Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

Before the Minister responds, I accept that he has said that the proposal has not been ruled out for some point in the future, but we think that we need to proceed with that option as a matter of some urgency. Amendment 18 would allow for a very small step towards that important, wider aim of a border police force, by giving the Secretary of State the power to designate a police officer as somebody who can exercise general customs functions. That is the nub of the amendment's desirability, because we want the different expertise that is available to police, immigration and customs officers to be brought together at our borders so that it can all be effective. It is easy to illustrate the importance of greater effectiveness at our borders. We know that our porous borders are a significant contributor to a number of crimes—not just illegal immigration, but drug trafficking, people trafficking and, at the margin, terrorism. We know that 60 per cent. of the illegal immigrants who are in the UK arrived through illegal means. Although the practice of overstaying by people who have arrived here legally is a significant problem, it is less significant than the problem of those who get through our border controls illegally. We can discuss people trafficking in more detail when we consider a later clause, but, by most calculations, its economic and social costs to the UK amount to more than £1 billion a year. We know also that weapons are increasingly smuggled through our badly protected borders, and the regrettable increase in gun crime has been fuelled by a supply of weapons that have entered the UK, particularly from eastern Europe. The Metropolitan police commander, Cressida Dick, has said that three quarters of firearms used by UK criminals are converted replica and imitation guns, and that most of them are smuggled in from eastern Europe. The Minister, in a fit of honesty that he may come to regret—[Interruption.] It is a common fit that comes over him. He has said that""we have, compared to other rich countries, been liberal in our border controls"." I hope that he recognises that quotation. He will be pleased to hear that I agree: that is one of the mistakes that the Government have made. I hope that the House agrees with me on amendment 18 and supports the step it takes towards a much more collective effort at the borders. One reason for tabling the amendment is our knowledge that the specialisation of police services is effective in fighting new types of crime. Such specialisation is the way in which policing is going, and that is why we welcome the proposals from Lord Stevens, who, after conducting a review of our overall border security arrangements, concluded that only a unified force can protect our borders. As I have said, a future Conservative Government would create a national border police force to replace the current inadequate system, but, in the meantime, through the amendment we seek to take a step towards that by extending the general customs function to police officers. Let me widen the scope of my remarks a little and return to the point about appropriate training, because the question whether these important powers are exercised by appropriately trained people lies at the heart of the debate about changes within the UK Border Agency and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. As I said, there is no great divide across the House about that because the Minister and I agree that existing functions are subject to too great a diversity, sometimes an incoherence, on account of people exercising different powers at the border, and we want more cross-cutting powers. However, before we achieve that, and while the powers are being shared and spread around—as they would be under the amendment and, to some extent, under amendments in this group tabled by other hon. Members—it is legitimate to ask about the new functions that they represent and who would exercise them. Customs officials' powers, which are extremely broad, are already being shared out to immigration officers, and the Minister will be aware that customs officers can already undertake a wide range of extremely intrusive activities. The threshold of reasonable suspicion needed for an officer to take enforcement activity is, rightly, very low, and that activity can relate to a combination of things, including the origin of a person's journey, their clothing, and the quantity of luggage that they are carrying. That is why I emphasise the need for only properly trained people to be allowed to exercise those powers, which in some cases, are greater than the average powers that a police officer can exercise. The amendment would allow the Secretary of State to designate police officers to do that such work. Of course, we accept that that in itself could entail extra training for the police officers involved, but the ability to exercise those cross-cutting powers would make it worth investing in that training. If we do not progress down the route towards a national border police force, we are in danger of giving increasingly extensive powers to people who may not be properly trained to exercise them, so that in an effort to make our borders safer, which nobody could object to, we could end up inconveniencing the travelling public. I am sure that we all agree that that would be undesirable.