Clause
4Designation:
supplementary
Damian
Green: I beg to move amendment 5, in
clause 4, page 4, line 29, at
end insert— ‘(3A) Any
designation made under section 3 must be approved by a resolution of
both Houses of Parliament.’.
This is a
short amendment. I will not weary the Committee by repeating the speech
that I made earlier about the importance of parliamentary scrutiny, but
in essence the same argument applies, and I seek to probe the
Minister’s attitude. As hon. Members will see, this is the
designation clause. It deals with the different facts that allow a
designation to be made, the limits that are put on it, the fact that it
can be permanent or for a specified period, and the functions that can
be conferred through a
designation. The
key point is that the
“power to
designate, or to withdraw or vary a
designation”— in
other words, all the powers associated with the
clause— “is
exercised by the Secretary of State giving notice to the official in
question.”
In essence, the
Secretary of State is given powers to do all the things that
Secretaries of State do in such cases.
In the
amendment, we are once again seeking a precautionary measure. I hope,
and indeed expect, that the provisions would almost never need to be
exercised, but our proposals would provide a further small check so
that any action proposed under the wide powers that the clause gives
the Secretary of State could be undertaken only with the
Parliament’s approval.
I put that in
the context of the relatively broad nature of the Government’s
plans in this area. We are beginning to tease out some of the details.
The Bill gives the Secretary of State very broad powers, and it is not
immediately apparent—certainly not from the Bill—how they
will be exercised in practice and in detail. The amendment would simply
give Parliament some say and some check on how those powers are worked
out and how they will operate in practice.
If the
current or any future Secretary of State exercises the powers of
designation in a reasonable and sensible way, the power in the
amendment need never be brought into practical use. However, it would
be useful to have it, and it would, once again, increase
Parliament’s ability to scrutinise the effects of the
Bill.
Mr.
Woolas: As the Committee might expect, I ask it to resist
the amendment. Again, I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intent.
I study Opposition amendments to Bills carefully, and this one falls
into the category of “can’t think of anything to say, so
we’ll get Parliament to approve it.”
The fact of
the matter is that the designation power under the clause allows the
Secretary of State—but, in practice, the management of the UK
Border Agency—to designate officials. It is intended to provide
flexibility in the designation of general customs officials. Again, we
are not talking about revenue powers. In practice, not all our
officials will need all the powers of an HMRC officer. Some will be
employed on functions that will not require them to have a full set of
powers; for example, officials responsible for the customs clearance of
international post and parcels would not require the powers of
questioning and/or of searching passengers, for obvious
reasons. Accordingly,
we need some flexibility in that regard. The effect of the amendment
would be that the designation of all our officials would have to come
before Parliament. We have 4,500 HMRC officials moving over, and we
already have 2,000 immigration officials. I suggest to the Committee
that we really do not want to have to do that job; it is the job of the
Executive, not the legislature. The power is there in the Bill. To be
fair, the intent of the hon. Member for Ashford was that the House
could have that power. The effect of his amendment would be to enforce
the House’s use of that power. I ask that we have the powers to
designate officials but that we do not give that to ourselves to do in
the House. Damian
Green: I am grateful to the Minister for his
explanation, although he is being dangerously provocative when he
suggests that we tabled the amendment because we could not think of
anything else. If he is challenging me to find amendments on clauses
for which we have not yet found amendments, he can rest assured that we
can be extremely fertile in that field if necessary. As ever, Sir
Nicholas, you can be reassured that I seek only to improve the
legislation. There are clauses that are improved by amending and
clauses on which we are happy to have a clause stand part
debate. I
take the Minister’s point that there are things that the
Executive should do and things that the legislature should do.
Nevertheless, it is worth making the general point that the balance
between the Executive and the legislature is out of joint and, in a
sense, it is relatively easy for people to make the statement that we
need grand schemes of reform to change it, but often it is the use of
the process that does not work. It is in the detailed scrutiny of Bills
that the legislature can make some difference, but we seek to do so not
often enough, and that is part of the problem. I appreciate that I am
now treading towards the tram lines of what is acceptable, so I beg to
ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
4 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
5Directions
by the Secretary of
State Amendment
made: 21, in
clause 5, page 4, line 41, leave
out from ‘of’ to end of line 41 and insert
‘general customs functions.’.—(Mr.
Woolas.) This
amendment is consequent on amendment
19. Clause
5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
6The
Director of Border
Revenue
Damian
Green: I beg to move amendment 6, in
clause 6, page 5, line 3, leave
out ‘must’ and insert
‘may’. The
clause deals with the new post of director of border revenue. On the
surface, the purpose of the amendment is to give Ministers a
flexibility that they may not want, but we also want to tease out the
full powers of that new post and the practicalities behind it.
We
made some progress in the Lords, where there was a full debate about
the new post, which is clearly hugely important. It is designated by
the Secretary of State to exercise the functions of border revenue and
also to carry out the general customs functions—I take the point
the Minister made earlier about how important it
is to distinguish the two. Clearly, the director will be the most
important person in the whole new regime that this part of the Bill
sets up, apart from the Secretary of State
himself. One
of the questions I hope the Minister will address is whether it is
necessary or contingent that the director of border revenue should
always be the head of UKBA, because one of the things that was
illuminated in the Lords debate was that that was the intention, and
that Lin Homer would be appointed to the post. But it was left unclear
as to whether that was a simple convenience at the time, and that she
would add that extra role to her accounting officer role in UKBA, or
whether it was always envisaged that they would be the same
person.
