Clause 2
UK Borders Bill
4:30 pm
Damian Green (Shadow Minister (Immigration), Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
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.