UK Borders Bill

I am glad that the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Avebury, have tabled the amendments and shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response. As we have heard, the Bill will allow designated immigration officers to detain people for up to three hours and use reasonable force so to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, highlighted, the Joint Committee on Human Rights has expressed concern at the lack of scrutiny and transparency in drawing up the standard operating procedures that will attempt to prevent the powers being abused. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for drawing attention to the remarks made by my honourable friend Damian Green in the other place. He asked what Parliament is for if not to approve codes of practice. That was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. On these Benches, we are not yet convinced that the committee’s recommendation to extend PACE codes to these officials is the best way forward. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, would turn immigration officers into even more of a quasi-police force than the Bill already does, but without the training or expertise of police officers. Illegal immigration is a long-running and complex issue, yet this Government’s approach continues to be a series of badly-thought-out patch jobs. They tweak the system here, add on a bit there and hope that one day they will be magically close to the last loophole and then everything will run smoothly. That is not the way to do it. If the Government listened to Conservative proposals for a dedicated, trained and targeted border police force, these difficulties could be properly resolved before the legislation is introduced. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain what safeguards there will be to prevent immigration officials acting inappropriately, but I do not believe that he will be able to satisfy the valid concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and of noble Lords who have already spoken while the Government’s approach to immigration continues in this direction.