UK Borders Bill

From my selfish point of view, I welcome the fact that Mr. Speaker did not impose time limits in the debate. However, that is also indicative of the fact that this major piece of legislation has not attracted as much competition among Members to speak as is often the case in this House. Does that show that this legislature has become weary of such piecemeal legislation dealing with the whole question of combating illegal immigration, ensuring the rights of people with genuine refugee problems and so forth? There is a need for a consolidation Act, but we should ensure that it is a good Act and that it undergoes full and rigorous parliamentary scrutiny if and when it appears before us in about a year’s time. I have been present all afternoon and I remember that earlier, I perhaps inadvertently irritated my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I assure her that I did so unintentionally, but it is very important that the legislation undergo considerable scrutiny not only in Committee but on Second Reading. It must do so because it is extremely important to secure the integrity of our borders and to police our ports of entry in one way or another, and we have not fulfilled that task adequately in recent times. I represent 14 miles of river frontage on the Thames estuary, the biggest part of which is the port of Tilbury—there are other wharves along that stretch—and I have seen the consequences of its being a serious port of entry. On Friday evenings, some 60 per cent. of the people who come to see me do so in relation to Home Office issues: papers being lost, immigration, refugee status and so on. It used not to be like that; the number of such cases has increased since I became a Member of Parliament. I feel passionately, as do many hon. Members, that we need to get things correct, and we are not doing so at the moment. When there was a Conservative Government and it was unfashionable to suggest a borders police, I advocated the idea, but it was dismissed by—I think—the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). Now, half the House of Commons is with me, but unfortunately it is the wrong half. I hope that after one more push, people might come to see the compelling logic of having such a dedicated police force. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker)—one of those people who are paid large sums of money and cannot say anything here—muttered to me in friendliness, sotto voce, ““You’re not suggesting that there should be 24-hour cover in all the ports around the United Kingdom, are you?”” I say that what we want is the possibility of 24-hour cover. If we had a highly mobile and dedicated force with all the available technology, it would be possible, and it does not happen at present. That is the compelling logic. There is technology that allows containers to be screened, but by and large it operates in many key ports only between the hours of 9 and 5. The ports, however, are 24-hour operations. Although such technology is not available everywhere, it could be moved around. If we had a dedicated borders police—I prefer to call them police because people understand that term, but the terminology is not terribly important—they could have all the powers that we are vesting in the various people referred to in the Bill. They could pursue and detect, and work with Home Office, Scots and Irish forces to ensure that wrongdoing such as people-smuggling or the smuggling of illegal goods is combated both in and out of the ports; it has to be a two-way process. They would also be a great weapon against the potential for terrorism through our ports. I appeal to the Government to reflect on the matter, or at least to take on board the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who is unfortunately not in his place. He said that we should use this legislation as an opportunity to give powers to all the various agencies, so that they have interoperability. Immigration officers, customs and excise, the ports police—where they exist—the Home Office police forces and forces in Scotland would then have comparable powers. I might have misunderstood my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—she can clarify the matter when she speaks at the Dispatch Box—but she looked concerned or surprised when I told her of the following example. If a Kent or an Essex police officer has reasonable cause to believe that a person is an illegal immigrant, their instructions are that they must tell them—if they can convey the point; sometimes they use a card—to go to Lunar House, Croydon. That is not the way to combat illegal immigration. The port of Tilbury has a small dedicated police force. It does not have the critical mass of a national border police, who would have better technology and mobility, criminal investigation departments and forensic back-up, but it works very hard. One or two ports do have port police and they could be the model for a national force. Those local port police do their best. On 23 January, the Port of Tilbury police detained three immigrants at the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry, which remains part of the port of Tilbury but is outside the customs boundary fence. The police believed that the three had entered the UK on the Ostend ferry, which arrives at Tilbury twice a day. The three were taken to the port police station, and the immigration officer for the port of Tilbury was contacted. Two immigration officers attended the port police station, but when the facts were relayed to them, they informed the police officers that it was outside their remit, as the immigrants had been found outside the port boundary. The matter would have to be dealt with by immigration at Stansted airport. The Port of Tilbury police tell me that in the past other illegal immigrants whom they have found within the curtilage of the port have been dealt with promptly. They have either been repatriated or allowed to remain in the UK, under controlled conditions, while their case was investigated. However, on the eve of the introduction of this legislation to the House of Commons it appears that the immigration service at Stansted—which I find unsatisfactory in several respects—is going the opposite way to Ministers. The Port of Tilbury police told me about an occasion on which nine immigrants were put on the ferry and sent back to Ostend, but that is not happening now. After the immigration people at the port of Tilbury said that the incident on 23 January was nothing to do with them, the understandably frustrated but diligent police officers contacted immigration at Stansted and informed it that three illegal immigrants had been taken into custody. After one and a half hours, the police were told that no immigration officers would attend and that the immigrants would have to be released. The Port of Tilbury police told me that they released the people following the receipt of a fax with those instructions. There is grave concern that the serious lack of co-ordination between the areas of jurisdiction of the immigration service is undermining the intentions of Ministers. I conveyed this story to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality, who said, unreservedly, that it was unacceptable. The story buttresses my case for a border police who would deal with all such matters, so there would be no misunderstanding. I also became concerned when the Minister said that he intended to regionalise the immigration service. The estuary of the River Thames covers three Government regions: Greater London, the south-east and the eastern region. For some reason, I am in the same patch as Cambridge and Peterborough. If the Minister does intend to take that approach, I hope that he will, exceptionally, break the existing boundaries and ensure that the Thames estuary is in one patch. Otherwise, the confusion will remain and we will see repeats of the incident on 23 January.