Damian Green
Main Page: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)Department Debates - View all Damian Green's debates with the Home Office
(13 years ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
This is a serious subject, which deserves serious contributions. Sadly, the shadow Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), has just characteristically walked the line between opportunism and hypocrisy, as he so often does, believing apparently—[Interruption.] He apparently believes—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sure the Minister was not making any personal comment as to integrity or behaviour, but he might wish to rephrase his remarks.
Damian Green
No. I chose my words very carefully, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have no intention of withdrawing them because they are the truth. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not need to shout to say the truth. It is a shame that he adopted the attitude that he did, because this is a very serious issue, but it is not surprising given some of the other contributions from Opposition Members, which, unfortunately, attempted to blame the fall of the Berlin wall, my noble Friend Lord Howard and the late Lord Whitelaw for problems in the current immigration system, not recognising for a second how much their Government weakened border controls. We heard no recognition of how their Government allowed warnings index checks to be suspended on EEA children and adults, no recognition of how their Government threw open the border at Heathrow, and no recognition of their uncontrolled immigration policy that allowed net migration to this country of 2.2 million. There is only one phrase the British people need to hear from the Labour party on immigration, and that is, “Sorry—sorry we left such a mess.”
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out in detail once again for the House the exact nature of the pilot that she and I authorised to target investigative resources on intelligence-led checks. The shadow Immigration Minister said he assumed that I had authorised the unauthorised extensions. I am happy to be able to assure him and the House that I did not. Under the pilot, instead of always checking children travelling with their parents and in school groups against the warnings index of terrorists and serious criminals, and instead of always checking European nationals’ second photographs in the chip inside their passport, in limited and specific circumstances border force officers would have been able to use intelligence and operational judgment to decide which children to check against the warnings index and on which adults to open the second paragraph.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
The Home Secretary talked about risks. I have been in correspondence with the Minister and the Home Secretary, and we disagree about the internal port at Stranraer and Cairnryan. Following the withdrawing of UKBA funding there, people arrive—[Hon. Members: “Speech!”] People arrive there, they are illegal and they are identified by the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary. Arrangements are then made with—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. If Members rise to intervene, they should make an intervention, not deliver a short lecture. I call the Minister.
Damian Green
I know how strongly the hon. Gentleman feels about the Larne and Stranraer issue, but it is not an international port. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom; boats that come from Northern Ireland to Scotland are not crossing an international boundary. That is a fact that the hon. Gentleman needs to recognise.
The pilot was designed to improve security at our ports and to strengthen our border. Several Opposition Members said they believed that it was not being monitored and that no information was being passed to the Home Secretary or me during the course of the pilot, but of course that was not the case. We were getting regular information from management about what was happening, and it was telling us that there was a 10% increase in the detection of illegal immigrants, a 48% increase in fraudulent documents detected, and that cocaine seizures and illegal firearms seizures were up.
Damian Green
Before I give way to the right hon. Lady, will she answer the following question? If the figures for the pilot had gone the other way—if detections were down, the number of fraudulent documents detected were down, and drug seizures were down—would she not be calling for a debate to argue that the pilot was a failure? Why is she calling a debate now when, as far as we can see, this pilot was a success?
Yvette Cooper
If the hon. Gentleman’s pilot was such a success, he will need to explain why he has now suspended it. There is an important question that the Home Secretary ducked earlier about the management data that were available—I refer to the information about how many times the checks were downgraded to level 2. How many times did that take place over the summer? Has the Minister seen that information? If so, will he publish it? We know that the information exists.
Damian Green
That is precisely the information that the various investigations are looking at, but what the right hon. Lady has to recognise is that, without the authorisation of Ministers, senior UK border officials are alleged to have ordered the regular relaxation of border checks. They also went beyond the pilot that Ministers had agreed. Biometric checks on European economic area nationals and warnings index checks on EEA national children were abandoned on a regular basis, without approval, and adults were not checked against the warnings index at Calais, without approval.
