The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Benyon,
Mr. Richard
(Newbury)
(Con)
Bryant,
Chris
(Rhondda)
(Lab)
Campbell,
Mr. Alan
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Clappison,
Mr. James
(Hertsmere)
(Con)
Clarke,
Mr. Tom
(Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
(Lab)
Dobbin,
Jim
(Heywood and Middleton)
(Lab/Co-op)
Fabricant,
Michael
(Lichfield)
(Con)
Featherstone,
Lynne
(Hornsey and Wood Green)
(LD)
Flello,
Mr. Robert
(Stoke-on-Trent, South)
(Lab)
Green,
Damian
(Ashford)
(Con)
Hoyle,
Mr. Lindsay
(Chorley)
(Lab)
Hunter,
Mark
(Cheadle)
(LD)
McCafferty,
Chris
(Calder Valley)
(Lab)
McDonagh,
Siobhain
(Mitcham and Morden)
(Lab)
Moran,
Margaret
(Luton, South)
(Lab)
Ryan,
Joan
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department)
Streeter,
Mr. Gary
(South-West Devon)
(Con)
Hannah
Weston, Committee
Clerk
attended the Committee
First
Standing Committee on Delegated
Legislation
Monday 30
October
2006
[Mr.
David Taylor in the
Chair]
Draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2006
4.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Joan
Ryan): I beg to
move,
That the
Committee has considered the draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum
Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order
2006.
The order
enables two pieces of UK immigration law to be applied to the
juxtaposed controls in the northern French ports of Calais, Dunkirk and
Boulogne. As the Committee knows, the UK has several international
agreements with France to allow UK authorities to carry out immigration
and other controls in France and for French authorities to do the same
in the UK. Controls are carried out by UK officers in a defined
geographical area and for specified purposes only.
The
juxtaposed controls provide the UK with an important opportunity to
carry out immigration controls before a person physically enters the UK
and are essential to our ongoing efforts to secure our borders. The
controls in Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne are provided for at an
international level by the Le Touquet treaty signed on 4
February 2003 and are given domestic effect by the Nationality,
Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) Order 2003, made
under section 141 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act
2002.
This order
amends the 2003 order to apply to authorised persons other than
immigration officers the powers in sections 40 and 41 of the
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and those to take and
retain fingerprints of certain persons under sections 141 and 143 of
the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
I shall deal first with the
power to authorise persons other than immigration officers to search
ships, aircraft and other vehicles. Prior to sections 40 and 41 coming
into force, only an immigration officer had the power to search
a
ship, aircraft,
vehicle or other thing for the
purpose
of
ascertaining
whether
there are individuals whom an immigration officer might wish to
examine.
The 2006 Act
provides the Secretary of State with a power to authorise police, Her
Majestys Revenue and Customs officers or private contractors to
carry out such searches.
It is important that those
powers apply to the juxtaposed controls at Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne
where the UK immigration service has a considerable freight examination
operation. It is intended that private contractors will be authorised
to carry out vehicle searches in order to free up immigration officers
to concentrate on more complex work, for which they
have undergone considerable training, such as forgery detection, the
application of civil penalty and asylum screening, and
debriefing.
Michael
Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): On the employment of private
subcontractors, does the Minister imagine that they will always be
British or could they be of the nationality of the port where the
inspections are taking
place?
Joan
Ryan: They could indeed be both, or even neither, but they
are likely to be of the nationality of the country in which the work is
being conducted.
Those
contracted to undertake the work will be known as authorised search
officers. The legislation demands that they be suitably trained and fit
for the task assigned to them, and if they are not, the Secretary of
State will not give authorisation. Furthermore, he can and will revoke
an authority should the contracted party fail to perform effectively
and in accordance with the standards
set.
Careful
consideration has been given to the powers of search and detention that
ASOs will have, and they have been limited to the minimum necessary to
enable ASOs to fulfil their functions properly. The aim is for them to
find people seeking to enter the UK clandestinely, to detain them for
the shortest period reasonably necessary and for not
more than three hours, and to take them to an immigration officer for
examination
as speedily
as is reasonably
practicable.
