Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to limit the time that a person can be held in a UK Border Agency office—the place to which he is initially taken under Clause 22(4)(a)—which is normally occupied by designated customs officials. It also deals with detention in police cells. The Minister's letter of 10 March went into some detail describing the categories of powers exercised by UKBA officials, and now by some 4,500 HMRC officials under the Bill. There is administrative detention under the 1971 Act of a person pending their examination, removal or deportation; detention under the UK Borders Act of a person who may be liable to arrest or who is the subject of an arrest warrant, and detention following arrest by an immigration officer for an offence under the 1971 Act. In addition, customs officials have powers of arrest and detention under the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979, which can now be exercised presumably by immigration officers as well. As we understand it, the short-term holding facilities mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, could be used for all three categories, and by the police to detain people pending charges for ordinary criminal offences or terrorist offences committed at a port. This means that the population of the facility could be extremely variable in terms of the seriousness of any offence they may have committed, and the appropriate degree of security that should apply to them. The new definition of a short-term holding facility also allows a person to be detained indefinitely in one of those facilities, as the amended definition read out by the Minister in Committee at col. 287 of Hansard confirmed. I think that the maximum length of time that a person can be held in a UKBA office—I am subject to correction if I am wrong—is dealt with in Section 2 of the UK Borders Act 2007. It prescribes that a person may be detained only for three hours. Although there is no reading across to Clause 22 in the Bill, I take it that the powers which are exercised to hold somebody in one of these offices would be the powers in the UK Borders Act. If not, should there not be some reference back to the UK Borders Act so that we know that the three hours applies to both? As regards detention in a police cell, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has put her finger on a problem that exists and which has been extremely troublesome from time to time. Where the police detain someone and hold them in a cell under immigration Act powers, they are normally transferred fairly rapidly to UKBA officials, but delays do occur, and the limit of seven days is exceeded in certain cases. We need to watch this very carefully and take steps under this Bill to see that the rules are properly observed, which they are not always at the moment.