Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Dominic Raab and Lord Watts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Since coming to office, the Government have initiated a series of reforms to try to get a grip on the chaos they inherited, such as the cap on non-EU migration, the crackdown on abuses of the student visa system, the accreditation for colleges and the focus on the family route. However, we need to be clear about the size of the task we face after 13 years of open-door immigration, because under the previous Government, as much as Labour Members huff and puff, net migration was more than 2 million.

[Mr Watts]

That is not the issue!

[Mr Raab]

It is the issue, and we will come to why.

The lack of control under the previous Government was illustrated by periodic catastrophes. They could be dismissed as one-offs—I am sure that that is the intention of Labour Members—but this Government inherited serial, systematic failings that they must clean up. Under the previous Government, the Home Office ignored warnings that visa claims were being backed by forged documents; 1,000 foreign prisoners were released and not considered for deportation; illegal immigrants were cleaning the Home Office; and 12 illegal workers were given security jobs in the Metropolitan police, one of whom guarded the site where the Prime Minister’s car was parked.