We
expect that in practice that delivery will indeed be swift, as the
contractor will have a cellular vehicle permanently at his or her
disposal. Checks and balances will be in place to ensure that the ASOs
deploy their powers appropriately and efficiently. They will be
directed and supervised by the UK immigration service on site, and a
monitor will be appointed by the Secretary of State to oversee the
operation of those powers and to investigate any complaints or
failings.
I turn now
to fingerprinting. When the immigration controls at the juxtaposed
controls were initially established, no provision was made for the
application of sections 141 and 143 of the 1999 Act. At the time it was
felt that it would not be necessary to take and retain fingerprints as
all persons refused entry at a UK control zone are handed over to the
French authorities. The management of their movement within the UK was
therefore of no significance because they would not enter the UK.
However, it has become apparent that there is a real need for
identification of certain persons and that we should have the same
powers to take fingerprints as we have at UK mainland
ports.
The application
of that power in the juxtaposed controls would focus on those persons
detected concealed in vehicles who seek to enter the UK clandestinely
and those trying to use false documentation. Taking their fingerprints
will provide a bank of physical data that can be used to identify
people who have previously attempted to enter the UK unlawfully and who
subsequently present themselves at the juxtaposed controls.
Fingerprinting will support an intelligence-led approach to border
security, providing information regarding its efficiency and the level
of displacement between ports.
Michael
Fabricant: The Minister is very generous to give way
again: she is one of the most generous Ministers in the Government. She
mentions the ability to take fingerprint evidence, and I agree with her
about that. What about DNA samples, which are now becoming ever more
important and are taken as a matter of course in criminal
investigations?
Joan
Ryan: The order applies only to fingerprint samples and we
are not at this point talking about DNA. Under the legislation that we
seek to amend, the measure would apply only to fingerprints.
For
completeness, I should add that the contracting out of search
provisions and the taking and retention of fingerprint powers will also
be applied, where appropriate, to the juxtaposed controls in France and
Belgium connected with the channel tunnel. Where secondary legislation
is required to do this, this has been done under the Channel Tunnel Act
1987, which provides for the negative procedure. The relevant orders
are the Channel Tunnel (International Arrangements) (Amendment) Order
2006 and the Channel Tunnel (Miscellaneous Provisions)
(Amendment) Order 2006, which came into effect on 26 October
2006.
The application
of these measuresthe use of contractors and the power to
fingerprintat juxtaposed controls will increase the security of
the border. They allow warranted immigration staff to concentrate on
more complex work and ensure that all those intent on circumventing the
control have physical data recorded for future identification. I
commend the order to the
Committee.
4.38
pm
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for
her explanation of this important order. This is a significant detail
of an extremely important wider issue. In that context I can only
express regret that the Liberal Democrat members of the Committee,
including their spokesman on immigration, have not bothered to attend
the Committee to discuss this issue. It is characteristic
really.
I
can assure the Minister at the outset that we have no objection in
principle to either of the proposals in the order before us, but we
have a number of questions because the detail is so important. The
Minister will be aware that among the long-term failures that caused
the Home Secretary famously to describe the immigration and nationality
directorate as not fit for purpose was the failure to
operate proper and competent border controls. Therefore measures to
plug some of the gaps, both literally and metaphorically, are very
welcome. As I said, we have a number of questions about the
practicality of the measures that the Minister has just outlined, and
about their implementation. I hope that she can answer them today, or
if not, subsequently.
First, the Minister mentioned
the individual ports to which the regulations would apply. However, are
there any plans, either in the short or long term, to extend those
arrangements to other ports? I have been informed by police sources
that there are always about 500 would-be illegal immigrants around the
port of Calais trying to get here, and that inevitably, as controls
there are tightened, many of those people are moving to other ports,
both inside and outside France. It would seem short-sighted if we were
trying to plug the gaps in
certain ports but leaving other ports relatively unprotected. What are
the Ministers long-term plans for extending juxtaposed
controls, particularly the use of ASOs, to other ports? Can she also
explain whether the use of private contractors will make it easier to
extend the coverage along the
coast?
