Immigration Bill (Third sitting)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 229 I do not want to undermine or belittle the six cases by any stretch of the imagination, but from the thousands who have been through the system in the past four years, which is what you mentioned, it is an incredibly small part. It would therefore be very difficult to say that the system is broken. Is that right?

Jerome Phelps: I do not think any of us have suggested that everyone in detention is abused. It is a small part but we have functioning safeguards, such as the bail system. What is concerning about the Bill is that it is removing some of those safeguards.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q 230 Could I follow up on Mr Newlands’ question about enforcement powers to which Mr Yeo gave a fairly powerful response? The provisions of the Bill give immigration officers what might be described as police-like powers. Could you reflect on the different way in which immigration officers are subject to challenge, scrutiny and oversight in the exercise of their powers in contrast with the police and the exercise of theirs currently?

Adrian Berry: My role in looking at enforcement is largely concerned with policy innovation rather than practice, because a lot of these things are not litigated in court. Immigration officers’ powers have grown piecemeal over the years through a series of legislative innovations, to the point where they now look like a parallel police force in respect of migration issues. In that context, there is not the same culture of scrutiny and oversight that one sees under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and with the Independent Police Complaints Commission and various other bodies. It is a developing situation.

Our concerns—whatever one thinks of the situation of the use of police powers by the police—is that this is a piecemeal accrual of powers without, if you like, a moment where it is recognised that you are dealing with a secondary form of police force. You need to develop not just the legislative framework, but the culture of scrutiny and good behaviour within an institution if you are going to have a police force. This sort of innovation—for example, the ability to enter private homes and search without warrant—can affect all of us. It is not just a situation of powers relating to migrants. Any investigation could come to anybody’s front door. The proper control and scrutiny of those sorts of powers is vital.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q 231 I wonder if anybody on the panel could develop that point about proper scrutiny. I am conscious, even within the regulatory framework that the police exercise, that careless use of police powers often has a much more significant impact in terms of community relations and tensions. I do not understand what checks and balances are in place for immigration officers. Which ones do you think ought to be in place?

Don Flynn: Presumably, one of the most important is the right of appeal if the seizure of property or evidence leads to an adverse decision—the possibility of challenging that decision through the appeal process. The sort of experience that we have had is with evidence of a breach of an immigration condition. Sometimes it is clearcut, but very often it is not. Very often the authorities think that it has emerged only after they have read a lot of private letters and diary entries. They might conclude that correspondence with somebody who, for example, acted as a sponsor at an early stage but subsequently turned acrimonious—arguments broke out—was evidence that fraud was used to support the application for a visa in the first instance. In the absence of an effective check on that—the ability to review it and to appeal a matter in circumstances where executive powers for administrative removal are much stronger—virtually any personal items or correspondences are regarded as evidence that will lead to a person being removed.

Colin Yeo: Again, I am thinking in terms of what problem the Bill is trying to address. In terms of enforcement, I am not sure what the ill or the problem is that needs addressing. No doubt, immigration officers would like more powers, but I am not aware of any evidence to show that they do not have enough powers as things stand. If we look, for example, at the ultimate end of enforcement, it is removals, basically. I have the statistics in front of me from the latest quarterly release. Enforcement by means of removal is falling year on year. That is not because officers did not have the powers at the start of that period. The powers are the same—in fact, they have increased under the 2014 Act. That is not the problem. The problem is making good use of existing powers and doing so in a lawful way.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I am conscious that we still have quite a lot of Members to get in, so I am going to move on—Kelly Tolhurst.