I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and I shall return briefly to EU issues in a moment.
I shall not rehearse too much the argument raised earlier about the immigration officer powers in the Bill, but I hope that we can explore in Committee whether there should be a greater alignment of immigration and customs officer powers. Let us imagine that a car arrives with one British citizen, one foreign national, a quantity of cigarettes and some money. The reality is that if there is an immigration officer and a customs officer, one will be able to detain one of those citizens, and the other will be able to detain the other. One will have the power to confiscate the car and the cigarettes, and the other will not, and an assumption about where the money came from will determine which of them is able to confiscate the money. That is a slightly fatuous example, but all sorts of practical problems will arise.
UK Borders Bill
Proceeding contribution from
John Denham
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Monday, 5 February 2007.
It occurred during Debate on bills on UK Borders Bill.
About this proceeding contribution
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456 c615-6 Session
2006-07Chamber / Committee
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