UK Borders Bill

My Lords, of course I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, says, and I join in wishing him a very happy birthday. However, I have to say that this is why we have the usual channels. The usual channels hold discussions and come to an agreement, and then all noble Lords in this House comply. That is the basis on which this House works, and I respectfully suggest that it is the only basis on which it can do so. I am conscious that we have now spent a considerable amount of time talking about this issue, and we need to move on. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said that we must move forward without sentimentality but keep our humanity very much in mind. I strongly agree with him, and we believe that that is the process which the Government have adopted. It is not in the least surprising that there is a great deal of passion about these issues. We have heard a number of moving speeches, including those of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops’ Bench, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. But we also have to keep a sense of balance and proportion, which was shown in the speech of the noble Earl, who acknowledged just how far we have come since 1997 and the strenuous efforts which have been made by this Government to improve the system and make it clearer, fairer and swifter. I was pleased to note that that was acknowledged in part by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as well. So I was disappointed at the tone of some of the remarks about the Bill, such as that it is a ““bad Bill”” and a ““squalid Bill””, as well as some very deprecating comments about the bona fides of this Government. I assure the House that in looking at these issues the Government wholeheartedly believe in the words used in their document—fair, effective, transparent and trusted. Rebuilding confidence in our immigration system is essential. That is what we said when we published our document in July 2006 and that is what we believe. The Bill is the last part of a jigsaw and, after it is complete, there will be an opportunity for us to look at the issue of simplification. It is for that reason—I hope noble Lords noted it—that last week the Border and Immigration Agency launched a consultation on simplifying the immigration laws, something for which both Houses have been calling for some time. I would not, however, wish our discussions on the UK Borders Bill to be overshadowed by the fact that the important measures it contains will eventually be translated into new and comprehensive legislation. As I explained, the provisions in this Bill are a key part of the wider reform strategy for the agency, and the simplification project is designed to hone existing legislation and eradicate duplication. We will have an opportunity to consider that in good and proper time. We are setting out an ambitious agenda. Changes will not happen overnight—we have seen that in the past 10 years—but will be effected progressively as the agency continually focuses on performance. There have been significant transformations since even last year in how the Border and Immigration Agency deals with the deportation of foreign national prisoners. This has led to faster consideration of cases and a record high level of removals. The measures in this Bill will provide a framework to build further on this progress. So I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that the immigration system is still a mess. I acknowledge the kind comments that have been made in the past and today in relation to the improvements effected by the new system. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and others commented on the improvements in training and the way in which we have dealt with that. A number of significant issues have been raised and I shall try to deal with as many as I can. Noble Lords should know that I have a detailed answer on every issue that has been raised but I am going to be extremely kind to your Lordships by not giving you all of those answers. However, I hope that I shall give you sufficient to indicate that not only have I been listening, but I have made a very careful note of everything that your Lordships have said. We will continue in the same way as we approach other Bills in the Home Office; we are very happy to have meetings. Indeed, I was glad that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned the meeting that was held yesterday, when many of us were in Committee on another Bill, with my honourable friend Liam Byrne to deal with some of these anxieties. He is very happy to do that. I turn now to some of the issues that have caused and excited some attention. The border police force was first raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and echoed by the noble Lords, Lord Henley, Lord Avebury and Lord Dholakia. The border management programme, which includes the police, customs and immigration, is our preferred approach to strengthen border security. Creating a single agency is likely to be disruptive and the international experience is that agency specialisation in drug detection and people smuggling can be lost, and we know the importance of retaining such expertise. We are trying to achieve a system where the border agencies can co-operate and operate in a beneficial, interchangeable way. We believe the Bill will enable us to do that. Immigration officers will act in support of police, not on their behalf. That is a very important distinction. Many existing police codes are not relevant to this power. In cases where they are, such as the operating procedures for immigration officers, we will make clear precisely what is expected of them, so we will have some clarity and delineation, a theme that I know has always echoed loud with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. We will make draft operating procedures available for Committee and publish the final documents once they are agreed with police colleagues, so noble Lords will see what we have in mind. I was asked questions by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and my noble friend Lord Judd, with all his usual passion, commitment and devotion to this subject. I honour all those who have walked so steadfastly with this subject, notwithstanding its difficulties. I therefore hear the comments that have been made around the House about the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Clauses 1 to 4 and how immigration officers’ power to detain should be retained. We will be able to look at that and the issues that have been mentioned with regard to