[back to previous text]

Mr. Woolas: It was the word “bloke”—I meant my right hon. Friend.
Damian Green: I see. The right hon. Gentleman, the new Home Secretary, is indeed a decent human being. I think we can all agree on that. I hope that that nomenclature suffices both for Hansard and, perhaps more importantly, for the Home Secretary.
I also agree with the Minister in not wishing to foist on my hon. Friend, the shadow Home Secretary, should he become Home Secretary at some time in the future, the job of director of border revenue. That seems extremely sensible. As the Minister said, the amendment has achieved what I wished it to achieve—it has teased out a certain amount of clarity on the purpose of the role and whether it is necessarily that of the chief executive of UKBA. I am glad that the Minister and his briefing recognise that there may well be changes to come in the organisation of the institutions responsible for border control.
In that spirit of cross-party good will, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Customs revenue functions of the Director
Amendment made: 22, in clause 7, page 6, line 21, leave out from ‘means’ to end of line 22 and insert ‘—
(a) a function that is exercisable—
(i) by the Director by virtue of this section, or
(ii) by customs revenue officials by virtue of section 11,
(b) a function that is conferred on customs revenue officials or the Director by or by virtue of any of sections 22 to 24 (investigations and detention), or
(c) a function under Community law that is exercisable by the Director or customs revenue officials in relation to a customs revenue matter.’.—(Mr. Woolas.)
This amendment is similar to amendment 19, making provision in respect of the meaning of “customs revenue functions” which may be exercised by the Director of Border Revenue and customs revenue officials.
Clause 7, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Damian Green: On a point of order, Sir Nicholas.
The Chairman: I have no idea what it might be, but I am happy to take it.
Damian Green: I sensed from movement that the Minister was about to move a clause stand part motion for clause 8. I simply wished to establish if that were the case—there are many clauses in the Bill for which neither we nor the Government have tabled an amendment. In that circumstance, is it still possible to have clause stand part debates?
The Chairman: To the very experienced Member of this House, the Member for Ashford, I say that there is always the possibility of having a clause stand part debate. I would say to members of the Committee that if they wish to have a clause stand part debate then they should rise to their feet in a very positive way, so that the Chairman may appreciate that they wish to contribute. There was no more than a quiver from the Minister. He did not rise to his feet, and therefore I continued to put the question that that particular clause stand part of the Bill. I give the very positive reassurance to the hon. Member for Ashford that if anyone wishes to have a clause stand part debate then I am not prepared to stand against them—it is my duty to call them, so that there may be a clause stand part debate.

