Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with a bit of déjà vu and humble apologies, I beg to move that this Committee do consider the draft order. It was laid before Parliament in May and is made in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 141 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The draft order is a technical one that corrects drafting errors in an earlier instrument; namely, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2021, which I shall refer to as the earlier order.
The earlier order was debated and approved by both Houses. It aligns the juxtaposed controls regime at the seaports of northern France with the regime in operation at Coquelles for the Channel Tunnel shuttle service and at the Eurostar rail terminals in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The earlier order replicated the legislative approach taken at the other juxtaposed control locations and enabled all UK immigration legislation to be applied in the UK control zones at the ports of Calais and Dunkirk.
The UK operates border controls at specified ports in France. This allows Border Force officers to conduct checks on passengers and freight destined for the UK. It is a reciprocal arrangement, with French officers completing entry checks at certain ports in the UK on passengers and freight destined for continental Europe. Currently, Border Force conducts juxtaposed immigration controls at the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, with French Police Aux Frontières undertaking Schengen entry checks at the UK port of Dover prior to travel.
The juxtaposed controls in Calais and Dunkirk are provided for at an international level by the 2003 Le Touquet treaty. This was put into effect in the UK by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) Order 2003, which I shall hereafter refer to as the 2003 order. The earlier order amended the 2003 order to grant UK Border Force officers working at the juxtaposed ports of Calais and Dunkirk the full range of immigration powers currently available to them under the immigration Acts, and made the necessary modifications to other enactments to ensure that UK immigration controls could function properly in Calais and Dunkirk.
This instrument corrects drafting errors contained in the earlier order relating to modification to Section 2 of the UK Borders Act 2007, which makes provision for the detention at ports power. I shall refer to this as the 2007 Act hereafter. For clarity, the detention at ports power allows suitably trained and designated Border Force officers to detain an individual of any nationality that the officer believes may be liable to arrest pending the arrival of the relevant law enforcement authority.
This instrument makes the necessary amendments to the earlier order and the 2003 order to do two things: first, to make it explicitly clear that the 2007 Act has been extended to the juxtaposed seaports and, as necessary, modified for the purposes of those controls. This instrument reverses a formatting error that set out the modification to the 2007 Act as a stand-alone article rather than a provision to be inserted into the 2003 order. Secondly, to account for recent legislative changes resulting from the end of the transition period reflecting the UK’s departure from the EU, this instrument corrects two further, purely technical minor errors in the modification to the 2007 Act.
To be absolutely clear to the Committee, this instrument does not change the policy content of the earlier order, nor does it make any new changes to the juxtaposed seaports regime. It simply corrects minor drafting errors contained in the earlier order to ensure that the effect of that order is explicitly clear. Again, I must apologise unreservedly to the Committee for the original errors having been made and for the imposition that the correction of these errors is making on it, but it is important they are corrected so that the law is absolutely clear.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. My noble friend Lord Bourne asked about illegal migration at Calais and Dunkirk. He will know that the UK and France maintain a long-standing relationship in tackling illegal migration at the shared border. As he also knows, the UK and France work to a whole-of-route approach to tackling illegal migration, ensuring intervention at different stages in a migrant’s journey.
Both sides agree on the importance of a continued close dialogue to reduce migratory pressures at the shared border, and we continue to keep requirements under review as part of our ongoing partnership with France. As noble Lords will know, it is a shared problem, and the UK has committed several funding packages to support the work. The Sandhurst treaty, agreed in January 2018, represented an ongoing commitment by both the UK and France to the whole-of-route approach, and last year the Home Secretary and her counterpart agreed measures to make that route unviable. At that time, the UK committed to invest in a €31.4 million package with France as part of a joint action to address illegal migration. This package includes doubling the number of officers patrolling French beaches, bolstering security along the 150-kilometre stretch of coastline, which is regularly targeted by people-smuggling networks, and the provision of an enhanced package of cutting-edge surveillance technology, including drones, radar equipment, optronic binoculars and fixed cameras.
So far this year over 5,000 crossings have been prevented —more than two and a half times the number prevented in 2020 for the same period. The proportion of crossings intercepted in 2021 currently stands at around 52%, up from 46% recorded throughout 2020, and on average, the French have arrested more than 100 facilitators each month since the beginning of the year.
My noble friend asked about migrant numbers. It is difficult to be totally accurate but the migrant population at Grande-Synthe, currently assessed at 400 people, remains steady, although the Calais population is seeing a gradual increase from around 500 to 600 a few weeks ago to 875 more recently, despite the regular clearance operations by local law enforcement. That said, the overall numbers are massively down compared with those seen in advance of the Calais camp clearance, when the local population in Calais alone was in excess of 10,000 migrants, with 3,000 to 4,000 of them at Dunkirk.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the numbers refused entry. I do not have those numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that I had not addressed his specific points, either on the previous statutory instrument, the Question that we had earlier, or indeed the debate we had earlier. I know that I wrote to everyone who spoke in the last debate, but I will check for the noble Lord on his specific points.
On double jeopardy, matters relating to the responsible state as regards offences have been considered and are the subject of a specific set of provisions underpinning the Le Touquet agreement, and we have international arrangements underpinning the rail regime with France, Belgium and the Netherlands, which are incorporated into our domestic law by 1993, 1994 and 2020 orders.
On the point about the drafting complexity, again, I apologise to noble Lords. On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, about whose fault it is, parliamentary draftsmen draw up our laws, and I can only apologise again. They work very hard and it is amazing the amount of stuff that gets through both Houses in impeccable condition.
As to the actual complexity, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was right last time that the order and instrument are technical and complex in nature; both are drafted in line with accepted government practice. The errors did not stem from the complexity of the order but were, as I have explained, the result of human error. As soon as the department was aware of the errors, swift steps were taken to correct them to ensure that the law was made clear. Since they were identified, the department has been proactive in taking steps to improve quality assurance procedures to prevent errors occurring. All I can say, again, is that I apologise for the fact that not only do noble Lords have to listen to me but I have to bring these pieces of secondary legislation for their consideration not once but twice.
On impacts, to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, there is no impact on the reasonable force power; it is just about the detention at ports power. As I said in my opening remarks, the order will make it explicitly clear that Section 2 of the UK Borders Act 2007 has been extended to and modified for the juxtaposed seaports. As part of the earlier order, the Explanatory Memorandum set out that an impact assessment was not conducted. That is correct—the department foresees no significant impacts resulting from the earlier order, given that the intent related to other Border Force control locations. However, it is right that we continue to monitor and analyse the use of force data to draw out and mitigate against any potential unintended impacts.
The noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, asked about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Sorry, no, it was the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who asked me about that—and, yes, we want to help those who are most in need of our help and not force them to rely on unscrupulous criminals. We do not want journeys to be criminality-facilitated; we want them to be on safe, legal routes. I look forward to debating that legislation with the noble Lord in due course.
On asylum returns, I would say to the noble Lord that the joint political declaration between the UK and EU agreed on 24 December last year noted the intention to engage in bilateral discussions with the most concerned member states to discuss suitable practical arrangements on asylum, family reunion, unaccompanied minors and illegal migration. In accordance with the UK’s and the EU’s respective laws and regulations, we have begun bilateral negotiations, and there are a series of existing routes by which people can come. I look forward to discussing these issues further with noble Lords.
I shall leave it there and will write to noble Lords on any areas of clarification.