Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, we return to the matter of training; in Committee we talked about what adequate training would be and we are still concerned that there is no definition of it in the Bill. When the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, moved her amendment, she talked of some of the fears of the unions about deskilling. This goes to the heart of what we are trying to do with getting a better definition of adequate training in the Bill. The wording that we have chosen to use for this definition is the wording that the Minister himself used to define it in Committee when he said: ""For training to be deemed adequate, the definition is that it must provide a designated customs official with all the instruction and skills appropriate and necessary to exercise the customs revenue functions conferred on them fully and properly.".—[Official Report, 25/2/09; col. 249.]" That was a very helpful comment but we feel it would be more helpful to define it in the Bill. The Minister, earlier this afternoon, explained some of the customs’ functions: that of taking away the colours from ships, that of nicking horses in the proper sense, the functions to do with fish and, on the revenue side, the checking of taxes and so on. These are all vastly different. So staff from both functions will do very different work. We were not fully satisfied with the depth of explanation given in Committee. Mention was made of 14 weeks’ training. I have reread what was said, but I am still not fully clear on whether that refers to 14 weeks on-the-job training. Clearly, it would not be 14 weeks of nothing but training. It is not clear how much of each day will be spent on training or even what the criteria for successfully passing the training will be. It was said that training will be delivered by trainers accredited by HMRC and that they, ""will be mentored by the personal training officer network".—[Official Report, 25/2/09; col. 249.]" I am surprised at that. I am not sure whether that should be the "personnel" training officer network. I assume that it should be "personnel", the old-fashioned word for HR. Alternatively, does it mean personal trainers of the type used by celebrities? The interpretation can be slightly ambiguous, which may be due to the spelling on the record. Perhaps the Minister will explain that more fully. For the reasons explained by the Minister when he spoke to the first amendments to the Bill, this is supposed to strengthen the border force and improve it. This afternoon, we have heard some of the fears. In fact, the adequacy of training is exactly what will make this entire exercise a success or not, of which I am sure that the Minister is fully seized. That is why it is worth going back to this issue at this stage. I beg to move.