Lord Harper (Con)

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to support government Amendments 10 and 11 and pick up a couple of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made. I think we kicked the first point around a bit in Committee so I will not overly repeat my points from then. We said then, and I think it has come out in the debate so far, that the point of this legislation, which I strongly agree with, is very important. The substance of a lot of the Bill is about increasing the deterrent effect of the law, although I may not have agreed with what I continue to think is the rather cosmetic Border Security Commander. We want the offence here. I want it to be quite broad because I want it to put off people helping to facilitate offences and then pretending that they are not. I think the noble Baroness or somebody else gave a similar example in Committee. I do not want people assisting people to commit immigration offences. In this case, it is helpful for it to be a broad offence. We are trying to deter people from helping people. My reading of the case that the noble Baroness set out is that an offence would be committed only if the person supplying the article, the phone in this case, had a reasonable suspicion that an immigration offence was going to be committed. If they did, then I want them to be concerned that they would be committing an offence and therefore not supply the device. That is the point of the exercise. If it is not going to do that, there is really no point in passing this legislation. It is supposed to be setting out tough offences that deter people from such activity. I would make a similar point on Amendment 12, about lawyers. First, I do not know whether the position has changed enormously—I suspect not given some of the other things the Minister has said—but I had not noticed any shortage of people providing immigration advice when I was Immigration Minister. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of people who would assist people to breach our immigration rules and outwit our Home Office lawyers and so forth. There may have been a massive drying up of such people, but, based on the number of cases and the battles that the Home Office undertakes, that is highly unlikely. I do not think there is a shortage of lawyers who provide advice for people in this area. Secondly, if someone is providing legal advice about what somebody has done and their legal position, then they are not going to be caught by this offence. This offence is about people providing advice that will facilitate immigration crime. It is not the function of a lawyer following the professional standards that lawyers are supposed to operate under to provide legal advice that enables people to commit crimes. If this clause as drafted by Minister’s officials and draftsmen stops a lawyer providing advice about how to commit a crime, I am very pleased, because they should not be doing it. I do not see any legitimate legal service that a lawyer should professionally be providing that will be caught by this clause. It seems to me that it will catch only people operating on the margins and pushing the envelope about what they are doing and what they are facilitating. It is not the lawyer’s job to help people commit criminal offences. That is absolutely not what lawyers are supposed to be doing, so the clause as drafted in the legislation is fine as it is with its breadth. I know that the noble Baroness said she would not press them, but I would oppose the two amendments from her and think the Bill is better without them.