Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Hanson of Flint]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2024.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

It is me and my colleagues again, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord German, is in a tag team and working to have an input on this order. This order amends the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) Order 2003—or, as I will now call it for short, the 2003 order—to support the Government’s preferred model for the French delivery of the EU entry/exit system, or EES, in Dover.

As noble Lords will know, EES is the EU’s new border entry system, which is driven primarily by the desire for greater border security and a more secure Europe. The UK Government are supporting the aims of EES, which complement our shared objectives on migration and secure borders. We have been working at pace and closely with our French and EU partners, as well as with industry and across UK government, to ensure readiness for the changes that will potentially be made shortly. I am grateful to all parties for their constructive approach to this.

For the benefit of noble Lords who wish to have greater clarity, the EES requires that non-EU citizens—excluding EU residents, visa holders and those protected by the withdrawal agreement—who wish to enter the Schengen area provide fingerprints and facial scans at EU borders to EU border officials and answer questions about their stay. This will increase the time taken to complete the Schengen entry process.

As immigration controls in Dover are juxtaposed, non-EU citizens, which includes most British nationals, will provide these details to officers of the French Police aux Frontières—PAF for short. PAF officers conduct Schengen entry checks in the control area at the eastern docks in Dover, which, as noble Lords will know, is a confined space with large volumes of freight and passenger traffic going through Dover, particularly at peak times. If this continues in the current format once EES is implemented, there is likely to be severe congestion or disruption at the Port of Dover; the very nature of fingerprinting and facial recognition take longer than the current system.

Therefore, the Government have engaged constructively with the French and the EU to explore mitigations. France has agreed—with our thanks—that its PAF officers should complete EES checks for coaches in an additional coach control zone at the western docks. This approach will ensure that there is sufficient capacity to conduct EES checks on coaches that is not available at the eastern docks.

To do this—this is the key part of the SI before the Committee today—France has requested two changes to ensure that PAF officers can operate the controls effectively. These are that PAF officers must be able to travel between the control zones with their service weapons, and that PAF officers must be able to escort any detained persons they have arrested following immigration examination in the new control zone at the western docks to the control zone at the eastern docks, where they currently carry out their immigration controls in full.

As your Lordships would expect, government officials have consulted relevant stakeholders, including Kent Police and a number of other agencies, on this requirement of the French authorities. Senior officers are satisfied that the risks are minimal and can be managed through appropriate safeguards and standard operating procedures. The French have agreed to these and the Government have approved France’s requests.

This order, therefore, creates what we are calling a “circulation area”, which will be a section of the A20 public road, approximately 1.5 miles long, linking the French control zone at the western docks with the existing control zone in Dover. It will also enable PAF officers to travel between control zones via the circulation area and will extend certain powers and provisions in the 2003 order, which are applicable only in a control zone and now to the circulation area.

Therefore, PAF officers will be permitted to travel with their service weapons, in the circulation area only, between control zones. Officers will also be able to escort detained persons between control zones. They will not, however, be able to arrest or detain anyone in the circulation area who has not already been detained by them in the exercise of their functions within a control zone.

When PAF officers escort a detained person in the circulation area, certain provisions will apply, just as they do when officers exercise their powers in a control zone. Specifically, PAF officers will be protected against acts or omissions committed against them that constitute offences under an immigration control enactment—for example, assault or obstruction—in the same way that British immigration officers are protected against these. They also cannot be prosecuted for any offence committed when they are exercising their lawful powers under the 2003 order in the circulation area. Additionally, procedures concerning the arrest of a PAF officer for acts performed in a control zone will also apply to PAF officers exercising the power to escort detained persons in the circulation area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome this order. I will be brief. I thank the Minister for his detailed explanation of the regulations, which was helpful. Perhaps I can help him by reassuring the noble Lord, Lord German, that, when I was in the Home Office, the rollout of the ETAs to which he referred was very much on track and was highly efficient—I am sure it still is.

