Border guard farce: No uniform, £100million budget crisis - and they won't work weekends

The UK Border Agency will start life without Customs and Immigration Service staff being trained to share each other's powers and with only limited rights of arrest.

The 25,000-strong force does not even have its own promised uniform as officials wrangle over the design.

One immigration source said: "Basically, it is going to exist in name only at the outset."

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The revelations are an embarrassment for the Government, which heralds the force as a key step towards finally protecting Britain's porous borders.

Gordon Brown has promised that the agency - which combines existing customs, immigration and UK visa staff - will be a "single uniformed presence" with shared powers.

Ministers will today lay down a series of targets for the force, including the deportation of more than 4,000 foreign criminals this year.

But critics warned the agency - which was already under fire for not including the police among its ranks - was already descending into farce.

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The ban on immigration staff searching for illegal immigrants at the weekends and Bank Holidays is the result of a £ 100million overspend which has left officials desperate to avoid overtime payments wherever they can.

All raids will be halted except where staff formally request written permission at least three weeks in advance from senior bosses - who have made clear it is unlikely to be granted.

Weekend staffing levels are also being cut, meaning that when police find and arrest illegal immigrants outside office hours, immigration officers are increasingly unlikely to be able to attend, and many will end up being released with no action.

Immigration sources have described the ban as "ludicrous".

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This exposes the myth behind Gordon Brown's spin.

"Not only will this new force be a simple imitation of the same existing porous arrangements, it won't even work full-time.

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"By contrast we would establish a dedicated border police force which will actually secure our borders and tackle the perpetrators of immigration crime, whether they be drug runners or human traffickers."

Critics said it was puzzling that new uniforms were not ready for staff, given the Prime Minister's emphasis on the agency being a "single, uniformed" guard.

Sources said it was still being decided what the uniform should look like.

In the meantime, each of the organisations being merged into the new agency will continue to wear their old outfits.

Home Office officials defended the fact that all staff have not yet been trained to share each other's powers.

They said it was never the intention to have all staff ready by the time they agency was launched.

But it had given some officers from the new force the power to carry out arrests for customs and immigration offences.

Border and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "Over 1,000 staff will be cross-conferred with both immigration and the traditionally wide customs powers, plus new powers under the UK Borders Act to detain, search and arrest.

"New uniforms will be rolled out this year in the most cost-effective way possible."

The Tories would reinstate the cyber crime specialist unit axed by the Government two years ago, David Davis said yesterday.

The Shadow Home Secretary said closing the National High-Tech Crime Unit and moving its responsibilities to the Serious Organised Crime Agency was "absurd" at a time when internet crime was an increasing public concern.