Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I certainly will provide a note to explain that; it was explained to me only earlier today, as I was unaware of it before. This amendment would seriously impair the abilities of officials in the border force to perform their customs revenue functions. The Bill ensures that, by conferring them on the Director of Border Revenue, existing functions of the commissioners for revenue and customs may be delegated to others. Future enactments may, however, confer additional functions on the director and we believe it right that they should also be able to delegate those. Even where a function is delegated by the director, Clause 9(3) requires them to maintain considerable control over how any delegated function is exercised, and requires the person to whom it is delegated to, "““comply with the directions of the Director””," in that respect. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the director should be able to delegate functions granted to him or her under enactments other than the Bill. If any functions conferred in future enactments are so important that only the director must exercise them, those enactments can provide for it and preclude any form of delegation—that could be done if we felt it was so important. The sorts of functions that the commissioners currently delegate are the transport, custody and disposal of overseas goods and the transport of cash. The director will need similar flexibility in respect of any functions conferred by enactments other than in the Bill. For this reason I hope that the noble Viscount will agree that this amendment is inappropriate and that he will feel able to withdraw it.