My party does not have quite the same forensic interest in the geography of Dover as the noble Lord, Lord German, and it is content that the regulations will deliver what is expected of them. But I do have a couple of brief questions. According to the Explanatory Notes to the regulations, no impact assessment has been undertaken. Is there a particular reason for that, or a perfectly innocent explanation? As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is in the Room, I should say that I am asking this mostly because he used to ask me for impact assessments regularly when I was standing in his place.

I appreciate the detailed description of the powers of the PAF officers, but I did not hear the circumstances in which the use of firearms would be permitted. What are the restrictions, if any, on those officers? It may be that I just did not hear that.

Are arrangements in place to allow the employees of other foreign agencies to carry firearms when working in the United Kingdom? More generally, is this a reserved or a devolved matter?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for noble Lords’ questions, which I will try to answer to help them understand the legislation and its impact—and hopefully to support it.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord German, that this is being undertaken and framed in this way because Dover carried 68,000 coaches in 2023, and 4,000 in the peak month of July. The noble Lord will know that the Schengen changes have been delayed to a date yet to be determined, and we do not yet know what their impact will be when they come in, but, undoubtedly, unless these measures are put in place, there will be longer delays for coach travel.

The noble Lord asked whether that is an issue for vehicles. He asked about cars. I hope I can reassure him by saying that the Port of Dover is looking at significant work, including reclaiming land in the port specifically for EES registration. Therefore, conversations are ongoing on the potential new area being used for car registrations as well as for coaches. The order does not preclude any particular type of vehicle, but the primary purpose at the moment, to ease any pressure in the event of the regulations being introduced by the EU, would be for the 68,000 coaches travelling through the Port of Dover each year.

The noble Lord mentioned the circulation area, which, as I indicated, is a 1.5 mile-long stretch of the A20 linking the French control zone at the western docks with the existing control zone in Dover. I reassure him—I hope this will help—that it will be for use just by vehicles by the French authorities and it is not envisaged or agreed that it will be undertaken by any means other than vehicles.

The noble Lord asked about juxtaposed controls generally. Dover/Calais is a classic example of where we need those controls in place. I hope I can reassure him by saying that we have juxtaposed controls in France, not just at Calais but at Dunkirk for ferry crossings, at Coquelles for the Eurotunnel, and at Paris Gare du Nord and Lille-Europe for the Eurostar. We also have them in Belgium at Brussels-Midi, and in the Netherlands at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for train services. That is part of the general relationship that we have to have with the European Union in the post-Brexit era. We were never part of Schengen in the first place, so even under a pre-Brexit solution, that would still be a challenge that the Government would have needed to examine. I hope that reassures the noble Lord on those points.

[Lord German (LD)]

Does the Minister have a date for the introduction of the UK ETA scheme? The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, told us that it was going along admirably.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord German, asks an interesting and pertinent question. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, indicated that, under his administration, it was moving along swimmingly. Let me tell the noble Lord, Lord German, that it still is. I will leave it at that.

I shall answer a couple of the points mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. First, he rightly asked—again, my noble friend Lord Coaker has asked this question many times—what the economic impact will be. I can tell the noble Lord—I hope that this also reassures my noble friend—that the estimated cost of this is minimal: around £3,052 over a 10-year appraisal period. It was therefore well short of any threshold that required a full impact assessment; in fact, any impact assessment would have cost more than its results. So that impact assessment has not happened, but I hope the noble Lord understands why that was the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, also asked why and how PAF officers would potentially need to use their service weapons in the UK if they were carrying out immigration checks only. I need not remind the Committee, I hope, that any individual at any time can be a danger to those checking border paperwork and looking at issues to do with the regulation of this area. We do not know at any particular time who is going to be there and what threat they may pose. It is a requirement for the French authorities that they carry weapons accordingly, but I assure the noble Lord that that will be regulated by French national legislation in accordance with their normal working practices. PAF officers are required to carry service weapons; they do so while carrying out their work at the juxtaposed controls in the UK, but they do so under the same strict regulation that we discussed earlier in the Chamber in relation to firearm control. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.

With those comments, I again commend this order to the Committee.

Motion agreed.