UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: Clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert— ““( ) The codes of practice issued in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (c. 60) shall apply in full to the statutory powers exercised by a designated immigration officer.”” The noble Lord said: In framing this amendment and in deciding how to present it, we are greatly indebted to Mr Richard Thomas, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers who, as Members of the Committee may appreciate, gave evidence to the Commons Standing Committee. The practice of hearing evidence in Standing Committee is one that we should consider for Grand Committee in this House, particularly on Bills that start at this end. I would be grateful for any observations that the Minister or the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, may care to make on that idea. If it seemed to have support from everyone in Grand Committee, it might be fed into the Procedure Committee or whoever is responsible for these matters at this end of the Corridor. The experiment in the other place was extremely successful and the expert evidence that was taken was valuable in informing subsequent discussions. I am sure that the same thing would happen if we had experts before us in Grand Committee here. The new powers introduced by Clauses 1 to 4 come without any corresponding regulatory or oversight frameworks, including provision for the introduction of prescribed codes of practice. Once an immigration officer has been designated, he or she will enjoy considerable power, covering not only detention but search and the use of reasonable force. Anyone who absconds from a designated immigration officer will commit an offence attracting a custodial sentence. The powers normally available to those who are not constables are contained in Section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and are more limited. This extension is part of a general trend to grant powers that are traditionally reserved for the police to those who have not received police training. In the 1999, 2002 and 2004 Acts, additional powers were given to immigration officers, but in none of those provisions was there any equivalent statutory code of conduct and training that has hitherto applied to police officers who are formally exercising the powers under the 1984 Act. Designated immigration officers will be acting in sensitive situations, where a wrong move could have serious political repercussions or harm extremely vulnerable people. Such considerations led to the PACE code of conduct in the first place and I think that on the whole, with some exceptions, that framework meant that the public had confidence in the way that the police exercised those powers. We want to ensure that, whatever powers are transferred from the police to immigration officers, there is no dilution in the standards that have applied to the operations concerned. In our opinion, this amendment is the right way to do that. However, if the Minister says, as we expect, that the PACE code of conduct is not applicable in its entirety to the powers of detention and search which are to be assumed by immigration officers, I hope he will point out the provisions in PACE that do not read across. I hope that he will explain why, after the Bill has been before Parliament for six months, we are no further forward in distinguishing between those parts of PACE that would apply and those that would not. Mr Richard Thomas, who, as I mentioned, gave evidence to the Standing Committee in another place, told the committee that, from his experience in prosecuting immigration offences, there were not enough trained immigration officers to do the new jobs being imposed on them by the Bill. That was placing a strain on the police and taking them away from the serious border crime that the public would want to see policed. He was not saying that immigration officers should not have the additional duties placed on them by the Bill but only that the work should be carried out within a framework equal or equivalent to PACE. Here we are, four months after he gave that evidence to the Standing Committee in another place, still none the wiser—for example, about how immigration officers would use force under Clause 2(4)—than when Mr Tony Smith, director of UK border control at the BIA, said in response to a question: "““I cannot tell you in detail what a use of force policy might look like at the border””." The Minister, Mr Liam Byrne, told the Standing Committee that there would be ““operational guidance””, which of course does not have the same legal force as a statutory code of conduct, but it was being discussed with organisations such as the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, ACPO, the Police Standards Unit and trade unions—particularly the Public and Commercial Services Union—which have to bear on the decision. Why is Parliament not included in these discussions? If the only reason for having a code of conduct that is not the same as PACE is that immigration officers are not being required to conduct investigations, as the Minister at the other end of the Corridor said, surely four months ought to have been enough to draft an amended code based on PACE to accommodate this distinction. If PACE protections such as recording facilities are not appropriate because nothing that an immigration officer says to a person when detaining or searching him, using reasonable force against him or handing him over to a police constable would be relevant in subsequent processes or inquiries—which is not quite as obvious to me as it was to the Minister—then the case needs to be argued and not taken for granted. And having decided on the code of conduct, there is then the question of what is the most appropriate and transparent form of oversight and scrutiny of the Immigration Service, including—as my noble friend Lord Dholakia said—the role of the IPCC, a matter which again another place left to be decided later, as we shall be considering on the next amendment. Unfortunately, the code of conduct is not to be subject to parliamentary approval. The Minister said that doing so would deny the Government the flexibility they needed to update those provisions at will, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, repeated again this afternoon. However, as the honourable Member Mr Damian Green pointed out, the whole purpose of Parliament is to approve or disapprove of proposals by the Executive. What the Government are trying to do here, in giving themselves absolute discretion over the code of conduct which is to govern the activities of immigration officers, is unacceptable, particularly when it comes on top of the three previous Bills which I mentioned and in which the powers of immigration officers have been extended without any accompanying code of conduct, let alone one that is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. In his maiden speech as Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown said this is to be a new Government, aiming for, "““change to build trust in government””." Let this be one of the first tests of whether he meant it. I beg to move.