Policing and Crime Bill

In the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill, which was considered earlier this year and which has now received Royal Assent, the Government introduced reforms to the common travel area which would have ended the CTA as a passport-free zone, introduced passport control on air and sea routes and raised the prospect of mobile immigration controls and actual, or de facto, document requirements on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The reforms would have had serious significant consequences for the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I do not intend to repeat those concerns at this stage, except to say that one concern was the risk of racial discrimination emanating from the land border checks. In the Report stage of that Bill, this House voted by a majority of almost two to one to remove the common travel area reform from the Bill entirely. When the Bill returned to this House for further consideration the Government withdrew the offending clauses from the Bill, for which we are extremely grateful. However, Clause 99 of this Bill could have consequences for the CTA as well. It contains a new power for customs officers to require, ""any person entering or leaving the United Kingdom—""(a) to produce the person’s passport or travel documents for examination"." There is at present no reference to CTA routes being exempted. The CTA—common travel area—is an immigration arrangement, and customs powers are exercised between the UK and Ireland including on the land border. UKBA officials have outlined that the new power is designed to provide explicit legal cover for long-standing customs practices, carries no penalty for non-compliance and argue that it is a power to see whatever travel documents a person is carrying and will not require the carrying of a passport on routes where no passport is otherwise required. However, exercising a power requiring the production of a passport without any explicit safeguards could lead to an effective document requirement for targeted groups. Notably, the power is a customs power; hence it would not presently carry the same high level of risk of targeting by racial profiling that the proposed immigration practices could entail. However, customs and immigration functions are presently being merged following the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Both are envisaged as being concurrently exercised by UKBA officers. The Lords Select Committee on the Constitution wrote to the Minister in relation to how this would impact on CTA routes. He replied: ""By virtue of the provisions of Part 1 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill officers of the UKBA will in future conduct both customs and immigration work at the border. UKBA officers will therefore be able to exercise the powers in clause 99 along with other customs powers. Despite the fact that UKBA officers may be exercising both customs and immigration functions, customs powers may not be used for immigration purposes or immigration powers for customs purposes. The powers available under clause 99 would not therefore be available to officers for the purpose of checking the immigration status of persons travelling within the CTA. However, having properly exercised a power for a customs purpose a UKBA officer will be able to use the information gained for immigration purposes and vice versa"." There must a risk of abuse whereby a UKBA officer could stop and require a passport, stating the exercise of broad customs powers, when the real purpose of the stop was targeting an individual for immigration purposes. Having ostensibly exercised the customs power, the UKBA officer could then share that information with himself or herself and exercise immigration powers. You could not really make this up. Effectively this power, without CTA safeguards, could lead to a legally dubious but nevertheless effective passport requirement on the land border which in part could facilitate the ad hoc checks about which we are concerned. I have recently returned from the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, and a number of noble Lords sitting in their places tonight will concur with what that body decided unanimously yesterday. It approved a motion from Mr Stephen Rodan, the Speaker in the Tynwald, which is in the Isle of Man. The motion was: ""That the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly notes the UK Government’s policy on e-Borders; further notes the commercial and cultural advantages of the Common Travel Area to the different jurisdictions within it; and is of the opinion that no legislative changes to the current arrangements should be made without a full consultation by the UK Government of all the jurisdictions within the Common Travel Area; and refers the matter of the e-Borders policy of the UK and its impact on the Common Travel Area to Committee A for it to inquire into this matter and to report to the Assembly"." If we do not take note of this tonight, it will be too late and there would be very little point in the whole thing being referred to committee A, as I told the assembly yesterday. The parliamentarians who make up the assembly are from England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as our Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It is extremely important that we listen to their concerns. We are asking the Government to do what they did last time and withdraw this particular part of the Bill until a full consultation has taken place with all the members of the constituent assembly body. I beg to move.