Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Harper
My hon. Friend has made a sensible point about intelligence. Obviously, as I said in my response, we use it to guide the efforts that we put into freight checking. My hon. Friend has also made the sensible point that there are peaks and troughs in the number of passengers crossing the border. As well as our permanent work force, we have staff on whom we can call at those peak times to ensure that we continue to deliver a secure border, but we are also mindful, of the need to deliver value for money, which the National Audit Office mentions in its report. Of course, all Departments have to deal with the appalling financial legacy that we were left by the Labour party.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Minister has laid much stress on the quality of border checks. As he will know, at the end of the last Session I was privileged to be elected chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, and in that role I have been meeting groups who work with trafficked people. Kalayaan tells me that it has yet to meet a holder of an overseas domestic worker visa who, under the new visa system, has actually carried his or her own passport through the passport check. The passport is always held by the visa holder’s employer. What will the Minister do about that?
Mr Harper
The operating mandate specifies that everyone who crosses the border must have his or her passport checked and must have the necessary documents. On the basis of what I know, I do not think that what the hon. Lady says is correct, but I will make inquiries and then write to her. I think that that is a reasonable way to approach the matter. In the meantime, given her position as chair of the all-party group, I shall be happy to maintain a sensible dialogue with her on human-trafficking issues.