UK Border Force

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House of that point. It was the actions of the last Government that led to the build-up of more than 450,000 asylum cases, which has only just been cleared. We are now able to operate a much more efficient asylum system. I can also assure my hon. Friend that this Government are not in favour of allowing an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Last year the Government announced the abandoning of second-generation biometrics; we had not expected them to abandon first-generation biometrics quite so quickly.

I realise that we are dealing with a ministerial graveyard —as some of us know very well—but what monitoring and reporting mechanisms were introduced by Ministers so that they could be informed of the progress of the pilot programme and whether it was being eroded at the edges?

[Mrs May]

We ensured that there would be a proper evaluation of the pilot programme. The point of making it a pilot programme was to establish whether it would indeed be possible to target those who constituted a higher risk in terms of border security, and whether there would be benefits from such action. As I have said, the pilot ended last week, and the full results of the evaluation have not yet been made available.