Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Up to that point, we had heard the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, make a thoughtful contribution to what is a serious debate. Sadly, the shadow Minister for Immigration has let the side down, with a rant that had no purpose whatever. He also clearly wrote it before he had heard my statement, which addressed the measures we are taking in some detail. The only solution he has—this is instructive, as a glimpse into Labour’s approach to everything—is to spend more taxpayers’ money; and this from a member of the Government who left this country bankrupt, because of their profligate spending over 13 years.

In the midst of that rant, the hon. Gentleman raised one or two issues, so let me deal with them. First, he talked about the uniforms and implied that it was a terrible waste of money to buy new uniforms. I have to tell him that the current Border Force uniform was bought by the previous Government and was designed to last only three years, so it is now out of date and has to be replaced anyway. That money would therefore have to be spent under any circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about what was happening at the border. However, I am afraid that he is relying on unreliable reports. The monitoring for this period shows that in the first two weeks of April, we met all our targets for EU passengers, meeting targets for non-EU passengers on 11 days out of 15. Of course I would prefer to meet our targets for non-EU passengers on 15 days out of 15, but he is relying on information that does not accord with the official figures given by Border Force.

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has no particular answers to give. Indeed, what is quite surprising about everything he said was—[Interruption.] He should agree with this statement, which was made last November:

“We seemed to have a consensus from Labour ministers and I thought from…Tory ministers as well that with every year that went by, you should be strengthening the checks at the borders, adding better technology and that kind of thing”.

That was said by the shadow Home Secretary. The hon. Gentleman is now saying that we should make fewer checks. I suggest that he and she get their act together.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May I ask my hon. Friend to ensure that the hard-pressed border officers, who in times of pressure are told to get a move on, are still able to put their top priority—the safety and security of our country—first?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is exactly right that, beneath this debate, we all need to remember—I can absolutely assure him that every member of Border Force securing our border knows this—that our first priority must be the security of our border. That is what had been compromised, we discovered, over many years, because when the queues rose at airports, people were ordered to reduce the checks. The big change that has happened in the past few months is that we now conduct proper checks at every airport, all the time, which is significantly improving the security of every citizen of this country.