PACE. We do not believe it is necessary or appropriate, for instance, for immigration officers exercising powers under those clauses to be subject to PACE codes of practice, but the power to detain is specifically intended to support the police, as I have discussed. We will be looking at the safeguards and how we should move forward. We were asked—among others, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, my noble friend Lord Judd, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester raised this issue—why the Bill does not contain a specific timeframe for the consideration of deportation. We agree that it is important to serve a deportation order at the earliest possible opportunity to avoid detaining foreign nationals here unnecessarily at the end of their sentences. We will draft provisions to deal with the issue. Our current target is to consider deportation within the six months ahead of release, so that before they are released there will be a determination. We hope that these issues will assist. I assure the House that we will look carefully at the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights about the Bill. I am grateful to the committee for its report, which sets out some important issues that we will have to address, and the Government will produce a written response to it. I am happy to say that we will cover arguments in detail in Committee, such as police codes, oversight of detention and the potential for de facto racial profiling through the biometric provision—something I know the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and I are particularly keen to ensure that we address, but there are others in the House who have the same attention to detail. There are a number of noble Lords who will deal with this, not least the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who I see sitting in his place. There is also the question of why there is no specific timeframe. We will come back to these important issues, as I am sure they will have to be discussed. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked for evidence on illegal working and biometrics. The evidence provided by National Car Parks, a national UK employer, at the public evidence session in the other place clearly indicated that employers are often presented with forged documents. Our own experience bears that out. Forged documents take many different forms: the use of counterfeit documents that are totally false; documents where the page containing the person’s details has been substituted; documents in which a false stamp like a UK visa has been inserted; the use of stolen blank documents; the use of documents that have been issued by an authority but have been fraudulently obtained; and the use of documents by lookalikes or impostors. We have had to face all those issues. I will be able to give the noble Baroness some details about that. Three hundred and fifty-five counterfeit documents were detected by immigration enforcement staff between January and October 2006. Two hundred and twenty-six documents with substituted bio-pages and 161 with falsified stamps were detected in the same period. I hope she gets a flavour of the enormity of the problem we will face. The biometric immigration document will be looked at very carefully. It is an extension of the existing powers, where those subject to immigration control are issued with proof of their status. Public officials who ask to see biometric immigration documents must clearly do so in accordance with the Race Relations Act and Article 14 of the ECHR. I know that we will come back to that. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, referred, among a number of issues, to the view of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of victims of trafficking. I mentioned the victims of trafficking in my opening remarks. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary signed the European convention against human trafficking on 23 March. We made absolutely clear our commitment and published a UK action plan. Amendments to legislation will be required but we need to get this right because we all have the same intent. If we are unable to do that, we have to make sure that the articles of the convention can be implemented successfully, which will inevitably take time. But we are concentrating on implementation. I heard very clearly what the noble Baroness and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said about the reasons that would be used for deportation. We need to look at the schedule, because they do make sense. We will be able to explore why we say that when we consider this further. I ask noble Lords to acknowledge that the question of resources and how we are dealing with the legacy are being dealt with expeditiously and that we are coming to grips with them. The programme is under way, with the aim of dealing with cases within the five-year period specified by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the IND review on 25 July last year. We are prioritising those cases which may be a risk to the public and will then focus on those who can more easily be removed. Thus, I hope we can decide each case speedily but also on its merits. The chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency will be providing an update to the Home Affairs Committee in due course. I was not surprised that there was a great deal of concentration on how we deal with children. I hope that I was able to indicate that the Government take this issue very seriously. We remain of the view that it is proportionate not to grant a right of appeal to the tribunal where asylum is refused but leave of 12 months or less is granted on other grounds—for example, discretionary leave granted to children. If a child seeks further leave when the discretionary leave ends and it is still considered that they merit asylum, that claim can be considered again. If refused on appeal, right would then exist. There are other, deeper issues about how safeguarding should work. What about the provisions of Section 9? We were asked about the pilots that came to an end in December 2005; I think that that is the right date, but I will check it. There has been no further use of those pilots since. There is a lot for us to think about, a lot of work to do. I hope that when we have an opportunity to reflect on those provisions in a mature and considered way, we will be able to look again at how we can move this issue forward. We do not remove children from the United Kingdom unless adequate reception and accommodation arrangements exist in their country of origin.