UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour. On Report—again, on 9 October, at col. 161—the Minister was very clear when he said that immigration officers are not a devolved matter. The other reassuring element that he emphasised is that the power of arrest for assault will be transferred to immigration officers throughout the United Kingdom. The Minister went on to try to explain: "““It is in the conferral of functions that police officers engage in a devolution issue, in the sense that they will act in Scotland to support the Immigration Service””.—[Official Report, 9/10/07; col. 161.]" That phrase skirts around the question; ““a devolution issue”” does not pin down for us whether it is a devolved issue or a reserved issue. However, so far so good; the police are to act in support of immigration officials, as they do now and, as this Bill seems to contend, they will do so for some long time. As my noble friend said, we have been led to believe that, with the best will in the world, the legislation will not be put forward before March 2009. Unfortunately, it appears that we did not go into the fine detail of the powers required for immigration when we debated paragraph 7 of Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act. So it is all the more important that our discussion today should make the issue absolutely plain. When this provision was before the House, we looked at other aspects to which it applied. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, said: "““We fully accept the importance of ensuring that in all parts of the UK there is a common system to govern””.—[Official Report, 21/7/98; col. 869.]" In this case, she was referring to the import of illegal drugs, but perhaps the Minister can understand why some of us are puzzled about why the Government have had a change of heart when it comes to immigration officers. We are told that the Scottish Parliament will legislate, but Clauses 1 to 4 deal with the powers of immigration officers, not those of the police. Can the Minister explain a little more about the mechanism that is proposed to achieve this transfer of powers in the Scottish context? I am sure that the Minister is aware that Section 29 of the Scotland Act says: "““An Act of the Scottish Parliament is not law so far as any provision of the Act is outside the legislative competence of the Parliament””." Surely if the Scottish Parliament passed a Bill conveying the same powers as are in this Bill, further down the line a smart immigration lawyer will take an appeal, as is allowed under Section 102 of the Scotland Act, to ““any court or tribunal”” and contend that in this matter the Scottish Parliament is ultra vires. We will be back to calling on the supervisory powers of the Court of Session to try to sort it out. The mischievous side of my nature says that if Scottish law is currently considered adequate to enforce our borders, what is so deficient in English law as to make Clauses 1 to 4 necessary? Of course, in principle, our party is anxious to see that our borders are regulated as properly as they can be. If any other route of allocating powers is used, surely it will mean that immigration officers will not have the same powers in Scotland as they have in the rest of the UK. The only way to guarantee that they have the same powers is to pass my noble friend’s amendment.