Mr Liam Byrne MP, Mr Brodie Clark, Mr Tom Dowdall and Mr Tom Dodd

12 DECEMBER 2007

  Q480  Lord Dear: You mentioned Malta. We took evidence, as you may know, from a Maltese officer earlier on. I wondered how all of that, on which I think we are pretty clear, moves on to where we are not clear and that is the Royal Navy, our own Navy, operating across most of the waters that we are interested in, as you have already signalled, around the Canaries or Malta. If our own ship came across a boat load of what were clearly illegal immigrants, is there some operational procedure for that?

  Mr Byrne: There is. The starting point though is to say that obviously there is not a very big Royal Navy presence in the Mediterranean, although exercises will be conducted, that is true. There are two answers to this. The first is that the Royal Navy will typically track rather than intercept boats and therefore observe and alert the relevant Member State authorities but if there was a scenario where a rescue was required the way that we would interpret the law of the sea would be to discharge the individuals who were rescued at the nearest port. That would typically be a port in the Mediterranean.

  Q481  Lord Dear: That would be for a rescue. Simply coming across it, they would track but not intercept?

  Mr Byrne: They would track and alert, yes.

  Q482  Lord Dear: But not interpose?

  Mr Byrne: No. It would be about tracking and alerting. Again, we would see the primary obligation as being incumbent on the Member State and therefore the Member State's border security arrangements.

  Q483  Lord Dear: We were clear about rescues; it was whether they interposed or not.

  Mr Byrne: The philosophy will be track and alert.

  Q484  Lord Dear: Could I follow up the evidence we heard from Malta? I am sure others would have said the same thing about the disproportionate burden that falls on places like Malta. I am not sure that they said it to us but clearly there was a desire to share that burden because they have a disproportionate burden in Malta, as an example. Do you have any ideas about how Frontex might ease that pattern away from those who are taking the lion's share of the burden?

  Mr Byrne: I am not sure that it is necessarily a Frontex issue. The way that we interpret burden sharing is that we do not think we should be moving people around. We think that would create an enormous pull factor that would compound the problem rather than solve it. We think that financial burden sharing is important. Where there is possibly an area for Frontex is if theoretically Frontex evolved its role and got more involved in returns. That could well be a role that Frontex played. I remain a bit of a sceptic about Frontex getting involved in joint returns and arrangements because I know how difficult organising joint returns arrangements is but there is an EU returns fund of about 35 or 40 million euros which Malta is able to draw from. Logistically, once you get into the business of trying to organise joint charter flights that are stopping at various different points across Europe, it becomes enormously complicated, as you know because you have to coordinate all the detention arrangements and make sure that there are no barriers to removal in any one country. The complexity of trying to organise these things is very difficult. We are committed to trying to organise joint returns flights with the French to Pakistan and potentially to Iraq. We have quite a strong track record at organising return charters to those countries but in practical terms—we have been trying to do it for about nine or 10 months now—the will is there but it is quite difficult to line up people in any detention estate.

  Q485  Lord Dear: The will is there. Finding the formula is almost impossible.

  Mr Byrne: It is very difficult, yes, and of course we all have different rules as regards detention as well. The French have more limited powers of detention around illegal immigration than we do. The Immigration Act is quite strong. The French often find it difficult keeping people in detention for longer than seven days. We need to continue to try but in practice my experience has been that it is quite difficult.

  Q486  Lord Dear: To take the hypothetical example of Malta, these are my figures to prove the point, but of those who Malta might stop they are going to six different countries. Therefore, it is fair for Malta to get something as a contribution from those six pro rata. It would not be easy to manage. It would probably be impossible.

  Mr Byrne: No, but that is an argument for wider cooperation on the financial support that is provided to Malta. Where Frontex probably can add value to a country like Malta, which is obviously a small country and may not have the world's biggest immigration system, for example, we often talk to the French about our experience in enforced returns. Brice Hortefeux has been given very ambitious targets by President Sarkozy for the number of deportations this year. All we are sharing with the French a lot of our expertise in enforced returns. That is exactly the kind of capability and expertise which we can provide to countries like Malta on a bilateral basis but potentially in the future through an organisation like Frontex. It is that capability sharing backed by EU-wide funding that will make the biggest difference and the fastest difference. That is what Malta needs, not bureaucracy.

  Q487  Lord Young of Norwood Green: If we want to ensure that there is coordinated activity, what equipment has the UK made available to the Central Register of Technical Equipment, with the unfortunate acronym CRATE? What does it plan to make available in 2008?

  Mr Byrne: 12 CO2 detectors, three heart beat detectors, six basic forgery detection kits, six UV lights, 12 magnifying glasses, one document investigation device and a digital camera.

  Q488  Lord Young of Norwood Green: I am fascinated by the magnifying glasses.

  Mr Byrne: They have special lights in them.

  Q489  Lord Young of Norwood Green: Have you met a proportionate share of demand? Do we feel that we are meeting our obligations in these circumstances?

  Mr Byrne: I think so.

