he or his successor would find such an explanation rather uncomfortable and rightly so, because such an event would be nonsense.

Moving on, amendment No. 40 again takes up the practicality argument that we discussed in our last debate. It inserts the capacity to detain an

“individual for not longer than two hours whilst waiting either for a constable or a designated immigration officer to attend,”

which clearly gives any immigration officer the power to detain somebody who may have been stopped by a designated immigration officer and who has tried to leave the port. Obviously, amendment No. 40 follows on from amendment No. 39. We are discussing a practical point: if we allow any immigration officer to pursue someone who is trying to flee, they must have a short space of time in which to detain that person after catching and returning them, otherwise there would be a deeply ridiculous situation in which the detainee could walk off again, which would be undesirable.

If we take the Minister’s word, one can get a policeman anywhere in this country at any time of day or night within three hours. That was the proposition he advanced in response to the previous amendment, so, a fortiori, one can find a designated immigration official anywhere within two hours. That is all we seek to achieve with the two amendments. They are practical amendments, which would avoid potential disasters and stop potentially dangerous criminals getting out on to the streets. In that spirit, I commend the amendments to the Committee.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I agree with my hon. Friend’s observations, which it is proper to make. We are discussing a permissive power for a designated immigration officer to pursue and return an individual after a different immigration officer has detained or attempted to detain the person concerned. In the light of that, are there any circumstances in which an undesignated or non-designated immigration officer could pursue or return an individual in the manner contemplated in subsection (5)? If so, will the Minister spell them out to give us an understanding of the legal position?

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

We are very happy with the amendments. We believe that the powers of the designated officer are the key issue. Clearly, if someone attempts to enter the country unlawfully, no one—not just immigration officers, but citizens—should attempt to assist them. The proposals are sensible and take account of the fact that in many small ports, there might not be many designated officers around. If that were the case, and someone attempted to abscond, anyone at the port should have the authority to stop and detain them.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am, perhaps unwisely, trying to reconcile in my own mind the debates from this afternoon and this morning. I am having one or two difficulties, but perhaps they will become easier towards 7 o’clock. This morning we had an extremely useful, constructive and, I thought, worthy debate about why it is so important to have in place a number of checks and balances for when the Home Secretary seeks to designate immigration officers in respect of the powers set out in the Bill.

In particular, hon. Members from all parties underlined the point that it is extremely important to ensure that individuals have the right level of training. For example, arguments were advanced in favour of codes of practice, subject to affirmative resolution in the House, prior to implementation of any of those powers. Generally, the thrust of the argument was that we need quite a high hurdle for immigration officers to jump before they are allowed to exercise the powers that we are seeking to introduce in clauses 1 to 4. However, where hot pursuit is concerned, the amendments would throw all those protections out of the window.

The clauses set up an operational situation in which only designated officers deemed by the Home Secretary to be “fit and proper” and to have had the right training are allowed to pursue people out of port. The amendments would allow anyone to do that. We must remember that our larger ports, as well as many of our smaller ones, have detention facilities and specially trained detainee custody officers responsible for ensuring that people remain in custody suites. It is probably right to suggest that those seeking to run away from a port are trying to resist an immigration officer’s power of detention. It is therefore important that only officers designated by the Home Secretary, having satisfied him that they are “fit and proper”, can undertake that role.

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

The Minister is perhaps losing the practicalities thread. Part of the training involves how to decide whether there should be a power to detain, and here we enter the world of practicalities. When somebody does a runner, it is a question of who can run after them. Let us imagine a situation in an airport or port in which the immigration officer says, “I detain you”, but that person decides to run. Under the Bill, everyone else must stand there and do nothing. The point of the law is to give people the authority to act. Once the decision has been properly made by a trained person, it is entirely appropriate for any citizen to assist in ensuring that people are operating in accordance with the law on this point. Otherwise, once the decision has been taken, everyone has to stand away while the designated officer huffs away trying to chase somebody.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument with some interest, but I am finding it difficult to reconcile it with the argument advanced this morning by the hon. Member for Rochdale, who made great play of the fact that only designated officers—those who have satisfied that Home Secretary that they are fit and proper people—should be blessed with this power of detention in the first place.

Two arguments have been advanced. The first was well expressed by Opposition Members. Unless proper training is in place for officers with regard to executing these powers, they could be placing themselves in considerable danger. That is an unreasonable thing to ask of immigration officers. Secondly, some training is needed. In answer to the hon. Member for Hertsmere, I point out that immigration officers who are arrest-trained may pursue and arrest foreign nationals under the Immigration Act 1971. Under schedule 2, detainee custody officers can also act on those who are seeking to escape from lawful custody—a custody suite in a court.

That underlines the point that those who can undertake hot pursuit, as it were, are those who have arrest training. That is precisely the kind of training that we would see as part and parcel of the designation process, leading to a designation of an officer under these powers. It would be a mistake that cut against all the arguments that Opposition Members advanced this morning to say that only designated officers can detain an individual at a port, but that anyone at all can undertake a hot pursuit. Those who are fleeing from a port are much more likely to be difficult customers to stop.

