Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Main Page: Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Pearson of Rannoch's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the number of full-time Border Force employees has ranged from approximately 7,600 to 8,100 in the past few years. As I said earlier, there may have been a reduction perhaps last year in workforce because it is within that range but e-gates and other infrastructure improvements have improved the system. In 2016-17 we invested £68 million in capital for infrastructure improvements.
My Lords, have the Government worked out how much we will be saving by not having to send an endless stream of Ministers and their civil servants over to Brussels to nod through its useless and damaging legislation and by not having to enact it thereafter? Did not the British people vote specifically for more border control, which therefore becomes something of a priority, does it not?
The British public certainly did vote for more border control and this Government are very clear that we need to balance immigration with the skills that we need to provide services in this country. In terms of the savings, experts have given all sorts of figures and I will not at this point try to guess.