Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

moved Amendment No. 64A:"Page 21, line 39, leave out subsection (5)." The noble Lord said: Clause 40 deals with contracting-out searches and detention for up to three hours at a port of entry, and the use of reasonable force for those purposes. These powers are to be applied to passengers arriving in the United Kingdom, again under Schedule 2 of the 1971 Act—I comment in passing that we hope that this will be an opportunity to make that schedule an exercise in consolidation so that we do not have to look in half a dozen different places—or at the ports of entry on the coasts of Europe where there are juxtaposed controls, as was explained by Andy Burnham in Standing Committee E, where it may be cheaper to use contractors, although he did not quite put it like that. We have concerns about handing these powers of detention to private contractors in any circumstances but particularly where they are going to be operating abroad, where it will be difficult for Parliament, the media and the public to monitor their conduct. Clause 41 provides for the appointment of someone called the monitor to look at the exercise of powers by private contractors, but that removes the direct responsibility from the Secretary of State, as with the private contractors who are already engaged in running prisons, immigration detention centres and detainee escorting. As we all know, it is far more difficult for Parliament to examine misconduct or maladministration in regard to these contracted-out functions than it was when they were operated directly by the Home Office or its own subsidiaries, as it were. We believe that contracting out of these functions is a matter that should receive careful consideration by this Committee. At the moment detainee custody officers authorised under Section 154 of the 1999 Act have no power to detain but merely to look after a person who has been detained by an immigration officer. They have to be individually authorised by the Secretary of State, who issues a certificate that they are competent and fit and proper persons and that they have received training which the Secretary of State considers appropriate, whereas under these proposals it would be possible to authorise all the employees of a particular company without regard to their individual suitability or the level of their training. How can the Secretary of State think that all the members of such a group are fit and proper persons if there is no requirement to certify them individually? Immigration officers have to conform to the PACE code of practice under Section 145 of the 1999 Act when arresting, questioning, searching or taking fingerprints from a person and when collecting physical data about the person. They must observe such provisions of the PACE code as may be specified. Paradoxically, it appears that there is no code at all applying to detentions under Clause 40(7)(c), as Mr McNulty said in reply to my honourable friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon in Standing Committee, but they still seem to be bound by PACE under Clause 40(7)(a) when they search the person, or when they question him to establish whether an item that they wish to retain following the search is subject to legal privilege under Clause 40(8). If these powers are now to be exercised by private contractors, it is even more important for us to establish under what code of practice they are supposed to operate. If it is not PACE, perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us what alternative code of practice is to be specified, because I do not see any mention of it in the Bill. As the Minister knows—I am sure that other Members of the Committee will comment on this point—the Refugee Children’s Consortium is particularly anxious about the possible risks to children inherent in these proposals. Contractors’ staff, who are not trained to the same standards as immigration officers, and who may have no experience of working with children, are likely to be given power to detain and search children, working to who knows what code of conduct, outside our jurisdiction and under the intermittent supervision of a monitor whose terms of reference will be set out in secondary legislation that we have yet to see. We emphatically challenge the notion that private contractors should be allowed to detain anyone for three hours, but especially a child. Our Amendments Nos. 64A and 64B would provide that only police officers or officers of the Revenue and Customs have these powers. Amendment No. 64C would do the same for detention. Our Amendment No. 65 to Clause 41 would remove the power of the Secretary of State to give blanket authorisation to whole classes of persons to detain and search without ascertaining the individual suitability or competence of its members—a good way of ensuring that some future Secretary of State will have to answer for bad apples, as Ms Kelly is now having to do in another context. The Government want to save money by delivering a low-waged, inadequately trained, poorly supervised service, and not for the first time I wish that the Committee had some tangible means of stopping them going down that route. The creeping privatisation of services involving the deprivation of people’s liberty is taking a step too far, and this is the point at which it ought to be stopped. I beg to move.