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

Let us imagine a port where someone is coming through and the designated officer tells him to stop. If I stop the person doing a runner, I will be guilty of assault because I will have stopped him unlawfully. That is essentially what the law implies as it is drafted at the moment.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

The hon. Gentleman is not helping me to reconcile his arguments with those of his hon. Friend this morning. The argument advanced this morning, with which the Government agree, is that if we are asking for additional powers to detain, in this case British nationals, only those who have satisfied the Home Secretary as fit and proper and so have undertaken certain types of training provided by Centrex should be put in that position. To put others in that position would not only incur risks to the immigration officers themselves, but could involve harm to those around them.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

For those of us who do not have the relevant section of the immigration rules or the 1971 Act at our fingertips, will the Minister explain the powers of a restraint officer? Will he compare the restraint officer’s powers with those that are outlined here?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

The nub of schedule 2 of the 1971 Act—the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not having memorised the details of the Act, as it was passed not long after I was born—is that those who are arrest-trained are able to pursue and arrest foreign nationals. The point that I want to underline is that there is an inconsistency between the Committee’s argument that only those who have satisfied the Home Secretary as fit and proper people are able to detain people at a port, but that anybody can then undertake hot pursuit. Those who are fleeing from a port are more rather than less likely to be individuals who will create difficulties. Therefore, if anything, we should argue that there is an even stronger case for saying that a designated officer should be the only officer who should be given that task.

The hon. Member for Ashford made an entirely reasonable point in the later stages of his argument. It is essential that the immigration service understands what the right number of designated officers should be at different ports. We heard Tony Smith, the director of border control, say last week that he thought that in the first instance about 25 per cent. of immigration officers should be designated. That is across the entire service, which is not, of course, to say that 25 per cent. at every port should be designated, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has a point in suggesting that it might make more sense for 100 per cent. of the immigration officers to be designated at some smaller ports.

Larger ports, such as Heathrow, have quite robust and extensive detention facilities, so being able to ensure that a greater fraction of immigration officers is designated and able to undertake hot pursuit at smaller ports may be a sensible and reasonable operational consideration.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Given that the Minister has been referring to discrepancies in people’s arguments, I am surprised that he expects the Committee not to see the difference between an immigration officer quite properly seeking to verify the bona fides of someone entering the United Kingdom through a port and using the legal powers contained in this Bill to detain them, which is a proactive act, and a member of the immigration and nationality directorate, an immigration officer, seeking to apprehend someone who has wilfully escaped that port. There is a difference, and I am surprised that the Minister cannot see it. That is reflected in the amendment.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I think that that rather misrepresents the argument that I was seeking to make, but perhaps I should apologise to the Committee if I am not making the point clearly enough. This morning, I thought that we established the principle that if somebody was to be designated with the powers that we seek under this Bill, they should be able to jump certain hurdles and satisfy the Home Secretary that they are “fit and proper” people. We also envisage extensive training as part of that process of becoming a fit and proper person. Those conditions must apply for somebody to have the power to detain someone at a port.

I would have thought that the process of pursuing someone seeking to flee from a port was, if anything, not less dangerous, but more so than the situation that an immigration officer might encounter when seeking to detain somebody in the port, so there is a greater premium, not a smaller one, on making sure that officers who are undertaking hot pursuit have the right level of training.

John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham, Yardley)

Where the Minister is perhaps getting a little confused is in the realities of the situation. If somebody was trying to escape from a corner of this room and I, as a citizen acting in good will, shut the door to prevent them from leaving, that would be wrongful imprisonment unless I was empowered by law. The amendment would give people the ability to assist designated immigration officers in such circumstances. Without those powers, they are prevented by law from offering assistance. What we are arguing is not the same as saying that it is their job to chase people; it is saying, “Well, if you happen to be standing there and the circumstances permit you, you can assist in the pursuit.” We are not saying, “Now it’s everybody’s job to do it”, but seeking to give people a power in law to act to assist the designated immigration officer.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I regret that the hon. Gentleman was unable to listen to the hon. Member for Rochdale this morning, as that would have helped him in the argument he is seeking to advance this afternoon. He is calling for immigration officers untrained in arrest training to be given the power to place themselves in harm’s way to detain someone who is fleeing a port. That is a completely inappropriate level of protection and could be a recipe quite dangerous circumstances. If we are asking immigration officers to undertake dangerous tasks, as hot pursuit surely must be, it is only appropriate that we seek to ensure a minimum level of safeguards. That minimum level should be the process that we are suggesting an officer goes through in order to become designated as a fit and proper person.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I share the Minister’s concern for the safety of immigration officers and the view that, as part of ensuring that safety, they should receive proper training. We are considering a permissive power, however, and I am concerned about putting the officers in a safe position in every conceivable situation. May I invite him to consider a practical situation that may well arise in a small port with only one immigration officer designated? Such an officer may have colleagues who are not designated, and as the Bill stands, if a person whom he wanted to detain sought to leave and he thought as a designated officer that it was his duty to go after that person, his colleagues would not be able to go to his assistance unless they were designated or had this other restraint power that the Minister has mentioned. That is my worry about the individual designated officer, and I would like the Minister to address that particular situation.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes an entirely reasonable point. There are two potential responses to the scenario that he poses. The first is to throw all the safeguards out of the window and say that anybody who works for the immigration service should have the freedom to place themselves in harm’s way and undertake hot pursuit. The second is that it is the responsibility of the immigration service to make sure that smaller ports in particular have the right number of designated officers.

This is why I draw a contrast with regard to the comments made by the director of border control last week. He said that perhaps across the entire service25 per cent. of immigration officers could be so designated, but that is not to say that 100 per cent. of officers might not be designated at smaller ports.

I think the safer solution is for that scenario to unfold and for us to ensure that there is a proper risk assessment at each port and proper scenario planning, and that where we think the shift patterns and traffic we envisage lead to a need for 100 per cent. designated officers, that is the route we take. I think that that is the safer solution not only for the public, but for immigration services officers.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

Is it not the reality, however, that the smaller ports will end up with fewer designated officers and the larger ones will be where the designated officers are? Those are the officers who have to undergo the most training, and with the way things work, we all know that they will end up in the busiest ports, not the small ones. Surely, at the very least, immigration officers should have the power that police officers have at the moment, whereby if they are with a member of the public, they may ask that person to assist them in making an arrest. It is actually illegal for a member of the public not to assist if a police officer asks them to do so, although I do not think that that law is enforced in practice.

