Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

In his answer to me the Minister said that the Channel Islands have always been permitted to do what we are providing for here. I always get a little nervous dealing with this issue. The Ministry of Justice memorandum says that the most recent statement of the constitutional relationship is to be found in part 11 of volume 1 of the report of the Royal Commission on the Constitution, published in 1973. When I first came into this House and asked a question on the relationship of the Crown dependencies, a senior official from Jersey demanded to come and see me the next week and said that I should understand that Jersey had been a low-tax area since 1204. Indeed, the 1973 report, which I have not obtained and which is very difficult to find in the Library, takes us immediately back to 1204, but life and movement across borders has changed a little since 1204 and has changed a great deal since 1973. Some of our arrangements may need to adjust as well. We need to know a good deal more about how adequate the border staffing is in the Crown dependencies. It would be helpful to know how many UK Border Agency staff are posted there. I was interested to discover not long ago that the numbers of UK Border Agency staff posted in France is now in the high hundreds. Do we have people posted to the Crown dependencies? The point that my noble friend Lord Avebury emphasised was that, five years ago, very few people were arriving on Greek islands and, 10 years ago, very few people were arriving on the Italian islands. This is not a hypothetical case. As we have all seen, human trafficking patterns and illegal migration patterns move very quickly, and one has to be willing to respond. I shall withdraw the amendment, but it seems to me that there are a great many questions to which we shall need to hear answers if we are not to divide the House at Report stage. Amendment 120 withdrawn. Amendments 121 to 123 not moved. Clause 53, as amended, agreed.