Secondly, what
will be the incentive regime for the private contractors who will be
employed? Clearly, whether it is done on a success basis or simply a
volume basis of searches done may affect the effectiveness of the
regime over the long term.
Thirdly, my hon. Friend the
Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) raised the issue of
fingerprinting. What is the scale of the problem that the new power is
designed to combat? How many people are coming back after trying once,
failing, and coming back again, which makes having fingerprint evidence
all the more important? In the wake of my hon. Friends
intervention about DNA, the Minister will be aware of our concern on
these Benches about the indiscriminate collection of data. Can she
reassure us that only those who have tried and failed to beat the
system will be fingerprinted in the way that she set
out?
My fourth
question relates to the consultation document that was produced in
April this year about the legislation. In particular, page 5 of that
document is slightly unclear as to whether more searches will be done
on freight as a result of the new powers to use private contractors. It
would be interesting to know what percentage of freight is being
searched. In particular, can the Minister address the point made in
subsection (e) of the document? It
says:
The
impact of this measure will be upon traffic, mainly freight, located at
the berth side embarkation area in the port of Calais. The impact will
be minimal as vehicle searches already take
place.
I
am genuinely puzzled by that, because I would like the impact to be
something more than minimal. I assume that the effect of the measures
would be, as the Minister said, to release immigration officers for
other, more complex and difficult duties, while keeping more people on
the ground to do the routine searching. If the impact is going to be
minimal, I fail to see the point, frankly. Can she clear that up? It
may be that the minimal impact will simply be on the speed of the
traffic going
through.
Michael
Fabricant: My hon. Friend may recall that, for a while, I
sat on the Home Affairs Committee, which looked at the integrity of the
United Kingdoms ports of entry. One of the problems that we
encountered was that modern equipment that could detect life was not
available to many of the people doing the inspections. Surely the way
to ensure that there is not much disruption, but improved and increased
searches, is to ensure that people are given the tools to finish the
job, including X-ray machinery and devices to detect radiological
materials.
Damian
Green: My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I am
certain that the Minister will be aware that there has been some
introduction of materials of that kind to detect people coming in
through other areas. The essence of my puzzlement about the
consultation document is that it fails to tell usindeed, as the
Minister has not yet told us this afternoon
whether there will be more capacity as a result of this change. Will
more searches be done? Will anyone who indulges in this repellent trade
of people trafficking feel that they are more likely to be caught as a
result of this because there will be more searches of freight vehicles
or more fingerprinting? That seems to be at the heart of the purpose of
the order.
My final
point for the Minister is simply about cost. How much will the changes
cost? She will be very aware that with the range of powers available to
the Government, value for money is vital in this area. To sum up, we
wish these changes well. I hope that the Minister can address these
important, detailed questions before we sign up to
them.
4.46
pm
Mr.
James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I want to speak in
support of the pertinent questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member
for Ashford (Damian Green). I should like to add my support to one
question in particular, which was a thought that came to my mind too:
what is the end product of the process that is being described here? I
had the opportunity with other members of the Home Affairs Committee to
visit Calais earlier this year to see these processes. I certainly pay
tribute to our immigration officers in Calais and the work that they do
there. I was also impressed by the detection work that is being carried
out.
The point
that my hon. Friend made is extremely important: what happens at the
end of the process in which a person has been detected, detained, taken
to an immigration officer and fingerprinted? I would be grateful if the
Minister could throw as much light on that as possible because one of
the other things that was apparent during our visit to Calais, as my
hon. Friend quite rightly said, is that there seems to be a permanent
presence of people. They were there in May this year and I imagine that
they are still there. If one goes round at various times of the day one
sees them in certain places. I believe that there are food kitchens set
up in some places for them. So there is certainly a belief in some
quarters that being there might be of some avail.
What happens to somebody who
has, for example, been detected and detained for a limited period and
fingerprinted? Are they in a position to make another attempt? I would
be grateful if the Minister could throw some light on that as well as
on the other very pertinent points that my hon. Friend made. I do not
want to go into the details of the technology as that is not
appropriate. But certainly I would draw an inference from the permanent
presence of a substantial number of people in Calais who are obviously
there to try to beat the
system.
4.48
pm