Surely immigration officers are more than capable of making a decision as to whether a person poses a danger. If that person has come through an airport, they almost certainly will not be carrying any knives or bladed instruments. If they have just jumped off the back of a lorry, they might have such dangerous items, and one might have to take a slightly different view as to how to restrain them. These are matters that immigration officers can surely decide for themselves. If the Minister is keen to trust immigration officers and public servants, is not the suggested approach something we could be doing?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

What we are seeking to do is run through the logical sequence of this morning’s argument, which ran as follows: when we are extending the powers that we are granting to immigration officers, it is important that they have the right level of training and that the right safeguards apply to their conduct. That is why we propose the process of satisfying the Home Secretary that a person is a fit and proper person. We also said that we would discuss the process of designation not only with the police standards unit, but with ACPO, and that we would make the criteria public so that both Parliament and the public were could be satisfied that we were designating only individuals who we thought satisfied the minimum conditions necessary to exercise those powers. There is a greater need, not a lesser one, for training and safeguards when we ask immigration officers to undertake hot pursuit.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

Will the Minister give way?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I will not give way again, because the argument has run its course.

The bottom line is the point made by Opposition Members about whether there would be the right number of designated officers at a port. I do not entirely agree with the hon. Member for Monmouth that there is an inexorable logic that at smaller ports 100 per cent. of officers will not be designated. That is, rightly, a matter of operational policy. However, the hon. Member for Ashford was right to say that ultimately Ministers will have to account for the use of these powers at ports. In unfortunate incidents in which it became apparent that the right number of designated officers were not available, Parliament would rightly ask Ministers to explain why.

The amendments are a step in the wrong direction, because when it comes to hot pursuit there is a greater need for the protections that we envisage in the process of designation. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to seek leave to withdraw the amendment.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

To put it bluntly, the Minister has not made the case against the amendment, and I support the comments made earlier by my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere and Monmouth.

I congratulate the Minister on being mentally agile in comparing the position taken by the Liberal Democrats this morning with their position this afternoon. We all know that they are capable of holding two different positions at the same time, not just in the morning and the afternoon.

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

It might be late in the afternoon, but I have to respond to the hon. Gentleman. Given that our two parties take the same position, albeit coming from different routes, if he is saying that we are taking that position, we have to say that he is, too.

The point that needs to be made is that there is a middle way. The Minister said earlier that training for immigration officers would be improved; it would be proper and sensible for all immigration officers, whether or not they are designated, to be given some form of training in stopping and searching individuals. It is the sort of training that has to happen in a variety of professions, and if that were the case, the amendment would be considered proper, which fits in with what the hon. Gentleman and I were saying this morning.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I beg the Committee’s forgiveness for being unable to resist tweaking the nose of the new Labour-friendly Liberal Democrats, as they are according to their leader, albeit that he is their temporary leader.

We can dance round the eye of an intellectual needle about the clauses, but at the end of the day, they should be informed by practical, realistic experience. As the Minister knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) raised the example of Holyhead when we debated the matter on Second Reading. In the absence of any examples to the contrary, the issue is that there are not enough immigration officers and other law enforcement officers such as special branch and others to deal with such matters.

We have heard lots of warm words about training, as if it is a panacea for all the potential problems in the clause. At present, there are no regulations in respect of that training.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in allowing me to intervene. Will he assure me that he will speak to his hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), who has recently imposed on the Conservative party an edict on proposals for the extra use of resources, and make the case that it should bring forward plans for additional resources for the immigration service?

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I commend to the Minister a superb document from November last year, authored by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, called “Controlling Economic Migration”. It contains all the pearls of wisdom on the subject that he will ever need.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I have read it.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Ten years ago the bilateral agreement with France ended and there was the issue of Sangatte. The practical point is that we have had serious problems with people who should not be in this country absconding from ports of entry. It is not necessarily right for the Minister to say that everything will be all right and that people will be designated and properly trained. The problem with some of the clauses is feast and famine. Some are overly lax in their wording, but this clause is overly prescriptive in its use of the word “designated.”

I am puzzled about the Minister’s language on the three quarters of immigration staff who are not designated. A rather cursory approach seems to be taken towards them in arguing that because they have not been trained to the same level as the 25 per cent. who are designated, they are not “fit and proper” persons. If three quarters of immigration officers whom we employ are not considered fit and proper to transact their normal duties, I am rather puzzled. I hope that the Minister does not mean that they are not capable of doing the jobs that they are paid for.

The amendment is nothing other than helpful. It is entirely in keeping with the position that we have taken before and would give us flexibility if we wanted to detain a person who had escaped. We have all seen the rather lax situation whereby police community support officers have a certain amount of time to hold people before they can duly be arrested by a constable, and how difficult that is in the real world, where people are violent and abusive and cause problems. The amendment is flexible and I wholly support it.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I know that the hon. Gentleman is not deliberately trying to traduce my argument, so perhaps I can give him some reassurance that when we talk about people being “fit and proper”, we mean fit and proper for the purpose. Perhaps I was using the phrase in a careless form of shorthand. They must be

“fit and proper for the purpose”

under clause 1(2)(a) for the purpose of clauses 1 to 4.

In summary, my argument is this: if we are asking people to undertake what will often be the dangerous work of hot pursuit, it is more important, not less, that adequate training and protections are in place. The amendment would cast those protections aside and would be a move in the wrong direction. It is in contradistinction to the arguments made this morning, which underlined the need for the right level of training and process to be in place before we seek to designate officers under the terms of the Bill. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Ashford will seek to withdraw it.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

This group of amendments has provoked a more wide-ranging and deeper debate than I might have hoped, and it has been interesting. I am grateful for the eloquent support of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, although I should perhaps move away from him slightly on his remarks about the current leader of the Liberal Democrats, whom I profoundly hope will remain leader until at least the day after the next general election. I am grateful to my hon. Friend also for mentioning the pamphlet that I produced with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden last year, “Controlling Economic Migration”. I am glad to hear that the Minister has read it, and I will be happy to make copies available to any members of the Committee who have not yet read it. Signed copies will be extra.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

There are plenty left.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

One or two.

