Alan Johnson
Main Page: Alan Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)Department Debates - View all Alan Johnson's debates with the Home Office
(13 years ago)
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Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It was Herbert Morrison who said that the walls of the Home Office were paved with dynamite. It is true, but the Home Secretary is busily placing those sticks of dynamite herself. One is marked “Cuts in police numbers”. One is marked “Restricting the ability of the police to use DNA to catch murderers and rapists”. Another is marked “Enforced introduction of police commissioners that will cost a small fortune and that nobody wants”. The only surprise is that the issue—
Alan Johnson
I will give way in a minute.
The only surprise is that the one marked “Immigration” has exploded quite so quickly in No. 2 Marsham street. Like many others, I predict that the Government’s pledge to reduce immigration to the levels of the 1980s will not be met, because we live in a very different world from the 1980s. In government, I admitted that we were slow to come to terms—as were many other countries—with the huge increase in migration from places such as Iraq, Kosovo, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. We were using a 20th-century system to deal with a 21st-century problem, but after the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, we progressively managed to get on top of the issue—bit by bit. With only a dribble of asylum seekers entering the country, it took 22 months even to get an asylum claim to the first stage under the preceding Conservative Government, but by the time we left office it was taking six months. The introduction of biometric visas and e-borders all made a contribution.
The Home Secretary might like to correct her remark on Monday that since the introduction of the points-based system, immigration has not gone down. It has. The difficulty for her is that immigration and net migration are two different things. The Government have no control over the number of people leaving the country, just as they have no control, incidentally, over mortality or the birth rate—thank goodness—unless it is in their plans for the Queen’s Speech. In fact, net immigration has gone down; it fell from 237,000 in 2007 to 163,000 in 2008 and to 147,000 in 2009. It has only gone up again since this Government came into power.
The problem is complex, and e-borders are central to its solution. We could have all the checks in the world, but the majority of illegal immigrants in this country have entered the country legally and overstayed their visa. It is not until the e-borders system—the Government have supported it; I presume that they will keep to the same programme—checks people out as well as checking them in that we shall actually solve the problem.
For the Home Secretary, solving these problems was simple. The rhetoric, as usual, was at absolute variance with reality.
Mr Blunkett
Can my right hon. Friend confirm a point that the Home Secretary referred to earlier? It was agreed in May 2004 to allow people permitted to be in this country legally to work legally, but 40% of those who registered to work were already in the country. That is why proper legal processes for economic migration and tough border controls have to go hand in hand.
Alan Johnson
I do confirm that. The Home Secretary talked about Sangatte on Monday, and it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) who, in an incredible piece of political acumen, did a deal with Sarkozy effectively to move our border from Dover to northern France. That made a huge contribution as well. I find it incredible that the Home Secretary formulated and introduced plans to reduce the crucial biometric checks while the threat level was at its second highest; it was at severe at the time, and it was lowered to substantial only in July. In effect, she turned the UK into a semi-Schengen country by not requiring full checks on EEA citizens.
Brandon Lewis
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned dynamite. I wonder whether he thinks that one of those pieces of dynamite might be the almost half a million unsolved asylum cases that his Government left in a warehouse when the present Government came in?
Alan Johnson
If it is, it will go right back to when Willie Whitelaw was the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] “Ah!” they say. I can tell hon. Members why they say “Ah!”. It is because they do not know—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. People want to listen to interventions, and we certainly want to listen to the answers from Alan Johnson.
Alan Johnson
Government Members are in happy ignorance of the fact that all this built up over many years under successive Conservative Home Secretaries, and it was the Labour Government who got on top of the issue in the end.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) should not stand up for such a long time. If he wishes to intervene, he must rise quickly and then sit down straight away.
Alan Johnson
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) was not making much impression on me, anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Home Secretary claimed on Monday that those on the watch list will have been picked up because of e-Borders, but she knows as well as I do that not every country is meticulous at operating e-Borders. It is patchy around the European Union.
Alan Johnson
I have given way twice; everyone knows that we give way twice in these debates.
Again, what the Home Secretary was saying was at variance with what she was doing. In June, the Home Secretary was pledging to stop tens of thousands of migrants seeking to enter Britain through Europe as part of the exodus resulting from the Arab spring. She was saying that just as she was about to reduce checks on those people entering from Europe. In November last year, she said:
“I want to bear down on all the routes into Britain”.
Ending the necessity to check the biometrics can be described as a lot of things, but “bearing down” is not one of them.
On Monday, the Home Secretary described the biometric chip as if it were just a photograph. It is, of course, much more than that. The provision of geometric dimensions means that the identity thief and even the terrorist who has plastic surgery to disguise himself or herself cannot get through. A lot of things can be done with surgery, but eyeballs cannot be moved further apart. The biometrics are crucial to our security.
Let us come to the Home Secretary’s attempts to blame her officials for the mess that she is in. The treatment of Brodie Clark, whom I know, respect and admire, has been reprehensible. If it was right to suspend him from office because he had not informed the Home Secretary, why is it right for the Home Secretary still to be in place when she had not informed the Prime Minister, who bears ultimate responsibility for these issues? Brodie Clark may well have been suspended for operating the 2008-09 guidance, which says that when the police say that there is a public order issue, it has to be responded to. That was the reference.
The Beecroft proposals have not yet been introduced. The Government have not yet wiped away the unfair dismissal rules, which means that Brodie Clark will go to court, he will win his case and this Home Secretary will have nowhere to hide.