Clause 9

Delegation of Director’s functions
Damian Green: I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 9, page 6, line 37, leave out ‘make arrangements to delegate’ and insert
‘designate by approval of the Secretary of State’.
I rise very positively to my feet to move this amendment, Sir Nicholas.
The purpose of the amendment is to make a subtle change. The Minister has already referred to the Carltona principle—it is a good party game to play at the Committee stage of any Bill to see how far you can get through before somebody mentions the Carltona principle. Those of us who do these things regularly can remember from year to year what it is, but I suspect that if we conducted a quiz among Members, many of them would not necessarily know what the Carltona principle is. It dates back to 1943—I see that I am causing puzzlement. I have a briefing that shows that:
“The case most often cited is Carltona Ltd v Commissioners of Works 1943.”
It is an important and sensible principle. It strikes me as bizarre that the ability to transfer powers to an official from a Secretary of State had not been firmly established before 1943—there had been Government Departments for more than a century before then. We might go a long way off-piste musing on, first, the relationship between Ministers and their officials in earlier times and, secondly, the efficacy of Government when there were fewer of either Ministers or officials and this country ran half the globe. I am getting slightly off the subject here.
Let me move back to the powers held by the director of border revenue and the possibility of their transference to another official. That is slightly different from the straightforward transfer of powers from the Secretary of State to other officials. Clause 9 refers to the director of border revenue delegating powers. This amendment seeks to allow that to happen—it is entirely sensible and unremarkable that that should happen—but only with the approval of the Secretary of State. It is limiting the power of the director of border revenue to delegate functions to those conferred by the Bill. The purpose of this is not particularly to modify the powers of the director, but to probe the other functions it is intended to confer on the director. We have had one helpful debate about the role of the director vis-Ã -vis other parts of the immigration system, but this would be an appropriate point in the passage of the Bill to explore the full range of the director’s powers. It is perfectly reasonable to be wary of giving powers to an official if we are not sure of the full raft of powers that that official will have.
12.30 pm
It is convenient to have reached this debate, in which we seek to insert the Secretary of State into the process to ensure that we are not giving too much power to an official when in some cases it would be better exercised by the political leadership, so that there is some kind of democratic accountability to this place in the powers of the director of border revenue.
Although this small amendment deals with only one aspect of the director’s powers, I hope that the Minister will take it as an invitation to spread a bit more widely and explain to us the full range of the director’s powers as well, obviously, as the important point about why the Secretary of State should not have some say when powers are delegated further down the organisation.
Mr. Woolas: I rise positively, Sir Nicholas, and not with a quiver to reply to this debate. It is the responsibility of the Minister to put on the record for the Committee and for Hansard, where it is necessary, the intent of the clause. I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that my noble Friend was able to do so for clause 8 in the other place. Therefore, that explains my quiver. I was trying to be helpful but it was not necessary because of that.
Let me address directly the delegation of the director’s functions to officials, which clause 9 enables. This practice allows operational flexibility and is necessary. It is already the case with officials in their relationship with the commissioners. Of course, in practice, most of the functions of the director are undertaken by officials under the designation arrangements set out in clause 11. Only designated officials will be able to exercise the front-line enforcement powers currently relied on by officers of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs at the border to tackle smuggling. Those powers are not exercisable by the director and are therefore subject to the delegation power.
The amendment would remove the power to delegate and replace it with a power to designate a function with the approval of the Secretary of State. It seems likely—the hon. Member for Ashford has confirmed this—that the amendment is intended to make the delegation of functions by the director subject to approval by the Secretary of State, or at least to restrict delegation of functions to those who are designated by the Secretary of State. That would be inappropriate and unnecessary. Let me quickly explain why.
In exercising revenue functions, the director of border revenue is not subject to the direction of the Home Secretary. The director acts independently but, like HMRC, is subject to the general directions of the Treasury. The director’s functions will be exercisable by designated customs and revenue officials under clause 11, as I said, but it is right that the director should also be able to delegate her functions to others, including those in the UK Border Agency.
At the same time, clause 9 provides some fundamental safeguards. The director must monitor the exercise of any delegated function and the person exercising such functions must comply with their direction. In that context, if there were a need to oversee the director’s exercise of the power to delegate, that role would fall to the Treasury, not the Secretary of State.
Damian Green: I quite take the Minister’s point that the amendment might be defective in that respect. Is he saying that it would be less defective had we inserted “the Chancellor of the Exchequer” rather than “the Secretary of State”? I dare say he would still have opposed it.
Mr. Woolas: Had I risen positively and not with a quiver, I would already have answered that question—sort of. In the revenue functions, the director of border revenue is accountable to the policies of the commissioners, who act on the policy of the Chancellor. The Budget is traditionally the device by which that policy is set in this country. In that regard, the answer is indirectly yes. That explains why the Minister for Borders and Immigration is also a Treasury Minister for the purposes of customs and revenue. I would probably have been advised to resist the amendment in any event, but I would have done so very gently.
Damian Green: I am delighted that we have teased out not just why the Minister opposes the amendment, but the degree of gentleness with which he wishes to treat it. His explanation is perfectly reasonable so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 23, in clause 9, page 6, line 38, leave out from ‘Director’ to end of line 39.—(Mr. Woolas.)
This amendment is consequent on amendment 22.
Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Compliance with directions etc.
Amendment made: 24, in clause 10, page 7, line 8, leave out ‘functions in relation to customs revenue matters’ and insert ‘customs revenue functions’.—(Mr. Woolas.)
This amendment is consequent on amendment 22.
Clause 10, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 11 and 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Directions by the Director
Amendment made: 25, in clause 13, page 9, line 3, leave out from ‘of’ to end of line 4 and insert ‘customs revenue functions.’.—(Mr. Woolas.)
This amendment is consequent on amendment 22.
Clause 13, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Use and Disclosure of customs information
Damian Green: I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 14, page 10, line 7, at end add—
‘(8) Nothing in this Act shall enable any of the officers designated under this Part to use any personal data of UK citizens to restrict their right to enter or leave the United Kingdom for legitimate purposes.’.
We now come to a more contentious part of the Bill dealing with the use and disclosure of information. The Minister will be aware that this matter is extremely fraught. Conservative Members think that it is hugely important and that far too much of the relevant Home Office policy is proceeding in the wrong direction, with a dangerous tendency to collect too much information and to give the various organs of the state too much power to share it with one another without the permission of the person about whom the information was collected. Through amendment 9 and, even more so, amendments 10 to 12, we seek either to probe or change Government policy.
It is arresting to think that an amendment need be tabled to a Bill to prevent legislation from being used to bar British citizens from entering or leaving their own country for legitimate purposes, but we seek to do just that. Essentially, our worry is that the powers taken by the Government in this clause might allow them to do precisely that. The Bill does not make clear how UKBA intends to use the data collected from this function in conjunction with the e-Borders function, which is also being introduced. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about databases and information sharing. He will be aware how much information will be available through the e-Borders system and the customs information being collected under clause 14, which will provide the Government with more information that presumably will be recorded. This is a classic example of where two sets of information collected perfectly properly might be combined and then used improperly.
It would be helpful to the Committee if the Minister could set out the extent of the information that could be brought together partly under the aegis of clause 14. As well as the provisions in the Bill, the e-Borders database can track and store international travel records, names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and, potentially, credit card details. I am sure that the Minister will be proud to tell us that, when it is fully up and running, the system will monitor all 250 million journeys made in and out of this country each year. He will be aware that the Government propose, rather controversially, to store the data for up to 10 years. We think that that is excessive and that some of the data being collected will be ineffective in tackling cross-border crime and hugely intrusive for the entirely innocent. It will also be massively expensive.
It is even more toxic, however, to combine that with the use and disclosure of customs information under clause 14, because huge questions remain to be answered—on top of those about e-Borders—about the intersection of these different systems. The intrusion of privacy of anyone, even the most innocent British traveller crossing their own borders, is going up and up. The amount of information that will be collected and stored for many years by the Government goes up with every piece of legislation. It is not the appropriate time or place to debate the e-Borders system—the Minister knows that we think other countries have implemented similar but better systems in far shorter periods.
12.45 pm
 
Previous Contents Continue
House of Commons 
home page Parliament home page House of 
Lords home page search page enquiries ordering index

©Parliamentary copyright 2009
Prepared 10 June 2009