The Minister has spoken about possible inconsistencies between arguments. I would be more convinced by his generous words about the excellent debate that we had this morning, in which some very good points were made, if he had accepted any of the amendments to which those arguments related. As he did not accept a single one, it seems a touch spurious to pray the arguments used for those amendments in aid of his own case.

The Minister’s best point concerned hot pursuit, to which he sensibly returned in his final argument. He said that that is clearly a potentially dangerous situation and the one in which—more than any other—it is desirable to have appropriately trained people. That is a fair point, and it is one of the reasons why we think that the people engaged in hot pursuit and employed at borders should belong to a properly trained police force. I apologise to him for returning to the matter, but this is the second occasion in a couple of hours in which he has essentially made the case for a border police force. When he makes sensible, practical points about what should happen at our borders and what sort of powers immigration officers or those standing at the border should have, he is making the case for a border police force. He is right about hot pursuit. Even if he gets his way and we do not have a border police force for a few years, we have to weigh up the danger that may be caused by the hot pursuit of anybody, whether by a designated immigration official, another immigration officer or a member of the public, such as the willing bystander posited by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley as a potential helper for designated immigration officers at the border.

We have to balance the picture that the Minister has painted against the other picture—the one that I have been trying to paint—which is a counsel of despair. If somebody gets away from the designated official, or even injures that official so that they cannot pursue, that is it—that person will have got away. Purely on the balance of danger to the public, if we send out the signal that if someone who enters illegally can get out of the clutches of the person who tries to detain them they have a fair chance of escaping, then we will increase the chance of a violent struggle and injury, or worse, to immigration officials. If, however, people know that there is a properly trained and equipped force at the border, they are less likely either to try to come in that way or, if apprehended, to make a potentially violent run for it.

Even in his own terms, the Minister’s arguments do not add up. He will face the problem that even if, as he has said, he were to designate every one of the immigration officers at the smaller ports as those who will have specific training, there will be times when those places do not have the necessary cover. Then word will get out that certain ports have a smaller percentage of designated officers, and those ports will be deliberately put under stress by traffickers, people smugglers and individuals—perhaps serious criminals—who will try to come into the country illegally.

Even though the Minister has spoken at length and has been very generous in giving way to my hon. Friends and to Liberal Democrat Members, he has not convinced me that the amendment will not improve the Bill’s contribution to the safety of our borders. I therefore commend the amendment to the Committee.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I beg to move amendment No. 27, in clause 2, page 2, line 16, at end add—

‘(6) Detention under this section shall be treated as detention under the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77) for the purposes ofPart 8 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (c. 33) (detained persons).’.

I shall not detain the Committee too long on this technical amendment. Its ambition is to ensure absolutely that the powers that we have in place reflect operational reality on the ground at our ports. The other amendments that we have debated have centred on providing immigration officers with new powers of detention in respect of British nationals. In the debate that we have just had on hot pursuit, we talked a little about the fact that many of our ports have detention facilities that can be and are used to secure individuals for a period of time. The period of time that we have stipulated in the Bill is

“no longer than three hours”

in respect of British citizens.

The operational reality at many of our ports is that the facilities are often supervised by detainee custody officers who operate under powers given in part VIIIof the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Thatpower relates to detained persons under the terms of section 147 of the 1999 Act, which refers to

“persons detained or required to be detained under the 1971 Act or under section 62 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002”.

The amendment seeks to extend the definition to individuals who are detained under this Bill. Without the amendment, we would need to provide for separate facilities to be organised under different arrangements. I do not think that the ports would welcome that regulatory burden, which would complicate and confuse detention facilities management at the ports. We have therefore introduced this amendment to ensure that the detainee custody officers who are in place already and who operate under protections that are already in place can supervise those who are detained under the powers in this Bill as well as the powers in earlier legislation.

Clause 3

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, at end insert ‘, or

‘(d) automatic deportation.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 3, in clause 3, page 2, line 30, leave out ‘51 weeks’ and insert ‘two years’.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

I recall that earlier today the Minister said that we do not like to lock people up without charge, and there was some discussion as to whether one side of the House or the other prefers locking people up for long periods of time without charge. This discussion is, of course, about something different, because the amendment relates to locking up for longer people who have been found guilty of something, and I am entirely in favour of that.

The Bill is a reflection of a problem that we have in this country, which is that too many people are coming here under false pretences. That prevents us from giving support, which we all agree should be given, to those who come here as asylum seekers fleeing genuine persecution and torture. All hon. Members want to help those people, but it is becoming difficult to do so, because so many other people come here for economic reasons and garb themselves in the mantle of asylum seekers, when they are in fact economic migrants. When they come here as economic migrants, they do everything in their power to stay here. On occasion, that means absconding, assaulting immigration officers and obstructing the work of immigration officers.

I saw such things happen when I attended a joint raid by immigration officers and police on a farm in Monmouthshire. Before we arrived, the officers predicted that everyone would run and that anyone who was grabbed would prove to be violent. Fortunately, they were slightly wrong on the second point, because although there was a lot of struggling, nobody was assaulted. Everyone ran and tried to get away, however, because they all knew that they had very little to lose.