What the pilot was designed to do—I hope that there will be some consensus on this across the House—was to have a risk-based approach. I say that there should be some consensus, because having a proper risk-based approach to immigration control has been the basis of our policy on both immigration and wider security since 9/11. I was grateful for the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on that point. It is obviously sensible to concentrate our effort and resources in those areas where they are likely to have most effect on making our borders safe. I cannot believe that there is a Member in any part of this House who disagrees with that. That is what we approved.
On the point about queues which was raised by several hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), there is of course permanent pressure for shorter queues; there is pressure from Members of this House. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that whenever I come back in the autumn—I suspect this was the case for any previous Immigration Minister—I hear tales of woe about queues at Heathrow, but it is absolutely the first responsibility of the Home Office to make sure that we do not compromise security. That is what this pilot—that is what a risk-based approach—is designed to do.
What happened that went beyond authority was that the verification of the fingerprints of non-EEA nationals from countries that require a visa was stopped on regular occasions, without approval.
Damian Green
I am sorry, but I do not have time to give way.
Let me quote what Rob Whiteman, the chief executive of the UKBA, said:
“Brodie Clark admitted to me on 2 November that on a number of occasions this year he authorised his staff to go further than Ministerial instruction. I therefore suspended him from his duties. In my opinion it was right for officials to have recommended the pilot so that we focus attention on higher risks to our border, but it is unacceptable that one of my senior officials went further than was approved.”
Damian Green
Do sit down; you have not been in the debate.
If Brodie Clark had not admitted that to his immediate superior, he would not have been suspended. That is why he was suspended.
Let me turn to some of the points raised by hon. Members. The serious point that the shadow Home Secretary made was about staffing cuts, so let me quote for her from the UKBA business plan produced at the end of the previous Government’s term in office. This was her Government’s policy, and it says:
“Our workforce projections indicate that there will no longer be a business need for the same number of staff in certain locations by the end of March 2011…within Border Force it is imperative that frontline services are maintained but changes to the way we work mean that this will be achievable with targeted reduction across the grade range.”
In other words, the previous Government were planning to reorder the way the border force works so that it could be effective with fewer people. That is why I said that the hon. Member for Rhondda was walking the line between opportunism and hypocrisy—I was not referring to him personally at all.
Indeed, my predecessor, Phil Woolas, said:
“Providing more flexibility and powers for the deployment of officers in tackling those threats at the border will enhance border security and therefore the protection of our country.”––[Official Report, Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2009; c. 5.]
That is what Labour’s last Immigration Minister said, and I agree with him. It is pretty disgraceful that his successors are now attempting to say that it is somehow improper to follow that example.
For many years, the UKBA has needed to be reformed. We have reversed Labour’s open-door immigration policy; we have capped economic migration; we have clamped down on student visas; we have restricted family migration; and we are breaking the link between temporary migration and permanent settlement.
Chris Bryant
I am very grateful. The one thing that neither of the Ministers has revealed today is what will be published at the end of these inquiries. On Monday afternoon, the Secretary of State changed her original date for producing the inquiries—by January—to the end of January. What exactly are the Government going to publish? Will they publish all the important decisions—obviously, with the redactions that were referred to earlier—so that we can see in black and white precisely what they sanctioned?
Damian Green
Obviously, all the relevant papers will go to the inquiries, and it is for John Vine, who is an independent inspector, to decide what he should publish. That seems to me the sensible way to do it. If there is an independent inspector holding an independent inquiry, it is not for me to tell him what to do.
For the first time in 15 years, we have a Government who are willing and able to deliver a controlled immigration system. Because of the shambles we inherited, it will take longer than I, this House or the British people would want, but we will improve the UKBA, we are bringing immigration under control and, unlike the Labour party, we will continue to take immigration as seriously as the British people do. This is a shameful motion promoted by a shameless party, and I urge the House to reject it.
Question put.