The Minister is kindly going through all the clauses not knowing where I might challenge them on a clause stand part debate. I have been letting him drift on because it is nice that he is able to read out his brief, but perhaps I may pick up on a couple of points that I would have made during a clause stand part debate.
Clause 29 seems to follow more or less exactly the provisions in the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005, when those powers were given to the commissioners. Are there any differences here? When legislation is amended or chunks of it are taken out in new legislation, I think that it is beyond the wit of most of us to get into a detailed examination of the legislation it has come from. I have looked at the 2005 Act and I want to be clear about Clause 29 in that the power here is to undertake the prosecution of offenders. Would that power extend to the Director of Revenue and Customs being able to bring in lawyers and barristers, or would the people dealing with such cases come from in-house? Are these matters contracted out for prosecution purposes or are they always handled internally? I ask that because subsection (2) gives a list of the people to whom subsection (1), which assigns the function of the institution of criminal proceedings, applies. Subsection (2) then delegates further from the Director of Revenue to others who are responsible for dealing with matters which obviously will go to court. It would be helpful to know where the buck stops in the institution of legal proceedings, and who then is brought in to conduct those legal proceedings.
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Hanham
(Conservative)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 25 February 2009.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL].
About this proceeding contribution
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2008-09Chamber / Committee
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