I tabled these amendments because it is important that we send out a strong message that we are not prepared to tolerate any longer those who come here, work illegally and prevent us from giving aid to genuine asylum seekers. There has been too much of it, and that is also true of assaults on immigration officers. I find it extraordinary that the Bill sets a limit of just 51 weeks on a term of imprisonment, when the Government know full well that under current legislation it takes52 weeks for the automatic deportation procedures to be triggered. Surely, if we support our immigration officers, as we have all said that we do, we, as politicians, should say to them that we will send out the firm message that anyone who assaults them will spend more than 51 weeks in prison and that by doing so they will be responsible for triggering their own automatic deportation orders. We should not be willing to tolerate those who break the rules, which is why I have tabled these amendments, and I hope that hon. Members will see fit to support them.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am very much with my hon. Friend and his sentiments on the amendments, which are worthy of serious consideration. I hope that the Minister will give the spirit of the amendments particularly serious thought in this case.

I shall turn first to amendment No. 2, which seeks to add automatic deportation to the possible punishments of somebody who is convicted of an offence of absconding from detention or assaulting or obstructing an immigration officer. My hon. Friend’s sentiment is worthy and I am with him in spirit. However, there may be a problem. As I understand the basis on which the Minister described clauses 1 and 2, the amendment would relate to United Kingdom citizens who were suspected of offences as much as to foreign citizens. Much as my hon. Friend and I would want to deport UK citizens who commit offences, I am not sure whether it would be practical to do so—first, we would have to find somewhere to deport them. I am not sure that I am with him on automatic deportation, but he has raised an important point.

There would be scope for amending the measure to make the person liable for deportation, rather than automatic deportation, as one of the possible punishments that they could face. If deportation was merely a possible sentence, rather than an automatic one, it could be used against a foreign citizen who had committed one of the relevant offences, and that additional punishment would be appropriate in the circumstances. If the Minister will not accept my hon. Friend’s amendment or the changed form that I have just suggested, will he tell us whether a person who commits an offence under clause 3(1) would be liable for deportation as the law stands?

The second point that I want the Minister to address relates to amendment No. 3, and I share my hon. Friend’s sentiments on that, too. I ask the Minister to justify why the Government have chosen the unusual maximum sentence of imprisonment of 51 weeks. I do not want to be in the position of asking “why” all the time—why this, or why that?—but 51 weeks is a curious figure to choose. I am not familiar with 51 weeks as a possible sentence for other offences. What is the magic in 51 weeks? Why not have the maximum sentence as one year, which is the maximum sentence for many different offences?

I support my hon. Friend’s wish to increase the maximum sentence, not only because—as he has already said, very eloquently—if it were increased, it would make the person eligible for automatic deportation, which is important, but because it is important to mark offences against public servants with a longer sentence of imprisonment and a stronger penalty than would otherwise be the case. In the debates on the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006—I think that that is relevant, because I went through the same arguments then—I proposed a scheme of additional aggravated offences, where an offence of assault or another offence causing harm was directed against a public servant, such as a doctor, nurse, railway worker, bus conductor or anyone else providing a service to the public, and an immigration officer would fall within that general definition of a public servant.

It is an important principle that when someone commits an ordinary criminal offence against a public servant, the fact that it is being committed against a public servant—someone who is exposed to danger while providing a service to the public, which itself may be interfered with by the offence—the person who commits that offence should face a more serious sentence. In practice, the courts often do that and regard it as an aggravating feature of an offence that it is committed against a public servant. There is a lot to be said for formalising that process within the law, making it absolutely clear to everybody and sending out a strong signal that offences against public servants are serious offences that will attract more serious sentences.

Quite simply, I want to see posters going up in ports that tell people who are dealing with immigration officers that somebody who assaults an immigration officer will be subject to a maximum sentence that is longer than 51 weeks and will also be eligible for deportation. Such posters would serve as a warning and protect immigration officers, who do such a good job for us all.

I ask the Minister to bear those sentiments in mind and to explain how he would otherwise give additional protection to immigration officers through the provisions in the Bill. Specifically, I would like him to answer this question: by how much more does the sentence outlined here increase the sentence that someone would face for assaulting an immigration officer, compared with the sentence for someone else committing a different type of offence of assault?

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I have listened to what the two hon. Gentlemen have said about the amendments, and I believe that they are in danger of attributing to the Bill a range of faults and misdemeanours that might apply to our immigration system in general.

We need to go back to clause 1 to see what we are dealing with, which is a very narrow power—an extension of the immigration officer’s existing power to detain someone at a port. Whether or not there are too many asylum seekers in this country, and whether or not those people are clogging up the system and causing problems for genuine asylum seekers, is, in my view, totally irrelevant. We are dealing with a situation where someone fails to stop when a designated immigration officer asks them to do so and then commits an offence against that immigration officer. As the hon. Member for Hertsmere has said, such people may well be British nationals. It is clearly nonsense to talk about deportation, if it means sending someone back to Liverpool, Birmingham or wherever for committing a misdemeanour. We must concentrate on the law that we are being asked to consider, so that does not work.

If we are talking about increasing the offence, there are already sufficient powers on the statute book. For example, I believe that if someone physically assaults an immigration officer, they can be charged and dealt with under existing laws. Will the Minister confirm that?

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

Will the hon. Gentleman remind us what the maximum sentence for assault is ordinarily?

