Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on the Home Affairs Committee. I agree: the figures for quarter 3 last year were not good, and I acknowledged that in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). I am pleased to be able to say that by the end of this month, the UKBA will be making decisions for tier 1 visas and others within the service standards that it sets out to its customers, and which they have a right to expect.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Successive Ministers have come to the House of Commons and tried to defend the work of the UK Border Agency. Is the Minister aware that time and time again the agency admits, and has to admit, to a backlog of thousands of cases that have not been dealt with and that go back years—sometimes five, 10 or more? That is a shambles, and the sooner that is recognised by the Government, the better it will be.

[Mr Harper]

I would say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, while the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice was doing this job, and since I have been doing it, we have not gone out of our way to defend the agency. We have acknowledged that it is a troubled organisation, but it has many hard-working and dedicated staff and we should not have broad-brush criticism that neglects the work they do. On his specific question about old cases, particularly legacy cases, I simply say that the Government inherited about 500,000 cases from Labour, which we have largely got under control. We are working through a relatively small number of cases and will get that done in the next few months.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the effectiveness of measures to deal with the antisocial behaviour that blights so many of our communities. A lot of measures are slow, bureaucratic and quite expensive; therefore the Government have published a draft Bill to reform antisocial behaviour measures, to support communities. We thank the Select Committee on Home Affairs for the pre-legislative scrutiny applied to the draft Bill and we shall respond to the Committee’s recommendations in due course.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Has the Home Secretary found it at all embarrassing to be the centre of so much speculation about going for the top job in politics?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member of the House, so he knows that that is not a matter relevant to the remit of the Home Office.