  Mr Dowdall: Yes. How it has worked to date is that where there have been operations we have been approached and asked to contribute. In the main, our interest particularly on the land borders and also on the southern Spanish border has been the provision of heart beat detectors and CO2 detectors. Our expertise is very much in the vehicle screening and searching. We can provide that kind of assistance. I met the executive director in Warsaw recently and we discussed the kinds of requests that they would be coming to us with next year so rather than coming to us on an operation by operation basis we have a plan for 2008 which we are considering at the moment. Included within that are the resources and also the requests for equipment. In terms of equipment, they are again interested in us contributing to their land borders freight searching work and I can see that we will be responding positively to those requests.

  Q490  Lord Teverson: One of the frustrations we came across in a couple of the interviews we have done has been around equipment being available or being declared as part of the CRATE but not being available at the time. Obviously, it is being used elsewhere, but I am interested from the UK's point of view. Have you had to refuse requests ever or have we been able to fulfil all requests that have come in?

  Mr Dowdall: We have been able to fulfil all those requests. Some frustration has been expressed particularly by some of the southern states in terms of the provision of maritime equipment. That kind of hardware has been the area that has been of concern.

  Q491  Lord Teverson: Given that that is a frustration and there is some gap between expectation and delivery maybe, is there a better way that that could be done somehow in terms of the forward planning that you were talking about?

  Mr Dowdall: That is the whole issue. In six weeks it is difficult enough to get people assembled. To get the shipping assembled in that time is very challenging. The improvement this year is the fact that all the Member States are having bilateral conversations with Frontex and setting out at this point and now what the requirement is the next year. In terms of the maritime operations, rather than having single exercises, the proposal is to have operations of much longer duration. That allows different countries to contribute at different times.

  Mr Byrne: I do not know if the Committee has it but it might be helpful if we provide you with a quick breakdown of the operations that Frontex conducted jointly in 2007 because it underlines the point that most of them have been quite small-scale and often of limited duration. If Frontex is to step up a bit, there is a strong argument for a resource pool that is flexible to which Member States are contributing and from which Frontex can draw down as and when it is needed.

Chairman: I think you are aware of two questions we wanted to ask, one about Frontex training and the other about the lessons learned from Frontex operations. Would you kindly let us have written answers to those two questions?

  Q492  Lord Harrison: I wondered if you wanted to say anything further about the displacement problem. I think your response was flexibility and resources.

  Mr Byrne: I will write on both of those questions but on the displacement there are four principal routes into the UK coming from different directions. That is why understanding displacement effects and how you can flexibly redeploy assets is terrifically important, but so is that sense of realism that just front of house operations are not going to be enough. You do need to engage in development and co-development as well to diminish the push factors in the first place.

  Q493  Chairman: Explain to us what the government would like to see with regard to the way that Frontex might develop over the next few years to try and take it step by step, including in that what if any assets you think should be possessed by Frontex.

  Mr Byrne: Europe collectively needs to think about the work that we need to do on development in Africa and elsewhere, as we set out in the Global Approach to Migration, in a way that helps to diminish migration and illegal migration pressures. Second, there is no substitute for effective Member State border security operations. That is why we do not agree with the argument about a European border guard. We think Member States should be leading that. There is then a question about what happens between the host countries and Europe. Frontex I think has quite an important role to play in coordinating EU activity in stopping traffic across those routes and that is where the principal focus of expansion should be. My one hesitation where I am not sure in my own mind of the answer is what the future of Frontex is in relation to organised illegal immigration crime. We obviously have European agencies around like Europol which are effective in this arena but one of the questions that I will be seeking advice on from the European Commission's review—and indeed I would be enormously interested in the Committee's view—is on whether there is more that Frontex should be doing to help dismantle the forces of organised crime and therefore diminish the pressure of illegal immigration on Europe's wider borders. I have not answered that question in my own mind.

  Q494  Lord Marlesford: My concern would be—and I do not know, Minister, whether you would share it—that particularly with some of the new entrants into Europe there would be a real danger of penetration of Frontex by organised crime. I think the vetting of people in Frontex should be done independently by some European organisation.

  Mr Byrne: That is a very valid point.

  Q495  Lord Young of Norwood Green: I wanted to comment a while back but I resisted. We had a recent visit to Heathrow and I wanted to compliment you on what we saw there in terms of a good esprit de corps amongst the UK border guards with smart, new uniforms. I would not say the pay rate of immigration control officers is necessarily the most attractive in the world and I did ask what made them stay. One of the things they pointed out to me was the increased career development activity, as you said, with a wider range of opportunities. I thought you might be interested to hear that.

  Mr Byrne: Whenever I get down in the mouth, I try and spend about a day a week of my time on the road visiting with front-line staff. Frankly, there is no greater inspiration than talking to front-line staff in the Border and Immigration Agency. They do an enormously difficult job and they do it with a great deal of passion, pride and professionalism.

Chairman: Minister, thank you very much and thank you to your colleagues for coming. You have been very clear and helpful and we appreciate it very much.