UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment. I, too, am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for spelling out in detail why this issue is important. These are very wide powers of arrest if they include—as they seem to—the power to strip search people. There is tremendous scope for individual judgment. We have already heard that interpreters may be used. Therefore, we are talking about situations where people do not immediately understand each other. There is a possibility of racial profiling. Why would it be such a bad idea for the standard operating procedures to reach the standard of the PACE codes? Why would it be a bad thing if Code G of the PACE codes was in place, explaining that the power to detain interferes with the right to liberty and should be used only when the necessary objectives cannot be met by other less intrusive means? I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour. It seems to me that immigration officers are protected as well if they work within a clear framework such as the PACE codes, which have stood the test of time, and where there can be no misunderstanding about what is acceptable practice when people are detained and subjected to invasive procedures such as strip searching.