Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall be quite quick with this, and I hope that the Minister will accept it; it is straightforward. It would put into the Bill the limits on the length of time that someone may be held in different types of facility by the UK Border Agency. By definition, we are almost definitely talking about either illegal immigrants or somebody who has been apprehended at the border for other reasons. It is necessary that we put this in the Bill because the Government have created this confusing bundle of powers, sharing around customs and revenue functions to different officials, and then adding to that those who will be covered by the PACE provisions. That means that police-type functions are being envisaged for people who are not police. We would like to be clear about who is allowed to do what under these provisions. The Government introduced the new clauses on PACE powers so that we would have them in the Bill. That is well and good, but in Clause 22(4) we have a reference to people who are held in UK Border Agency detention if they are in, ""an office of the UK Border Agency"." I would like to explore how, if at all, an office of the UK Border Agency might be categorised. Plainly it is different from a police cell. The Minister made some efforts, in correspondence and in Committee, to describe what was meant by "short-term" accommodation. In correspondence and in Committee, the Minister endeavoured to describe what is meant by short-term accommodation. In Committee, he explained that places that are now designated as short-term holding facilities will, or may, in future be used to detain persons under customs and revenue investigation powers. Do offices of the UK Border Agency fall into that category? My amendment makes it absolutely clear that there is a firm difference between premises partly occupied by the UK Border Agency—that is one of the definitions given in Clause 22(4)—and police cells. I do not want to see any confusion about where people can be held and for how long. If they are held in an office of the UK Border Agency by a member of staff of the UK Border Agency who has rights under PACE to hold people, they can be held there only for three hours to sort the matter out. If they want to hold a person for longer, they will have to find a policeman and put them in a police cell before the three hours are up. Under the UK Borders Act, once they are in a police cell, they can be held for no more than seven days, as the Minister said in his letter. We need to make it absolutely clear that they can actually only be held for five days. The seven days applies only to someone who is to be deported. However, this is an awfully long time to be held in a police cell and we want to be very clear what this is all about. I hope the Minister will accept that these limits not only must be observed but are germane to the Bill and should be clearly stated. If there are rights under the Bill and there are responsibilities under PACE as regards arresting and holding people, it is proper for the relevant measure in the UK Borders Act to be included in the Bill. I beg to move.