Clause 3
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
We may be in danger of going over ground that we have already trodden on, but it cannot be trodden on too often. These two amendments deal with the importance of training those who exercise powers. The clause deals with the designation of general customs officials, and we seek to ensure that only properly trained immigration officers may be designated as general customs officials. There were good debates about this in the other place.
The Minister has told us in detail what powers there are and what training is given, and that has been helpful, but it is relevant to consider the wider point that we need a consistent approach at our borders, including various ports and airports. In that context, the hon. Member for Midlothian’s intervention was very good. Even before we get to the debate about the border police, we are anxious that there should be proper training, so that we can be confident that the people who exercise powers do so well. We also want the powers to be exercised consistently at all places. A consideration that is always uppermost in our mind is the opportunity for immigration and customs crimes to be committed relatively easily at some smaller ports and airports, which inevitably do not have the permanent infrastructure of those at Heathrow, Dover, Harwich and the big airports in Scotland to which he referred. In seeking to assure ourselves that there is adequate training, we are conscious that we want the job to become perhaps slightly more difficult in future because we will need a more mobile force than we have at present.
We will need part of the Border Agency or the border police, whichever institution is actually carrying out those important functions. We will want people who are not just sitting in one place, but are able to get out and plug the loopholes that we all know are there and, more dangerously, that some of the world’s international criminals know are there. I dare say that I am telling the Minister nothing he does not already know, because I am sure that he is as concerned as I am about the possible use of small ports and airports for smuggling and immigration crime.
I would like to put to the Minister one of the points made in another place by my noble Friend Lady Hanham, who, when discussing the provision allowing powers to be given to “any other official” of the Secretary of State, asked what kind of considerations would be used in such cases, because an extremely wide power is being slipped through in the clause. Having the ability simply to add the function of customs official to any official of the Secretary of State makes one’s eyebrows rise. In practice, we all know, or at least hope, that Ministers and the senior management of the agency would seek to add those functions only for appropriate officials, but a degree of reassurance from the Minister would be helpful at this stage in our scrutiny.
The Minister has already said that 4,500 Revenue and Customs officers are being transferred and will no longer be officers of HMRC, and that part of the clause’s purpose is to redesignate them so that they can continue to exercise the customs functions they currently carry out in addition to the immigration functions he is seeking to add. We have heard about the training of immigration officers, so it would be useful to have detail about the training of the customs officers as well. In another place the Minister’s noble Friend Lord West said that he did not believe it was necessary to appoint those who transfer from HMRC as immigration officers first. I hope that the Minster will expand on why the Government believe that that is unnecessary, because it would clearly act as some kind of check.
While we are discussing the amendment, this would be an appropriate time for the Minister to give us an update on the progress of the merger of the organisations, because he will be more aware than I am that HMRC and UKBA are two very separate organisations with different cultures that he is trying to bring together. One hears of stresses and strains, which is not surprising and is entirely normal, but certainly those stresses and strains are there. While we are passing the legislation that will make permanent that merger and put it on a statutory footing, it would be instructive for the Committee to know what is happening on the ground. Are those different groups of people, with their different training, backgrounds and organisational cultures, actually working together smoothly, or could that be best described as a work in progress? Many key practical issues are brought up by these apparently minor amendments, so I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that all proper things are being done to ensure that the borders are being made more secure on the ground.