UK Parliament / Open data

Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply and his robustness to the message from the Box; that is always enormously helpful when a Minister is likely to take a different view. This needs transparency. Even the Minister was talking almost as if these were two roles and two different people. It is clear—and I think the Minister accepts this point—that, if you are going to refer to the position as "the UK Border Agency chief executive (Director of Border Revenue)", the Secretary of State cannot designate an official in the department to be that person. That does not stand up. It does not make sense. The Secretary of State is not going to designate the UK Border Agency chief executive because that is clearly a matter that is open to at least competition or some form of selection; the Director of the Border Revenue is subject to that as well. It is not subject to a designation. The pretence that this is going to be a different person needs to be resolved. By the Third Reading, I hope the Minister may have found a way of resolving this unfinished business. We need to make clear who we are talking about rather than try to pretend that this is a separate person with a separate level of responsibilities. I appreciate that the Director of Border Revenue has responsibilities. They are clear and probably different to, but included in, the position of the chief executive of the UK Border Agency. This is misleading and misleading legislation is bad legislation. Therefore, I hope the Minister will find a way of correcting that by the Bill’s next stage. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 13 withdrawn.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
709 c684-5 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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