I draw the Minister’s attention to that apparently
procedural point because it seems to me to be quite important, because
the fluidity of the organisational structure of our immigration system
has been extraordinary over the past few years and there may be no reason
to believe it will be less so in the future. In the three and a half
years I have been my party’s immigration spokesman, we have moved
from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to the Border and Immigration
Agency to the shadow UKBA, and now, from this April, to UKBA. That is
four different structures in less than four years. The structure for
immigration changes as often as the Home Secretary does; I am now shadowing
my fourth Home Secretary as well, although—I am happy to report
from the Minister’s point of view—only my third immigration
Minister. The job of immigration Minister is very slightly safer than
that of Home Secretary.
Behind all
that flux is the reason why I asked the question. It is a serious
question as to whether it is necessary that the head of UKBA will
always be the director of border revenue, because the post of the head
of UKBA might itself change radically in future. In particular, if and
when we have a fully integrated border police, one can imagine that
there will be consequential effects on the organisation within UKBA
which might mean that the two posts need not be
coterminous.
Tom
Brake: If there are to be two different people, it would
be useful for the taxpayer to know what the financial implications
are.
Damian
Green: Indeed. That is one of the questions I am hoping
that the Minister can address, because if we are, in effect, creating a
post that, in the end, becomes a dignified part of the constitution,
whether we have a separate person doing it at some vast expense is a
very interesting question.
In the debate
in the other place, Lord West said that the Government wanted to ensure
that there was a clear, single and unified command
structure—something suitably military for Lord
West.
Mr.
Woolas: That is what it says here
too.
Damian
Green: I am glad to hear that the Government are
consistent and will say the same thing in this debate as they said
several weeks ago in another place. But, in all seriousness, if that is
what the Government are looking for—who could disagree with that
as an aim?—it is important to know which functions of the
director of border revenue may be different from those of the director
of UKBA. The two posts can be brought
together under Lin Homer, which seems appropriate, but I am not just
staring into a crystal ball when I say that the functions change. I
have observed them changing considerably, in the relatively recent
past. If, in particular, we move towards a unified border police force,
it is easy to imagine that those functions will change quite radically
in the future as well. Therefore, before we set up the post, the
Committee deserves quite a lot more detail and clarity about what it is
meant to
achieve. 12.15
pm Essentially
the question is whether the post is just a name. Is it required because
there is a need for a director of revenue and an accounting officer,
and someone formally responsible for all the money? Alternatively, is
it envisaged as a new post, with new powers and new functions? I would
not expect those to be set out in the Bill, but it would be useful for
the House to know whether the post is essentially a sinecure that comes
along with other jobs that people do, or a real job in its own
right—or could the Minister envisage circumstances in which the
former might become the latter in the future? Before we pass the clause
it is important to tease out some of the details, and I hope that the
Minister can do
that.
Tom
Brake: I support many of the points that have been made
about seeking greater clarification of what the director’s
responsibilities will be; whether there is simply a requirement that
someone should be called the director; whether it could potentially be
a different person, and the financial implications of that; and whether
the role is of such scale and significance as to imply the need to
advertise the position of director, rather than simply passing the
responsibility on to Lin Homer, as has been suggested. Any
clarification that the Minister can give will be gratefully
received.
Mr.
Woolas: I am grateful for the perfectly reasonable points
that hon. Members have made. My approach was to give the Committee
assurances that the position was required to maintain the principle
that the powers were not with the Minister. I had not covered the point
from the other end of the telescope, by dealing with the arrangements
inside
UKBA. The
United Kingdom Government receive about £22 billion
from tax revenue collected at the border each year. That figure is
rising, even in the current economic circumstances. It represents about
5 per cent. of the total tax take of the UK Border Agency. That is why
the immigration Minister is also a Treasury Minister. The public may be
interested to learn that included within that £22 billion about
£2 billion is collected on behalf of the European Union. Thus we
are dealing with significant sums of money. Clause 6 is intended to
maintain the important principle that the director of revenue is not a
Minister. This is a question of customs revenue functions. Those
functions are currently undertaken by the commissioners of Her
Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so we are transferring them to
the new director.
It is our
policy and intention to appoint the chief executive of UKBA as the
director of border revenue. That position is a civil service position
and therefore maintains the separation. The Bill does not designate
that the director must be the chief executive of the United Kingdom
Border Agency. It says in my briefing
notes that that is partly because that structure may not be permanent,
to answer the point made by the hon. Member for Ashford, who, I am
surprised to note, objects to evolution rather than radical reform as a
principle. His police proposals would cause further radical reform.
However, that designation is not in the Bill for the very reason that
he highlighted. We would not want to have to come back in several years
to change
it. In
practice, a new job is not required—it is not an additional
position, but a legal power and responsibility that the chief executive
should have, the terms and conditions for whom are a matter for the
permanent secretary and not for Ministers, in line with those
principles, although I am not aware of any proposals to
change. The
amendment is successful in teasing out such points, but I suspect that
the hon. Gentleman does not want it passed, because that would allow
the Home Secretary to become the director of border revenue, which I
promise that the hon. Gentleman does not want. I do not know whether my
new boss wants that—I have not talked to him about it—but
I suspect that he would not, being the decent bloke that he is. I ask
Hansard not to put that last phrase in, please, in case he reads
it. My right hon. Friend the new Home Secretary does not want those
powers. I ask for the amendment to be
withdrawn.
Damian
Green: I am happy to assure the Minister that I am neither
against evolution nor, when necessary, radical reform. An incoming
Conservative Government would happily introduce radical reform in areas
where it is needed. We have always done so and will continue to do so.
Our borders are one area where we believe that radical reform is
needed, because there have been many failures over the past few
years. I
take the Minister’s point and can see the sense of it. We do not
want to have the director of border revenue receiving all that money,
on behalf of the UK Government and of the EU as well—it should
be the Home Secretary; he is right. I did not know why he was afraid of
having that on the record if the Minister regards the Home Secretary as
a decent
bloke—
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