My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I shall be brief if I can, because—if I can make a pitch wearing my Whip’s hat—we have six more groups of amendments to debate.
It may help if I speak first to government Amendment 239C, which I hope will be uncontroversial. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his support on this amendment. This makes a minor change to extend the maritime powers in the Bill to Northern Ireland port police by altering the definition of “Northern Ireland constable” in new Section 28Q of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as inserted by paragraph 7 of Schedule 11 to the Bill.
The two harbour police forces in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Harbour Police and Larne Harbour Police, were not initially included in the Bill as the categories of officers listed are modelled on the maritime powers in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, we have listened to points made by Northern Irish Members in another place and agree that a consistent approach should be taken across the UK with the enforcement of immigration control. Therefore, this amendment aligns the position of port police forces in Northern Ireland with those port police forces elsewhere in the UK which are already included in the Bill. It will be a matter for individual port police forces to consider whether they wish to use the powers or rely on the relevant territorial force—for example, the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Amendment 239BA would extend our penalties for misdirected passengers to general aviation sites, private landing strips and helipads. It is the Government’s intention to operate the misdirected flights penalties only at sites where there is a designated control zone to which arriving passengers must be directed for border checks by the Border Force. I shall come on to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made in a moment. Given the large number of general aviation sites, landing strips and helipads in the UK that do not have a permanent Border Force presence, this amendment is unnecessary and unworkable. It would place a disproportionate burden on those sites. Border Force officers attend such sites only when they need to check specific arrivals.
On what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was saying about the potential loophole, I should quickly mention how border authorities handle general aviation flights.
The Border Force and police take an intelligence-led approach to general aviation, which strikes a balance between securing our borders and best managing resources. Flights are risk assessed in advance and, when appropriate, border authorities will physically examine crew, passengers and goods. There are in excess of 3,000 private air fields nationwide, and it would be unfeasible for the Border Force and police routinely to meet all arriving flights. It was noted by the independent inspection report published in January that the Border Force has made a number of significant recent interventions in the general aviation environment. I confirm that all those travelling via general aviation are subject to the same immigration and visa requirements as those using scheduled services. The noble Lord asks whether we are doing something about it. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 includes enabling provisions for a stronger legislative framework for advanced notification for general aviation. Regulations will bring greater clarity to what is needed from the sector but also provide for appropriate sanctions to enforce compliance by the small minority that do not provide advanced notification under the current arrangements.
Amendment 240 seeks to include provision for a statutory review of border security in the United Kingdom. The Border Force operates a control regime which is predicated on checking 100% of scheduled arrivals. Our collection of advanced passenger information from carriers enables us to identify known subjects of interest to law enforcement agencies before they travel, allowing us to intervene and direct airlines and ferry companies not to carry certain passengers so that they never even set foot in the UK. The Border Force adopts an intelligence-led approach in combination with its partners to identify and intercept contraband goods which have the potential to cause harm to the public. Our visa regime provides another vital way by which we are able to manage the threats from crime, terrorism, illegal migration, and espionage.
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration regularly reviews Home Office immigration functions, including our management of border security. Most significantly, following the independent chief inspector’s critical review of the then UK Border Agency, Border Force was established as a separate law enforcement body. The Home Office also works with a range of other partners, including port operators, carriers and road hauliers. This allows us to review processes and security interventions to make border security work efficiently, and to work together to intercept threats while keeping the flow of law-abiding passengers and freight moving as smoothly as possible. I assure the Committee that the Government keep the UK’s border security arrangements under constant review and these arrangements are subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration—as I have said—and by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The reports and publications of both of these are laid before Parliament. On this basis, we do not consider there is any need to introduce a further statutory review process.