Paul Rowen (Liberal Democrat, Rochdale)

I shall ask the Minister to answer that. As I do not normally deal with Home Office matters, I cannot claim to have a great deal of knowledge of them. Clearly, we are talking about somebody who has absconded and who has assaulted or obstructed an officer. For what we are discussing here, I think that a fine or imprisonment would be adequate. If someone goes beyond that though, I suggest that alternative laws would apply.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I rise briefly to say that the sentiments behind the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth are entirely right and have been expressed eloquently by him and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere. It is useful occasionally for legislation to make clear a widespread sentiment—in this case, the sentiment that it is completely unacceptable to use violence against public servants, such as immigration officers. That is very important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere has pointed out the possible technical wrinkle that the proposal might apply to British citizens as well. However, I am unclear about whether my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth would want to deport British citizens who assault immigration officers.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

It is tempting to explore whether they could be sent to the Gobi desert—I expect that the Minister with responsibility for tourism will be writing to me. However, I accept that there might be practical difficulties with amendment No. 2. Will you advise me, Mr. Amess, on whether my other amendment can stand alone?

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his query. Indeed, while I speak you might have time to consult on it, Mr. Amess.

In all seriousness, we should consider the danger in which we ask many public servants to put themselves. The technicalities aside, the thought behind the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend is good and sensitive.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I advise the hon. Member for Monmouth that he can certainly withdraw the amendment to which he spoke, and then move the second amendment.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I, too, associate myself with many of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Monmouth. It is right and appropriate that when we ask our public servants to place themselves in harm’s way and to undertake a difficult job with the professionalism that we see day in, day out in our immigration service, we should also send clear signals backed by sanctions should violence be exercised against them. However, I shall highlight a number of small issues that suggest that the hon. Gentleman ought to withdraw his amendment. Of course, a longer debate will follow in a few weeks’ time, when we reach the clause relating to automatic deportation, so we will have an opportunity to come back to this.

I want to make two points. First, the offences set out in clause 3(1) include not only assault, but absconding and obstructing. The effect of the amendment would be to ensure automatic deportation, even for someone who has absconded and also for someone who has simply obstructed an immigration officer in the exercise of their power. If an individual who has been asked where they came from simply replies, “I’m not going to tell you anything”, it could be deemed to be obstruction. Under these amendments, that would result in automatic deportation. I accept that many of us in the Committee would see that as an entirely appropriate response, but we may run into arguments about proportionality slightly further downstream.

Secondly, the amendments would apply to a British citizen, which is obviously problematic. As someone who was born in Liverpool, I would see no problems in being deported back there, but the implementation and execution of such sanctions could raise problems. By way of reassurance for the hon. Gentleman, I shall make three arguments.

First, the proposed provisions on automatic deportation later in the Bill will not apply simply to those individuals who have been sentenced to12 months’ imprisonment, because they will also apply to individuals who have committed an offence listed in section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Furthermore, they will apply to individuals who have been recommended for deportation by the court and individuals who are deemed non-conducive to the public good by the Home Secretary.

There are a number of other ways to secure the outcome that the hon. Gentleman seeks, which is, perhaps, a useful debate that we can have when we reach the relevant clauses. It is still open to the sentencing court to recommend somebody for deportation, if they have committed an offence of assault, but to cast the sanctions so widely as to encompass both those who abscond and those who obstruct might be going slightly too far. I am happy to return to that point in our debate on automatic deportation.

Secondly, the sanctions that we have proposed are very much in line with the sanctions that have been implemented to cover assaults on other public services in similar lines of work. There are, of course, a number of different definitions of assault—for example, common assault in common law—and there are a number of offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The sanctions vary, depending on the severity of the assault. I would be happy to write to members of the Committee on that point, if that would be helpful.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am grateful to the Minister for that offer and look forward to receiving his letter. Can he tell us whether my impression that clause 3(1)(b) refers to the offence of common assault when it is committed against an immigration officer is correct? If actual bodily harm is included in that, we would appreciate hearing from him, too. Will he tell us what the normal sentence for common assault is in other circumstances, as compared with the sentence of 51 weeks here?

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I shall be happy to include some reflections in my letter, if hon. Members would find that helpful. The point that I want to make, which the hon. Member for Hertsmere made earlier, concerns the differences or similarities between the sanctions listed here and the sanctions that are available for assault on other public officials in a similar line of work. For example, the sanction for the offence of assaulting someone who works for HMRC is 51 weeks and/or level 5. Similar sanctions are in place for authorised search officers, and similar sanctions are detailed for assaults on police officers and traffic officers.

We did not seek to invent a level of sanctions for that event; we rooted them in the sort of sanctions now in place for assault on other public servants who put themselves in harm’s way in the line of their work, day in and day out. I hope that the hon. Member for Monmouth takes some reassurance from the fact that it is a debate to which we will return. There are similar ways of achieving the outcome that he seeks, and I look forward to the debate.

David Davies (Conservative, Monmouth)

I found some reassurance in that. Clearly one would not want to see people deported for assaulting immigration officers but not police officers. On that basis, I will happily withdraw the amendment. I look forward to a discussion later this month onthe length of imprisonment for which automatic deportation should occur. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 41, in clause 3, page 2, line 43, at end add—

‘(6) Where a person is guilty of an offence under subsection (1) the provisions of section 28 shall apply.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 42, in clause 28, page 14, line 16, at end insert

‘or is guilty of an offence under section 3(1)’.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

Many of the arguments for a reasoned withdrawal of these amendments are not dissimilar to those proposed a moment ago. There are three points, which I will rehearse again for the Committee. First, the offences that are set out in clause 3(1) include assault, but also include absconding from and obstructing an immigration officer. One of the effects of the amendment would be to cast automatic deportation as a sanction for any one of those three offences.

I am certain in my own mind that we should send a clear signal to those who commit a serious crime and break our laws that they will face the sanction of automatic mandatory deportation. However, there is a question over whether automatic deportation is the right sanction for somebody who has committed the offence of obstructing an immigration officer, which is the offence detailed under clause 3(1)(c). As I said a moment ago, somebody could effectively be prosecuted for the offence of obstructing an immigration officer simply by presenting themselves at the desk at the port and refusing to co-operate with the immigration officer. I could easily foresee a situation where a successful prosecution was mounted for obstruction in such a case and the amendment as drafted would result in the automatic deportation of that individual. I am not often accused of making arguments for a proportionate use of force, but in this case there is a question mark in my mind about whether that is a proportionate sanction for such an offence.

