Clause
26Transfer
schemes Amendment
made: 26, in
clause 26, page 20, line 7, leave
out from ‘means’ to end of line 8 and insert
‘a function which before the passing of this Act was
exercisable by the Commissioners or officers of Revenue and Customs
(whether or not it remains so exercisable) and
that— (a) is conferred by or by
virtue of this Part on the Secretary of State, the Director or a
designated customs official,
or (b) is a function under
Community law that is exercisable by the Secretary of State, the
Director or a designated customs
official;’.—(Mr.
Woolas.) This amendment provides
that clause 26 (Transfer schemes) applies to things done by the
Secretary of State, the Director or designated customs officials in
connection with a relevant function as previously exercised by the
Commissioners or an officer of Revenue and Customs, including things
done under Community
law. Clause
26, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clause
27 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
28Inspections
by the Chief Inspector of the UK Border
Agency
Mr.
Woolas: I beg to move amendment 27, in
clause 28, page 21, line 5, at
end insert ‘, and ( ) after
paragraph (g)
insert— “(ga)
practice and procedure in relation to the prevention, detection and
investigation of offences, (gb)
practice and procedure in relation to the conduct of criminal
proceedings, (gc) whether
customs functions have been appropriately exercised by the Secretary of
State and the Director of Border
Revenue,”.’. This
amendment, with amendment 28, requires the independent Chief Inspector
to monitor and report on (i) UKBA’s practice and procedure in
relation to criminal matters, both immigration- and customs-related,
and (ii) whether customs functions are being appropriately exercised by
the Secretary of State and Director of Border
Revenue.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
Government amendment
28.
Mr.
Woolas: These are technical amendments to meet the stated
policy intention to extend the independent, external scrutiny provided
by the chief inspector to the question whether the Secretary of State
and the director of border revenue are exercising their customs
functions
appropriately. As
drafted, subsection (4) has the unintended consequence of confining the
chief inspector’s role to customs functions relating to offences
and criminal proceedings. The amendments will ensure that
the
independent chief inspector’s powers in that respect extend to
the broad range of the Secretary of State’s general customs
functions and the director of border revenue’s revenue customs
function, which was the original
intention. Damian
Green: Is it in order for me to speak to amendment 16,
Miss
Begg?
The
Chairman: No. I shall call that
separately.
Damian
Green: In that case, I shall simply say that I see the
point of the Government amendments, and the logic of our amendment 16
sits very well with them. I hope that the Minister will be equally
generous during the next
debate.
Paul
Rowen: The clause extends the functions of the chief
inspector. Why does the regulatory impact assessment not contain
anything about additional resources? Page 24 of the Home
Affairs Committee’s fifth report states:
“We
have some concern that the additional responsibilities in this Bill
will impose a significant extra burden on the Chief Inspector of the UK
Border Agency, which is already a new post, and one whose capacity to
oversee the whole of the UK Border Agency we have previously
questioned. We agree with the Immigration Law Practitioners Association
that the Chief Inspector’s office may require a corresponding
increase in resources to meet the additional burdens imposed by this
Bill if his role is to be
effective.” Given
that nothing is said in the impact statement, is it the
Government’s intention to make available additional resources to
carry out these powers?
Mr.
Woolas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising
that point, which, as he said, was raised by the Select Committee, the
Chairman of which raised it with me personally and in
correspondence. The
role of the independent chief inspector is a new one. He has just
commenced his pilot inspections and has been made aware of the full
planned scope of his role, as envisaged in the Bill. He published his
inspection plans in April cognisant of that, and they take account of
the proposed increased role. The then Home Secretary agreed the budget
for 2009-10—£3 million—cognisant of that plan. I
concede that the inspectorate is new, and we have given a commitment to
review that budget, subject to the financial restraints. We have worked
the matter through with the inspector. However, the hon. Gentleman
makes a strong point.
Amendment
27 agreed
to. Amendment
made: 28, in clause 28, page 21, leave
out lines 7 to 15.—(Mr. Woolas.)
See Member’s explanatory statement for amendment
27. Damian
Green: I beg to move amendment 16, in
clause 28, page 21, leave out lines 16 to
26. As
I have said, I appreciate what the Minister seeks to do with Government
amendments 27 and 28. The Government have brought into being a new
structure, with the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, which is
just beginning to get up and running and to do pilot inspections. The
purpose of amendment 16 is to help the chief inspector and to
streamline and make more efficient the inspection regime for the
immigration
detention estate. The role of the new chief inspector is an extremely
important one, about which there was much discussion in the
deliberations on the UK Borders Act 2007. One anomalous
thing that remains in the Bill is the multiple inspection regime that
the agency and those who work in it will be forced to endure. There
will be a chief inspector of prisons, Her Majesty’s inspectorate
of constabulary and the new chief inspector of the UK Border Agency,
all of whom, to some extent, will be trampling over the same ground.
The Minister will be as aware as anyone that in the public sector, and
probably in the private sector as well, one of the great complaints of
the age is of over-inspection, particularly multiple inspection by
different inspectorates that have slightly different demands. Schools
and universities are the best examples of that I have come across. The
measure will set up an equally intrusive inspection regime in which
people at the sharp end of these jobs will feel two things very
strongly. First, they will feel that they are never allowed to get on
with their job because they spend their entire life either undergoing
the current inspection or preparing for the next one. Secondly, they
will feel that they are given different, sometimes contradictory,
signals by different inspectors as to what they should seek to
achieve.
