Border Checks Summer 2011

Alun Michael Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

I think it is important that we continue to approach intelligence-based processes rationally.

I am not opposed to the principle of giving border officials greater discretion in assessing risk. These border officials are professionals who, for the most part, work in very difficult circumstances, and even the best policy framework cannot allow for every situation and cannot replicate the experience of a border official who has their eyes and ears fixed beadily on the individual in front of them. However, that discretion must be exercised within an evidence-based policy framework that has been set out by Ministers and properly scrutinised by Parliament. As I understand it, that was the intention of the pilot but, as we have been hearing, it was not what John Vine found was actually happening on the ground.

We hear from whistleblowers in the UKBA that border checks were being relaxed at the request of BAA staff when queues were long. We hear from Brodie Clark that controls have been relaxed since 2008, not in favour of queue management but for a reason which he does not state. I look forward to hearing his evidence to the Select Committee. Rob Whiteman insists that Clark confessed that he had been relaxing the controls on a regular basis without ministerial approval. Most worrying from my perspective is that we find that since at least 2007—under the previous Government—agency operational instructions have contained a paragraph that apparently gives border force duty directors the authority to relax checks for health and safety reasons. That might be completely justifiable in certain extreme circumstances, but I do not think it is possible to get a proper picture of what has been going on with border checks without knowing how often these controls were relaxed on the grounds of health and safety, what criteria and processes were used to trigger such a relaxation, what the reporting mechanisms are and whether they have been properly followed. In particular, this raises the question of whether this power has been misused.

Although I am only too aware of the potential implications of the agency’s failure to implement border checks properly, the statistics on how many people have passed through the borders during this time are truly sobering. A measure of comfort can be taken from the fact that the chief executive did take immediate action when this came to light, which has triggered full-scale parliamentary scrutiny and three independent investigations, and I hope that they will take into account ministerial decisions and, in particular, the recent claims that border checks have been relaxed to level 2 without ministerial approval or oversight since 2008. I think it highly unlikely that that would have been the agency’s response previously; I suspect we would have come up against something closer to an attitude of, “Least said, soonest mended.”

However, when I said a “measure of comfort”, I meant a small one. The truth is that even in the relatively short time that I have been a member of the Home Affairs Committee it has become abundantly clear that the UK Border Agency is an organisation with deep-seated problems that date back well into the previous Government’s time in office, and an organisation that seems to have encouraged a culture of deniability. Again and again, the Committee has found that the UKBA has failed to record and account for its responsibilities. For example, when we asked for reasons for the 1,300 outstanding cases of difficulties with deporting foreign national prisoners, the agency could not account for 350 of those—it simply had not recorded the data. The agency was not able to tell the Committee how many individuals had been removed as a result of action taken by intelligence units in 2011, because the data for allegations and removals are kept on two different databases.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady is quite accurate in what she is saying about the concerns of the Home Affairs Committee, across parties. However, would she not have expected Home Office Ministers, understanding the deep-seated concerns of Members of this House, to be absolutely on top of all the detail and to ensure that they knew everything that was going on in the Department?

[Nicola Blackwood]

I would have hoped that they were trying to get on top of it, just as I would have hoped that Ministers in the last Government were trying to do.

I realise that the picture is not all doom and gloom—the agency has made progress on legacy cases, as we have already heard today. There was a backlog of more than 450,000 asylum cases under the last Government, which has been reduced to 18,000, and there was a significant reduction in foreign national prisoners released without being considered for deportation, from more than 1,000 to just 28. However, those examples show just what a low base the agency was coming from, and how far it still has to go if there is any hope of its being properly capable of protecting our borders and assuring our national security.

What worries me most about this incident as much as the facts, which are worrying in themselves, is that they are indicative of a wider cultural problem within the agency, endorsed by at least some senior officials: that short-cuts and papering over the cracks are a justifiable way of dealing with the work load, and that transparency is a concept more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

The Select Committee will play a part in trying to get to the bottom of contradictory claims coming out of the UKBA. The three investigations will do their bit, but they will only get to the bottom of what happened when. Although we must pursue those issues vigorously, I do not believe that we will stop seeing scandals in the agency until we have genuine reform of both the systems and the culture of an organisation that we need to be able to trust with protecting our borders.

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[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It really is quite breathtaking to hear Conservative Members ignore the history of the shambles that was left behind by the previous Conservative Government in 1997. We all know that this is an extremely difficult issue, and it must be taken seriously. I am sorry to say that what we have heard from Conservative Back-Benchers today is a series of partisan remarks that are remarkable in the extent of the loyalty shown to Front-Benchers, who are clearly in enormous difficulty. Loyalty is admirable, but it is not very instructive and it does not contribute to getting to the bottom of an extremely difficult issue.

[Mr Sutcliffe]

Is that loyalty not also breathtaking in that it is coming from the coalition partners as well, given their record on immigration and what they did to previous Governments?

[Alun Michael]

Absolutely right. I am very disappointed that the Home Secretary is not still in the Chamber, because this debate is about her behaviour and performance. She was remarkably reluctant to take interventions from Labour Members during her speech. Normally on such a big issue—a big occasion in Parliament—the Minister concerned takes a lot of interventions. It was disappointing that she did not do so, and perhaps demonstrates her nervousness about the situation she is getting into, although she still does not seem to understand how serious her position has become.

I want to help the Home Secretary by giving her an opportunity to correct the record. On Monday, I put a question to her in these terms:

“we know who she is blaming in advance of her inquiries, but those who know the people at the top-end of the border force, and who know how that body works, say it is unthinkable that they would have taken these actions without the knowledge and approval of Ministers. That is right, isn’t it?”

