Clause 28
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
5:30 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (also in the Home Office), Home Office; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
These are technical amendments to meet the stated policy intention to extend the independent, external scrutiny provided by the chief inspector to the question whether the Secretary of State and the director of border revenue are exercising their customs functions appropriately.
As drafted, subsection (4) has the unintended consequence of confining the chief inspector’s role to customs functions relating to offences and criminal proceedings. The amendments will ensure that the independent chief inspector’s powers in that respect extend to the broad range of the Secretary of State’s general customs functions and the director of border revenue’s revenue customs function, which was the original intention.