UK Border Agency

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I again make it clear that these are only allegations at this stage. The individuals have only been suspended—two of them only on a precautionary basis. We will have to wait for the results of the independent inquiry. As to staff levels, I do not accept there has been a misdirection of staff in these matters. It is very important we use staff in the best manner possible. We all know that we have to reduce the size of the United Kingdom Border Agency. Over the spending review period it will have to lose some 5,000 or so posts. That is the nature of things when we have to deal with the cuts that we are faced with—and we know why we are faced with them.

We will make sure, as far as possible, that the staff are used in the best possible way. That was one reason behind a pilot of this sort. The initial report from the pilot seemed to indicate that it was doing rather well in terms of the increased numbers of people whom it was catching. Obviously we will have to wait for the result of John Vine’s inquiry.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that border controls were relaxed without ministerial authority because of the unacceptably long queues at ports of entry? If it is the case, as the Statement asserts, that,

“there is nothing more important than the security of our border”,

surely it should be the highest priority of this Government to ensure that the border agency employs sufficient staff to ensure that full checks can be carried out at all ports of entry without the unacceptable delays that cause the need for such measures to be adopted.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord would not want me to speculate on why certain individuals are alleged to have relaxed the rules beyond what the Home Secretary authorised in the pilot. That is the point of the investigation being mounted by John Vine. We look forward to that investigation in due course. I do not accept his second point that we have necessarily to maintain United Kingdom Border Agency staff numbers at the precise level that they have been for some time. The noble Lord will know that the numbers went up quite considerably when the Border Agency was created a few years back with the merger of a number of different agencies. We now have to reduce it in size but we will make sure that staff are deployed in precisely the right manner. That matter, too, will be covered by the investigation.