She replied:

“my understanding is that the head of the UK Border Agency admitted he had taken action outside ministerial approval.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 52.]

Well, I think she meant the border force, but that is what she said. We now know that statement to be untrue. The head of the border force has made it clear that he does not accept her description of what has happened, so it would be nice if the Home Secretary could correct the record on that matter.

A further issue is the pilot. The idea that it was suspended one day early by the Home Secretary is not exactly a dramatic gesture in the direction of public concern. Apparently, the relaxation of controls was allowed everywhere under the pilot scheme—Scotland, Manchester, Northern Ireland and right across the country. That is some pilot scheme. Such an approach does not seem to indicate a calculated attempt to see exactly what is happening and evaluate it properly.

[Stephen Pound]

My right hon. Friend has just told the House that the pilot was extended to Northern Ireland. The Home Secretary did not know that—does he?

[Alun Michael]

I understand that it extended to Northern Ireland, but I also understand my hon. Friend’s point because, at the beginning of the week, the Home Secretary did not seem to know whether the pilot had been extended to anywhere other than Heathrow.

Another point is that there is one cast-iron rule at the Home Office: the need to understand that the devil is in the detail. In fact, I became quite bored by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) reminding us of that on a daily basis. That was because he paid attention to the detail and expected his Ministers to do so as well. We cannot expect a Minister to know everything that officials do in their Department and its agencies, but we have the right to ask whether Ministers have asked the right questions and insisted on getting to the bottom of any important issues. During the questions and responses we have heard in the Chamber and in the Home Affairs Committee throughout this week and today, that has not been demonstrated by the Home Secretary.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that any pilot scheme worth its salt must do one thing first of all: ensure that it does not put our borders at risk? Does it seem strange to him that the Government are defending what has happened on the basis that it was a pilot scheme, and that that seems to excuse people being able to get through the border system without controls?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If the Home Secretary had asked the questions she should have asked as a Minister, she should have been able to answer the key questions put to her on Monday and yesterday, but she was unable to do so.

Normally, advice to Ministers would not come into the public domain, but by suspending a senior official who has a reputation as being highly committed and effective, the Home Secretary has put herself in the firing line and made it essential for all communications to be given to Parliament. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary asked her for that, but we did not get a positive response. It is time for the Minister for Immigration to tell us whether the Home Secretary is going to let us have the full information, without which Parliament will not be able to make a proper judgment on what went wrong. At the moment, we cannot make a judgment about whether the Home Secretary has told us the truth or whether, as Mr Clark claims, she has lied to MPs. We have to come to a judgment based on evidence, so it is incumbent on the Home Secretary to give us the evidence, the whole evidence and nothing but the evidence.

The Home Secretary knew of the Home Affairs Committee’s concerns about UKBA to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) referred. In the report that we published on Friday, we said:

“Immigration is an issue which affects the safety, the social cohesion and the economy of Britain as well as its standing on the world stage. For that reason we will continue to hold sessions with the UK Border Agency every four months or possibly even more frequently.”

That was the level of concern. Surely the Home Secretary, who had herself been questioned repeatedly by the Select Committee, should have understood how serious the issue was and would have had herself and her Ministers all over the agency like a rash ensuring that they knew exactly what was going on.

The Home Secretary said that she was explicit about what the pilot would cover and what it must not cover. How has muddle and misunderstanding arisen if she was so clear? We need to know. Her answers were not full and complete. Let us see all the exchanges and see what happened. Giving that information only to an internal inquiry, as she implied today, is not adequate; it needs to be given to Members of this House—to the members of the Home Affairs Committee, in particular, but also to Members of the House as a whole. The Home Secretary has a lot of questions to answer; she has gone no way towards answering them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips]

I am not voting for the motion—let me deal with that point first—because it is entirely premature, as I have made clear. On whether the papers should be produced to the House, which is what most of the motion calls for, the answer is obviously no. The papers need to go before the inquiry. I have no doubt that after the inquiry has reported, a statement will be made to the House. I express no view at the moment about whether the report will be published. My view, which I will share with the hon. Gentleman, is that it ought to be published so that the House knows what it says, suitably redacted if necessary to protect the advice to Ministers that is not generally produced in this House, or indeed at all. That is necessary given the form of government that we have.

In the time that remains to me, I will briefly answer those three questions. What happened here? There was a limited pilot that was agreed to by the Home Secretary, which meant that under limited circumstances European economic area national children, travelling with their parents or as part of a school group, would be checked against the warnings index when assessed by a border force—

[Alun Michael]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Phillips]

I will give way.

[Alun Michael]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is saying what the limits were. Can he enlighten us about whether he is speaking from the Whips’ brief or whether he has seen all the exchanges and information on what limits were applied?

[Stephen Phillips]

I am speaking from my notes for the purposes of this speech. I am a little tired of Opposition Members intervening to make some point when I am trying to assist the House by saying what I understand the position to have been.

[Alun Michael]

On what basis?

[Stephen Phillips]

I know it in part because I read the evidence that the Home Secretary gave to the Home Affairs Committee, and indeed watched most of it.

I will state what appears to have happened on the basis of the evidence that we have at the moment. We do not have all of it because of the prematurity of this debate and because we have not heard Mr Brodie Clark’s side of events. Mr Clark, according to his boss, accepted that he went beyond what he was permitted to do under the terms of the pilot and what had been agreed by the Home Secretary. It was for that reason that he was suspended, not by the Home Secretary, as the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth said, but by his boss, as the Home Secretary has made perfectly clear and as his boss has confirmed, after it became apparent that the terms of the pilot had been exceeded.