This part of
the Bill presents an opportunity to step back from that procedure for
the UK Border Agency. With the current structure, with three powerful
inspectorates looking at the UK Border Agency, I can guarantee that in
a few years’ time it will complain that it is over-inspected and
has to spend all its time looking over its shoulder rather than getting
on with the job. I am fully prepared to be advised that the amendment
is technically defective and does not achieve what I seek, but I hope
that the Minister can at the very least agree with the general
sentiment I express and take the amendment away to look at, and that we
can return to this debate on Report. He is in danger of setting up a
fairly monstrous and top-heavy system of inspection.
Of the three
inspectorates that will operate in this field, the chief inspector of
the UK Border Agency will be the least powerful, partly for historical
reasons. We all know about HMIC and that the chief inspector of prisons
has a hugely important job that is done extremely well and powerfully
and very publicly, so a new inspectorate that is rather small because
it is inspecting only one agency may be the least important of the
three. There is something faintly perverse about a system where the
least important inspectorate of the UK Border Agency is its own chief
inspector. That is what I think the Minister is in danger of setting
up. Therefore, for his sake as well as mine, and most of all for the
sake of the UK Border Agency, I urge Ministers to take the matter away
and look at it seriously. We can see, 50 yd down the track, the pit
into which we will fall, so it might be a good idea to stop and
cover that pit before we fall into it.
5.45
pm
Mr.
Woolas: I am not trying to be too consensual, but may I
say that the hon. Gentleman has a valid point? I hope that I can
satisfy him about the approach that I am taking. I come to the issue
with some record as the Minister for Local Government. I have tried to
sort out—moderately successfully, I think—that very point
of over-inspection, through providing for gateways, less inspection and
having the right inspectorate for the right functions. That is also the
approach that I have adopted in this
regard. Clause
28 must be taken on board with clause 29. What I am doing is what the
hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve, in terms of having single
inspectorates for functions, and not duplicating them. But I have done
so in a slightly different way, which I think is preferable—I am
not seeking to score points for the potential difficulties with the
drafting of his
amendment. Clause
28 will amend section 48 of the UK Borders Act 2007, which established
the office of the chief inspector of the then border and immigration
agency. That chief inspector provided an external review, independent
of the agency and Department. Currently, the inspector’s remit
applies to immigration, asylum and nationality functions only. Clause
28 will evolve that function as set up under the 2007 Act, and will
allow the chief inspector to look at the full range of functions that
will be exercised by UKBA under the Bill. As well as immigration,
asylum and national functions, the inspector will be able to monitor
the exercise of general customs functions via the Secretary of State
and her officials, including the designated general customs officials
and the exercise of customs revenue functions by the director of border
revenue and her designated
officers. Apart
from evolving section 48 of the 2007 Act, the clause also specifies
that “the
chief inspector shall not monitor and report
on” functions
at detention facilities, short-term holding facilities or removal
centres. There is a power for the Secretary of State to direct that,
but I took that function out—or rather, did not include
it—because they are areas where Her Majesty’s chief
inspector of prisons, Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary,
the Scottish inspector and the Northern Ireland inspector should
continue to have the primary oversight to ensure that that is being
conducted by inspectors with the right experience. In other words, for
the detention facilities and for areas such as the short-term
facilities, the removal centres and the escort function, the HMIP will
have oversight. Our inspector will, of course, have rights and powers
to work with those people. If the Secretary of State wished for a
specific investigation—as sometimes the House calls
for—by that inspectorate, that will be
possible. Mr.
David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab): I do not wish to be
unhelpful, but one of the things that concerns me is that we are
talking about Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons and Her
Majesty’s inspector of the constabulary. In Scotland, of course,
they are responsible to the Scottish Parliament. How will the Minister
balance that report? Will the report come down to this House, or will
it go via the Scottish
Parliament?
Mr.
Woolas: The inspectorate reports on the facilities of UKBA
are for UKBA and therefore for this Parliament. There is the additional
point I mentioned earlier that the Home Secretary has the power to
direct the inspectorate of the UK Border Agency to look specifically at
those facilities should he so decide.
Amendment 16
would have the effect of further extending the powers of the chief
inspector of the agency to include monitoring and reporting on the
holding facilities that I have listed, but it would not remove the
responsibility of HM inspector of prisons for overseeing functions at
the same facilities. I am not trying to score points. I accept the
policy objective that there should be a single inspectorate. We believe
that the inspectorate for detention facilities should include the
people with the expertise, obviously allowing UKBA access to the
reports and influence on
them. There
is the further point, which I mentioned in the previous debate that, as
we seek greater flexibility in the facilities, and as some facilities
will not at all times be immigration-related, it makes sense to do this
to provide reassurances. The fourth lock-in, of course, is the
independent monitoring boards that are part of our
structure.
Damian
Green: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation.
He and I do not disagree about the dangers of
over-inspection. I
am not entirely convinced by his position. I can see the logic of
it—that there is expertise in HMIP, so HMIP should inspect
detention facilities rather than the chief inspector of the UK Border
Agency—but, in the end, detention and escort will be the
flashpoints inside the agency in terms of inspection. That will be
where inspection is most
important. It
seems logical, if we want the agency to feel like a proper, coherent
body that does the whole gamut of immigration control including, where
necessary and at the extreme, detention, escort, deportation,
removal—all those kinds of things—that the inspection
regime does not send a different signal. Depending on where an
individual is—they may be moved around the agency—they
will have different inspectorates looking over their shoulder. That
seems slightly unsatisfactory and, in the long term, slightly
incoherent. I
accept that in the short term we would want the expertise of HMIP in
the detention estate, but expertise could be built up over time inside
one inspectorate. I do not wish to divide the Committee on the
amendment, but I am not entirely convinced by the solution that the
Minister has come up with. I am glad that he recognises that this is
clearly a problem that could affect the UK Border Agency in the future.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause
28, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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