UK Border Force

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, they are the same months that we are talking about today.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Is it not a fact that under this Home Secretary’s watch, something like 100,000 people, possibly including terrorists, have vanished into the undergrowth with nobody knowing where they are? When the Home Secretary said again and again in her statement “without ministerial approval”, was she not admitting that she does not have a grip on her Department? The responsibility ends with her.

[Mrs May]

I have been perfectly clear with the House that I take responsibility for the decisions I have made, and I have done that this afternoon. In the circumstances that have been set out, what we have seen is a pilot that was agreed, and actions going beyond that—unauthorised actions—taking place at our border.