Clause 4
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm

Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 4, page 4, line 29, at end insert—

‘(3A) Any designation made under section 3 must be approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.

This is a short amendment. I will not weary the Committee by repeating the speech that I made earlier about the importance of parliamentary scrutiny, but in essence the same argument applies, and I seek to probe the Minister’s attitude. As hon. Members will see, this is the designation clause. It deals with the different facts that allow a designation to be made, the limits that are put on it, the fact that it can be permanent or for a specified period, and the functions that can be conferred through a designation.

The key point is that the

“power to designate, or to withdraw or vary a designation”—

in other words, all the powers associated with the clause—

“is exercised by the Secretary of State giving notice to the official in question.”

In essence, the Secretary of State is given powers to do all the things that Secretaries of State do in such cases.

In the amendment, we are once again seeking a precautionary measure. I hope, and indeed expect, that the provisions would almost never need to be exercised, but our proposals would provide a further small check so that any action proposed under the wide powers that the clause gives the Secretary of State could be undertaken only with the Parliament’s approval.

I put that in the context of the relatively broad nature of the Government’s plans in this area. We are beginning to tease out some of the details. The Bill gives the Secretary of State very broad powers, and it is not immediately apparent—certainly not from the Bill—how they will be exercised in practice and in detail. The amendment would simply give Parliament some say and some check on how those powers are worked out and how they will operate in practice.

If the current or any future Secretary of State exercises the powers of designation in a reasonable and sensible way, the power in the amendment need never be brought into practical use. However, it would be useful to have it, and it would, once again, increase Parliament’s ability to scrutinise the effects of the Bill.

Phil Woolas (Minister of State (also in the Home Office), Home Office; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)

As the Committee might expect, I ask it to resist the amendment. Again, I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intent. I study Opposition amendments to Bills carefully, and this one falls into the category of “can’t think of anything to say, so we’ll get Parliament to approve it.”

The fact of the matter is that the designation power under the clause allows the Secretary of State—but, in practice, the management of the UK Border Agency—to designate officials. It is intended to provide flexibility in the designation of general customs officials. Again, we are not talking about revenue powers. In practice, not all our officials will need all the powers of an HMRC officer. Some will be employed on functions that will not require them to have a full set of powers; for example, officials responsible for the customs clearance of international post and parcels would not require the powers of questioning and/or of searching passengers, for obvious reasons.

Accordingly, we need some flexibility in that regard. The effect of the amendment would be that the designation of all our officials would have to come before Parliament. We have 4,500 HMRC officials moving over, and we  already have 2,000 immigration officials. I suggest to the Committee that we really do not want to have to do that job; it is the job of the Executive, not the legislature. The power is there in the Bill. To be fair, the intent of the hon. Member for Ashford was that the House could have that power. The effect of his amendment would be to enforce the House’s use of that power. I ask that we have the powers to designate officials but that we do not give that to ourselves to do in the House.

Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation, although he is being dangerously provocative when he suggests that we tabled the amendment because we could not think of anything else. If he is challenging me to find amendments on clauses for which we have not yet found amendments, he can rest assured that we can be extremely fertile in that field if necessary. As ever, Sir Nicholas, you can be reassured that I seek only to improve the legislation. There are clauses that are improved by amending and clauses on which we are happy to have a clause stand part debate.

I take the Minister’s point that there are things that the Executive should do and things that the legislature should do. Nevertheless, it is worth making the general point that the balance between the Executive and the legislature is out of joint and, in a sense, it is relatively easy for people to make the statement that we need grand schemes of reform to change it, but often it is the use of the process that does not work. It is in the detailed scrutiny of Bills that the legislature can make some difference, but we seek to do so not often enough, and that is part of the problem. I appreciate that I am now treading towards the tram lines of what is acceptable, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.