The second point is that, as I said a moment ago, we did not just make up the sanctions listed for this offence, but rooted them in the well-established tradition of sanctions for the offence of assaulting a warranted officer, whether a traffic officer or a police officer or somebody from the HMRC. I am uncomfortable about driving a coach and horses through that tradition.

The third point is that the Government will want to prosecute such offences quickly and the amendment would make it difficult for those cases to be tried in a magistrates court. The sanctions as drafted would mean that cases must be committed to a Crown court, which may result in justice not being as swift as we would desire in all circumstances—particularly in relation to the offences of absconding from detention or obstructing an immigration officer. Both sides of the Committee may agree with that analysis.

Such debates are important, but it may be better to have them when we get to the clauses on automatic deportation. Many of the arguments for the withdrawal of these amendments are the same as those made on the previous amendment. The spirit of the debate is absolutely right, but it may be better to have it later in our proceedings.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I am grateful for the points that the Minister has made—particularly on the necessity for Crown court trials when sentences are over a year, which I had assumed was the relevant cut-off being applied. I am not sure in the aggregate whether that is an overwhelming argument against allowing sentences of more than a year when the Government are using that 12 months as a cut-off point in the powers that it seeks under clause 28. There are other ways to cut this particular cake and one could set a different minimum for the application. As the Minister said, it may well be sensible to return to this subject, possibly at greater length, during our discussions on clause 28. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 4

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to move amendment No. 43, in clause 4, page 3, line 2, at end insert ‘and an international railway station’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 44, in clause 4, page 3, line 5, after ‘aircraft’, insert ‘or train’.

No. 45, in clause 4, page 3, line 6, after ‘aircraft’, insert ‘or train’.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

This is an attempt to probe what appears to be a slightly peculiar weakness in the Bill. The current subsection (1) says that “port” includes an “airport” and a “hoverport”, but not any of the international train stations that we now have in this country. I am genuinely puzzled as to why that is not the case. I feel it particularly personally, since one of the two international train stations is in my constituency and, seriously, is a point at which illegal immigration has been tried a lot. If there is any hint that, owing to bad drafting, oversight or whatever, certain powers have not been applied to international railway stations, that would be bad legislation and we should seek to amend that anyway. However, it would also have a serious effect on the safety of my constituents, so the Minister will understand why I feel so personally, not least because, although we now have the excellent Ashford International station and Waterloo, during the course of this year a third international station is opening at Ebbsfleet in north Kent. I suspect, Mr. Chairman, that you and other members of the Committee may not be as familiar with it as I am, but it is in the middle of nowhere. If one wanted to abscond—suspecting that nobody would see one fleeing for a few hours—Ebbsfleet would be quite a good place to do so.

There are many arguments for ensuring that all the powers, controls and legislation that apply in all our ports and airports apply at the international railway stations as well. As the Minister will be aware, the situation is becoming ever more serious, despite the fact that the Sangatte camp in Calais was got rid of a few years ago. That camp was there specifically for people trying to come to this country illegally—that was its only purpose, ever. The last Home Secretary but two, I think, was successful in persuading the French Government to dismantle the camp, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, the mayor of Calais is now bringing it back in a slightly disguised form and, once again, increasing numbers of people are gathering at the channel ports to try their luck getting through the channel tunnel.

One can therefore assume that the trains that stop at the international stations are once again becoming vulnerable to that kind of attack, with people trying to use them in one way or another to get into this country. Some of the instances have been horrific. There have been cases of people clinging to the bottom of the trains as they come through the channel tunnel. Anything that discourages people from doing something so unbelievably dangerous would save lives as well as making our borders more secure. It is important not to underestimate the importance of trains as a medium for international travel these days. They are likely to become more important and, sadly, more a target of those who seek to get into this country illegally. The purpose of amendments Nos. 43 to 45 is simply to ensure that the protections that the Minister regards as necessary at ports and airports are also available at international railway stations.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

I am grateful for the way in which the hon. Gentleman has put his argument. When I reflected on the amendment I had not quite drawn the connection between it and the constituency that he represents. Listening to his thoughtful argument, I can quite see that he brings passion to the matter.

From the tenor of my remarks over the course of the day, the hon. Gentleman will know that my instinct in much of the Bill has been to seek wide, sweeping powers, but through a process of deliberation I have been persuaded that actually Parliament would not look kindly upon my asking for wide-ranging powers for which there was no purpose. That is a legitimate process of debate through which we have gone. We have sought in the Bill, even in this clause, to ask only for powers that we think are necessary. I assure him that the question whether to include railway stations and trains was considered in full. They were not included because it was not deemed necessary.

It is only right that, in my response to the hon. Gentleman, I should take the opportunity to pay tribute to the immigration service and its work in France and Belgium, and to the degree of co-operation that we have received, particularly in France from the police aux frontières. The arrangement of juxtaposed controls, which I was grateful to be able to visit at the end of last year, has meant that in the past year alone about 17,000 illegal immigrants have been stopped on the other side of the channel.

The process of offshoring our border controls is integral to our philosophy of border control, and we shall have a lot more to say on that philosophy and the substance that follows it in the months to come. It is important that controls are in place on the other side of the channel because so much of the traffic to which the hon. Gentleman referred is in the hands of organised crime. When I visited Calais at the end of last year I was interested to learn from the prefect of the area and from our own immigration service that they estimate that most illegal migration that is attempted across the channel is in the hands of organised crime—gangs originating in either Afghanistan or Iran. Such controls are therefore extremely important.

