Border Control Scheme

Debate between David Evennett and Damian Green

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary wrote that rant before she listened to what I said in response to her first question. To say that the Home Secretary has not been visible in this House is palpably absurd. She was here twice last week—[Hon. Members: “ Where is she?”] She is attending a meeting of the National Security Council. I am sorry that the shadow Home Secretary does not seem to think that that is an important part of the Home Secretary’s responsibilities. I am sure that the House thinks it is an important part of the Home Secretary’s responsibilities. The right hon. Lady’s basic accusation that the Home Secretary has in any way not answered these questions is, as I say, palpably absurd.

The second question the right hon. Lady asked—indeed, the only substantive one in her rather scatter-gun approach —was about how many people were coming through without being checked. The answer, now, is that every private flight is checked against the warnings index. [Interruption.] I commend Opposition Front Benchers for saying that it is a bit late now. Yes, it is—for 13 years, nothing happened; the right hon. Lady has put her finger on it. There was a shambles in the immigration system, and private aviation was part of it. That was identified by the Government’s own counter-terrorism adviser, but they did nothing about it. We now have done something about it, and that means that every flight is checked against the warnings index and every high-risk flight is met. If there have been changes, as there have been this year, they have been for the better and they have made our borders safer.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement on private flights and the need for consistency across the country with every flight checked, as he confirmed. Does he agree that the border force is responsible for allowing only legitimate entry and exit, and that that is what our constituents expect?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. He makes a good point about the border force. The men and women at the border are doing a very good job. All our changes are designed to ensure a more risk-based approach to immigration control—an approach that I was glad to hear commended by the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), on the radio this morning—and to make the border safer, precisely by using the expertise of the men and women in the border force who check people coming through the border. Using their expertise more intelligently, and not just having a one-size-fits-all border security system will make, and already is making, our border safer. I think that underneath their bluster, the Opposition agree with that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Evennett and Damian Green

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, because this is what we are seeking to achieve under our annual limit: we want to ensure not only that the skills that may not be available at the moment in this country are made available, but that jobs are also available for British workers. I commend to him the research published by the Home Office last week showing that 29% of those who came in under the tier 1 route—the route meant for the most highly skilled: the people who are so highly skilled that they do not even need a job offer—were employed in low-skilled roles. That tells me that the points-based system has not been working as well as it should have been.

[Mr Evennett]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s actions to date on this matter, but in order to bring net migration down to a sustainable level a robust limit on non-EU economic migration is vital. Will he update us on what progress he has made on dealing with other routes into the UK, for example, bogus colleges and illegal transportation?

[Damian Green]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is not just the economic routes we are looking at—as I have said, we are examining other routes. We are, of course, committed to attracting the brightest and best students to the UK, and we welcome legitimate students coming here to study legitimate courses, but there has been and still is significant abuse of the student route. Part of our summer crackdown on illegal immigration has been aimed at bogus colleges. We have suspended the licences of another five bogus colleges in the past three months, and I am happy to assure him and the House that we will continue to crack down as hard as possible on those using the student route to promote illegal immigration.