Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I shall speak briefly to this group of amendments on border functions. Before I come to our amendments, I should like to comment on those tabled by the Conservatives, starting with amendment 18, which would allow a police officer to be designated in relation to general customs functions. There is agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats on the need for a UK border force, although there is some difference of opinion about precisely what responsibilities and roles such a force would have. I doubt that the Conservatives intend to press amendment 18 to a vote, as a little more preparation would be required than a simple reference to a police officer in order for the Bill to reflect the entirety of the requirements of a fully fledged UK border force. The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) was quite right to stress the importance of training—a matter we discussed at some length in Committee, and we sought assurances that the funding and appropriate level of training would be available for staff. Amendment 20 would entail a review every six months of the short-term holding facilities, and I view it as a valuable probing amendment. Given the difficulties highlighted in some short-term holding facilities—the hon. Member for Ashford spoke about Heathrow and Gatwick for starters—the issue clearly needs to be kept under review. The hon. Gentleman outlined what was theoretically available in the short-term holding facilities. Without wanting to stray into a debate about mental health services, I wish that the level of provision available there were matched by that in many mental health hospitals, but having had an engaged dialogue with my local trust to secure just one additional newspaper in a similar facility, I know that it is not. However, I would like to see those facilities rolled out in other places as well. Whether police inspectors should be allowed to take on the role of the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency was, coincidentally, discussed in the Home Affairs Select Committee earlier today. One aspect of the chief inspector's role that was underlined there was the importance of ensuring that he is perceived as being completely independent of government. It was suggested that he should not have an e-mail address with the term ".gov" in it and that he should have the word "independent" on his letterhead. There must be certainty about the degree of independence, which is an issue that can be resolved, and our proposals for a UK border force need to ensure that independence is maintained. Police inspectors must be seen to be completely independent of government in the same way as we expect the chief inspector of UKBA to be completely independent of government. Our amendment (a) to new clause 2 welcomes the fact that Government lawyers spotted the possibility of certain difficulties arising in designating prisons and police cells as short-term holding facilities. One occasionally wonders how legislation arrives in such a form. I do not know whether the responsible official is here today and sitting in the Box, but it is strange the way these things happen, and it is fortunate that in this case it was spotted before the legislation went through. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that we are only human, and Ministers are also only human, so I welcome this change. Amendment (a) is designed to provide even greater clarity about who the new clause applies to. It would provide for a detention""by an immigration officer, general customs official or Customs revenue official"." The Minister may say that that is already the case and that we are being over-cautious, in which case I will take that on board, but I think it provides clarity about who is going to be responsible for the control of the detention. Amendment (b) is designed to ensure what I believe the Minister was seeking to achieve—that there should be a maximum detention period of six hours in these short-term holding facilities. As other Members have said, these are not necessarily facilities that people would want to be detained in for much longer. What the Minister said in Committee suggested his support for our position. The amendment would ensure that the short-term holding facilities could hold people under HMRC and court powers for a maximum of just six hours. The aim of amendment 3, which we discussed at some length in Committee, is to ensure that the Independent Police Complaints Commission's remit extends beyond our borders. I acknowledge some of the concerns raised by the Minister about the possible impact of exporting the United Kingdom's laws on the jurisdictions of other countries, and the possibility that they would feel we were interfering in their legal business. We might not have pursued the amendment so strongly but for something that happened in the Home Affairs Committee. When John Vine, chief inspector of UKBA, appeared before the Committee, I asked whether he saw any valid role for the IPCC in extending its powers to juxtapose controls. In what may have been an off-the-cuff response, or one to which he would have liked to give greater consideration—the Select Committee format does not really lend itself to that—he said that he could not think of a reason it would not be appropriate for the IPCC's powers governing the activities of UKBA officers to be applicable abroad. It could be said that that gives the amendment an additional weight which it did not have three or four hours ago. I hope the Minister will consider our proposals carefully. I hope he will judge them to be in the same vein as the proposals we presented in Committee in an attempt to improve the Bill and probe the Government's intentions, but will give them a warmer and more positive response.