Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is anticipated that the Director of Border Revenue and the chief executive of the border force will be the same person. I am not sure why that cannot be in the Bill. I will take that away, because I see no reason why it should not be. That is absolutely the intention, because it provides a single management chain of command—the noble Lord alluded to this, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham—within the border force over customs revenue functions, customs non-revenue functions and immigration functions. I am about to be told why we cannot put this into the Bill—I have been handed some great long sheet—but I do not see why we cannot. I will have another look at this. The Director of Border Revenue, who has a statutory responsibility for customs revenue functions, will act independently of Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is absolutely right about that. That is how it should be. However, like Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Director of Border Revenue will be subject to general directions from the Treasury. It is absolutely appropriate that, in selecting this person, the Home Secretary should fit within the structure of deciding who will come into this job, but she will do so in conjunction with the Treasury, so there will be Treasury agreement at the same time. The amendment would give Parliament the right of veto over the designation of the director. To require the Bill to state that the designation process is subject to parliamentary approval would be a very unusual and inappropriate step. Under the Bill as it is currently drafted, the Secretary of State is required, before designating a person as director, to obtain the consent of the Treasury, as I said. This reflects the Treasury’s important interest in running the agency. Ultimately, the Secretary of State is also accountable to Parliament both for her choice of director, if she gets it wrong and the director does things wrong, and for the wider running of the border force. It is interesting that, following the publication of the Governance of Britain White Paper, the Government have agreed that some key public appointments—mainly of ombudsmen, complaint investigators and those with inspection roles—should be subject to pre-appointment Select Committee hearings. The arrangements for these appointments are set out in much more detail in the Governance of Britain White Paper. The aim is to provide further reassurance that government appointments to roles such as those are made on merit and are properly independent of the Executive. The Government agreed this approach and the list of posts that are suitable for pre-appointment scrutiny with the Liaison Committee. Civil Service posts such as that of the Director of Border Revenue are not suitable for this form of pre-appointment scrutiny, as they are not intended to be independent of the Executive. Indeed, they should not be independent of the Executive. If the post of chief executive of the UK Border Agency were to become vacant, we would fill the post by open competition under Civil Service open-competition rules on the basis that the post holder would also be the Director of Border Revenue, and the Home Secretary would have the final say about whether that person would work for her. The person may, for example, not get on with her. On this basis, I hope the noble Lord and the noble Baroness agree that the amendment is unnecessary. I have not read the two pages of close written stuff, saying why we cannot possibly put it in the Bill. May I go away and have a look at that to talk with the staff? If at all possible, I would like to put it in the Bill but if there is some real reason why I cannot then maybe I could come back to her on that point.