Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

This follows on from our earlier discussion on PACE. Under the UK Borders Act 2007, PACE applies for immigration officers, but also laid out very clearly in the Act is this clause on detention. It seemed to me that this was as important in this legislation as elsewhere, because detention by those who are not police officers and who do not have police powers is onerous not only on them but on the people whom they are detaining. It seems more than proper that how people are detained and the terms of detention should be laid out on the face of the Bill. That is why we have put this in. We feel that it should be there to be referred to as part of this Bill and subsequently as part of this Act. The amendment would simply designate the powers of a designated immigration officer or designated customs official as to what they cannot do when they are arresting someone and holding them for three hours, because that is all that they are entitled to do before they pass the person to the police for charging or consideration of charging. The measure was important enough for the 2007 Act; it is certainly important enough for this one. I beg to move.