Immigration (Stranraer/Cairnryan)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the Chamber tonight. Obviously Stranraer and Cairnryan are critical, but there also has to be a domino effect. Perhaps it is time to go back to where people come in. Does he feel that the Minister should consider how he can curtail immigration from the Republic through to Northern Ireland and into Scotland?

[Mr Brown]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. There is no doubt that there appears to be a weak link, because people can get easy access to Northern Ireland. People can get on a bus in Belfast, and the next stop could well be Birmingham or London. It is as simple as that. The Immigration Minister told me in correspondence that it would be too expensive to find out how many illegal immigrants had absconded on their way to a UKBA office. How on earth can the Government make those cuts and then not monitor the effectiveness of the processes in place?

Dumfries and Galloway police have told me of an alarming case of two illegal immigrants. They were detained in Belfast overnight and told to report to the UKBA the following morning, but instead were detected disembarking at Stranraer after crossing on the ferry. Despite flouting the rules once, the only course of action available to the local police was to release them with instructions to attend the UKBA office in Glasgow. As the police said:

“Do we honestly think, given this course of conduct, that they would have any intention of attending?”

The Minister needs to tell us why he is not doing anything to close this massive loophole in our border security. The Government have turned a blind eye throughout to worries about security at the ports. The Prime Minister told me during Prime Minister’s questions on 24 November last year that he would

“look very carefully…to make sure that the system is working.”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 260.]

Perhaps the Minister will clarify whether the Prime Minister followed that up, or whether, as I suspect, they were nothing more than empty words.

In a letter to me dated 4 January this year, the Immigration Minister promised personally to review the security arrangements at the end of February. Perhaps he could tell me today what he found, because I can find no record of his review. The only study of the arrangements since the Government’s cut was carried out by the UKBA and published in August this year. The scope was extremely narrow, and Dumfries and Galloway police have confirmed that there was no contact from any Government Minister. Both the Prime Minister and Immigration Minister promised me they would look at this issue personally. To the best of my knowledge, neither has done so. I hope the Minister will today commit to a full independent review of the arrangements in place at the Galloway ports.

The Government’s first duty is to the safety and security of citizens. The removal of financial support for ports police from Galloway ports is putting that at risk simply to save money. The Minister has serious questions to answer today. Will he tell us why he ignored the concerns of Dumfries and Galloway police and pressed ahead with that irresponsible cut? Is he still unable to tell the House how many illegal immigrants disappeared following release after detection at the Galloway ports? Given that we are just scratching the surface of the illegal immigration problems at the ports, will the Government concede that the case for the reversal of the cut in UKBA funding is now overwhelming? I look forward to hearing what he has to say.