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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, this amendment would impact the UK Border Agency’s operational effectiveness, and I must resist it. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, asked whether police-type functions are envisaged by border force officers. The answer is yes. They will have powers of arrest, detention and other enforcement powers, as immigration HMRC officers currently do. That is why it is essential to apply PACE to these officers. It might be helpful if I explain that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Application to Revenue and Customs) Order 2007 currently allows a person to be detained following arrest for a maximum of six hours in a non-designated office of HM Revenue and Customs. This is a reasonable period, and it currently enables HM Revenue and Customs to deal effectively with a significant number of arrested persons at its offices at ports and airports. Cases which may be resolved within a six-hour period are dealt with without the need to transfer arrested persons to custody suites or to police stations. The arrested person is protected by the application of the PACE codes of practice regardless of whether he or she is at an office of HM Revenue and Customs or detained in a designated custody suite or police station. As I have said previously in debating the application of PACE, PACE (Northern Ireland) and the PACE codes to the UK Border Agency, we need to ensure that, in so far as they will in future be investigating and detaining people for the same offences and exercising the same functions at the border as officers of HMRC do currently, designated customs officials of the agency have the same powers and are required to provide the same safeguards. That includes ensuring that the same power as is currently in place to allow a person arrested for a customs offence to be detained at an office of HM Revenue and Customs for six hours is available in respect of future detention of persons by designated customs officials in offices of the UK Border Agency. Accordingly, Clause 22 will impose a similar limit on the detention of a person in a non-designated UK Border Agency office of six hours following his or her arrest by a designated customs official.