Border Checks Summer 2011

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharman) has obviously got himself into a Whips-induced lather, but if he is concerned about asylum cases he may want to ask the Home Secretary about the 100,000 cases that have now been written off, as identified in the Home Affairs Committee report.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I am a representative of Dover. This issue is a key concern to my constituents, as is Brodie Clark’s statement that such controls had been relaxed since about 2008-09. Who authorised that relaxation?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman, as a representative of Dover, will I know be concerned by the removal of the watch list checks in Calais. Like him, I certainly look forward to Brodie Clark’s evidence to the Home Affairs Committee next week. I am not sure whether the Home Secretary will be looking forward to his evidence in quite the same way, but I am sure that he will set out at that point—

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[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.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[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.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[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.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I had the great pleasure of inspecting the border controls at Dover and at Calais with the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. We went last year, and we were shown around by Brodie Clark and his fellow officers. It was a very interesting educational journey, and we saw the hard work of the officers on the ground.

Whatever the brickbats from Members on both sides of the House in relation to what did or did not happen in the Home Office among the high-ups and all the rest of it, we ought to pay tribute to the front-line officers at the UKBA, who do a fantastic job standing at our border, keeping watch and keeping guard come rain or shine. It is a difficult job—a very hard job—that requires a lot of experience and knowledge, and the longer they are there, the better they get at just knowing, deep down by instinct and experience, who to stop, and which lorries to stop.

The Home Secretary’s pilot is not a bad idea. Opposition Members say that it is weakening controls, but I am not sure that that is right. It is a different method of border control, which takes a risk-based approach, and if we take such an approach we are saying that we will rely on the experience of those front-line officers to determine who should and who should not be stopped. We are relying on their intelligence and on intelligence gathering.

It is quite significant that, since the pilot was introduced a year or so ago, we have seen a rise in the number of illegal entrants being caught, so we should be slow to say, “Let’s just chuck this pilot out.” Instead, we should carefully and thoughtfully evaluate and consider it, and see whether that way of organising our border controls might actually be the best way.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and in this debate we must be careful not to become too party political, as has already happened. Is it not important to ensure that all three investigations that the Home Secretary has put in place are thoroughly undertaken, so that they can lead into what my hon. Friend is saying?

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a fair point. There are several important ongoing inquiries into what happened, and they are the right thing to do. It is right that the new boss of UKBA should have the licence and ability to supervise his staff—and that includes Brodie Clark. If the new boss takes that view, and the Home Secretary endorses it, that will be the right execution of the chain of command. The House should respect that, and it should respect the need to let the inquires go through and be conducted properly. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) may not agree, and may want all the papers published on the internet immediately, but the proper processes should be followed and dealt with. We should ensure that we have the most secure borders possible, because our constituents are deeply concerned about what has gone on.

I talk to people on the doorsteps of Dover who tell me, “I am really unhappy about the fact that we have had so many people come into this country,” and it is a matter of public record that about 2.2 million have done so. European Union citizens have in broad terms a free right of entry to come and go, but that does not apply to people outside the area.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Without trying to be too opportunistic, I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that when the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) told the House that concerns over immigration, border controls and asylum were just “nonsense” and apparently “huff and puff” in many of the tabloid newspapers, he showed that he has no credibility on the subject—and neither do the Labour party.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and he is right. The hon. Gentleman discussed the matter in a question on the EU constitution, and in fairness I should read out his entire remarks. He said to the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett):

“The Home Secretary may well have heard over recent days much huff and puff in many of the tabloid newspapers about the draft constitutional treaty and what it will do to border controls and asylum and immigration in Europe. Will he ignore all that nonsense”?—[Official Report, 16 June 2003; Vol. 407, c. 15.]

The then Home Secretary replied: “Yes, I agree entirely.” One gets a perspective from that, but I do not want to labour what is a partisan point. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to read out more of what he said—he did go on; indeed, he does go on—when he gets his own chance to make some remarks.

I shall close with the concerns of my constituents. We need more controls for people from outside the European Union. The figures reported by the labour market survey show a total increase of 966,000 in employment between quarter 1 of 2004 and quarter 3 of 2010—that is, 966,000 people not born in the UK. UK-born employment fell by 334,000, while foreign-born UK employment rose by 1.297 million. Of those, 530,000 were born in the EU8 countries. The essential point is that the majority—800,000—were born outside those countries. We see immigration as somehow an EU problem, but there is a bigger problem with people born outside those areas—people for whom we can take controls. I hope that in time we will not only do that, but do more to make the Home Office fit for purpose, after the mess of the past 13 years.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There have been many striking things this afternoon. The most striking one at the beginning was how few members of the Cabinet came to offer their support to the Home Secretary. I have been in this Chamber on many occasions when people have called for a resignation. I have nearly always on those previous occasions seen at least half the Cabinet present. I presume that she does not have much longer, in light of the support from her colleagues.

There have been a great many contributions. I think I am correct in saying that we have heard from three members of the Home Affairs Committee—the hon. Members for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), although I know she is unable to join us now, and, of course, the much-respected Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). We have also heard from a former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).

We heard, too, from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I must say that when he said he thought the Labour party should have taken a humility pill, I thought that was—well, talk about “pot” “kettle” “yellow”! The Liberal Democrats should be swallowing a humility pill in respect of a whole load of things at the moment—but I think we will leave that to the electorate.

Other contributors were my right hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael); my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) and for Ealing North (Stephen Pound); the hon. Members for Stourbridge (Margot James), for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab); and the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips).

All spoke and made interesting contributions, but what have we learned today? First of all, we have learned that the Home Secretary experimented with lowering our border controls—and unlike the Home Secretary, who made up her contribution, I am not making this up—in the year before the Olympics. She chose to experiment with border controls in the year before the Olympics!

Secondly, we learned that the Home Secretary did not even know what she agreed to in the first place. We saw that classically on Monday afternoon, when Members asked whether the experiment applied to Manchester airport, to Glasgow or to Belfast, and she did not know. She did not have the faintest idea; she was completely clueless. She still does not know today how, where or when her experiment with our border controls was applied. Even after days and days of this issue being the main one in the media, she has not chosen to brief herself to find out how it was applied.

The one member of the Cabinet who was here to provide his paltry support was the Secretary of State for Education. [Interruption.] Oh, sorry—I forgot about the Secretary of State for Wales, because we always do. We have heard that this was a pilot, but I would have thought that a pilot would be introduced in just one airport to see how it worked out, not become an experiment in changing the whole policy on our border controls across every single airport and port of entry into this country. This was no pilot; it was a change of policy.

We have also learned that the Home Secretary extended the experiment for a couple of extra months without even getting a view from the front line on how it was operating. It was only because John Vine happened to go along to Heathrow that we were able to find out exactly what was happening. [Interruption.] The Minister for Immigration says that Ministers cannot be expected to do inspections, yet we heard from the hon. Member for Dover that at least he has been able to go and visit. [Interruption.] Yes, the hon. Gentleman went, but the Minister did not bother.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman; he has already spoken.

We also learned today that data do exist. The Home Secretary admitted that for the first time this afternoon, but she is refusing to publish them. [Interruption.] She is looking confused again; of course she is, because she has not bothered to burrow down into the detail. We want her to publish the data as soon as possible. She also admitted that the interim operational instruction, which we have referred to over the last couple of days, represents Government policy and that it does not stretch Government policy at all.

We have learned today, too, that the Prime Minister and several hon. Members who have been given Government Whips’ handouts think that this policy was a good idea. Well, if it was a good idea, are they going to do it again next year? I suspect not because they know it was not a good idea in the first place. What have we seen in this country?