The reason why I have been reassured that the amendments are not needed is precisely that we have invested so successfully in offshoring our border controls to France and Belgium. The checks that are needed are undertaken abroad, so there is ample time for immigration officers to notify police at the other end of the tunnel if necessary so that they can take the appropriate action.

There are of course some limitations on the exercise of police-like powers abroad. European integration is a great thing, but there are none the less constraints on our ability to have British immigration officers or police operating in an unfettered manner on the continent. Perhaps we will be able to change that situation one day, but under the terms of the tripartite agreement between the UK, France and Belgium, and of consequential administrative agreements, there are some constraints on the exercise of police-like powers in offshore controls.

The nub of the argument is that because we have exported—offshored—our border controls to the other side of the channel, checks are undertaken over there. That gives us the opportunity to identify individuals who may be undesirable and ensure that they come nowhere near the shores of the British isles. If they are British citizens and therefore individuals whom we cannot necessarily prevent from coming to the British isles, the fact that the controls are exercise offshore means that there is time to make provisions to receive them should they be of interest to the police or security authorities.

I am grateful for the opportunity to explain a little more about our reasoning and why we have not sought powers that are deemed unnecessary. I hope that that reassurance is sufficient that the hon. Member for Ashford may feel able to seek leave to withdraw his amendment.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

No, it is not, is my short response to the Minister’s last hope, for a number of reasons.

First, the Minister will surely be aware, as I certainly am, that those who travel regularly on the various types of train going through the tunnel give what I might politely describe as patchy reports of the level of security on both the French and Belgian trains, and particularly regarding passport checks on the trains themselves. It may be that he is being assured by whoever it is that the system is now marvellous, has all been offshored and is completely secure, but that is not the regular passengers’ experience.

Secondly, even if the Minister takes the views of his officials rather than mine, as might be perfectly reasonable even with my particular expertise in this field, my amendments seek only to add powers that would potentially be useful, because I suspect that he and his advice are just wrong. The advisers might be saying that we obviously have problems at airports and ports, but there are none with the international rail service, yet that is simply not the case. If the Minister is being assured that it is, he is being misinformed. However, even if that advice were right today, he would still have seen the projections that international rail is extremely likely to extend in years to come to other countries, so that journeys will start in other places.

For example, a few years ago it was a regular thing for people to get themselves zipped into freight trains in Milan and then unzipped when they got to Britain. That has been stopped at present, but who knows when it will come back? Frequently, those people were refugees from the Balkans. The scam was stopped by various technological means, but the Minister and I know perfectly well that somewhere out there a criminal gang is thinking of some new form of people trafficking; one that would not be in either of our imaginations or those of his officials. There will be some new way of using international trains in future to smuggle people into this country.

If the Minister neglects the opportunity presented in the Bill to add international railway stations to ports and airports, the House will have to return to the matter at some future stage. Whichever powers we will have given to immigration officers or a border police force and whatever we have in future, this measure will be seen as a wasted opportunity. The net effect of the explanation that the Minister has been given and that he has given to the Committee is an impression that it is based on unwarranted complacency. He might be assured that there are no problems now—of course, I would disagree with that analysis—but even if one agrees with that view, it is clear that he must know that there will be problems in the future, and it seems perverse and short-sighted to neglect the opportunity to include this country’s small number of international railway stations under the protection provisions of the Bill.

I have heard what the Minister has to say and I have no desire to press the amendment to a vote, but I implore him to take this issue away and look again at it. I think that he will feel that it is in everyone’s best interest to change his mind on adding railway stations to ports and airports.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

There are two or three germane points here. The hon. Gentleman highlighted two specific issues. First, he said that there may be different and growing forms of people smuggling in the future, and he outlined the scenario of trains from Milan. The clauses relate not to foreign nationals and people smuggling but to British citizens. Secondly, the issues that he identified such as the evidence he receives from his own intelligence sources on the other side of the channel about the extent of passport checking will not be solved by equipping front-line immigration officers with different powers. Those issues will be solved by the right kind of investment in front-line immigration officers. That is why it is regrettable that in the not-too-distant past, the James review, one of many Conservative reports on immigration matters, suggested that the IND’s budget should be halved. That is the wrong direction to take. We need more investment in front-line immigration policing, not less.

Mr. Jackson rose—

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

The hon. Member for Peterborough is going to disown the James review.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I am gratified that the Minister takes such an avid interest in the prognostications of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which is as it should be, given that we will be forming the Government after the next general election.

On expenditure, is it not the case that under the comprehensive spending review the Home Office budget will be reduced in real terms? In fairness, the Minister is not in a position to lecture the Opposition about the priorities of Home Office funding on immigration.

Liam Byrne (Labour, Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not a cut, but a flat real-terms settlement in the Home Office. He will also know that tax revenue is not the sole source of finance for the immigration service, which draws some fraction of its income from the visa fees that we impose on foreign nationals. There is a timely debate to be had in the future about whether those visa fees are set at the right level or whether those who benefit most from coming to Britain and deciding that it should be their long-term home should pay slightly more for that privilege.

I want to return to two matters that are relevant to this debate. The problems that the hon. Member for Ashford identified should be solved not by additional powers, but by early investment. It is worth bearing in mind that policing at railway stations in the UK is already provided by a fine force called the British Transport police, which provides the service at Waterloo, and juxtaposed controls in Coquelles. Special branch maintains a presence, particularly to carry out terrorism work.

I am happy to reflect on the evidence that the hon. Member for Ashford can provide on this very serious issue. Border defences along the channel need to be as strong as possible. They have always needed to be strong in our history, and there is no reason why they should not need to be strong in the future. The amendment could safely be withdrawn as there are operational solutions that might be the remedy to the problem.

Damian Green (Conservative, Ashford)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.