UK Border Agency

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I would first like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for securing this debate. In his highly impressive opening contribution, he referred to a wide range of issues of concern and I hope he will forgive me if I do not even try to make a similar comprehensive contribution.

From April 2008 to February 2012, UK immigration, asylum and border operations were managed by the UK Border Agency, which employs around 21,000 staff and accounts for around one-fifth of Home Office spending. At the beginning of March this year, the Home Secretary made a decision to separate the UK Border Force from the rest of the agency so that it could report directly to her. The agency will be an executive agency and the UK Border Force will be a directorate of the Home Office. The transition arrangements to establish two separate organisations will not be complete until this autumn, with the transition to being a directorate within the Home Office, which is being managed by a transition board, set to be completed by December of this year. There must be a question about whether this summer, of all summers, is the best time to have the border agency and the border force in the throes of transition arrangements. Perhaps the Minister will say why from March until the autumn of this year was deemed the most appropriate time to implement this separation project.

Since 2009, the agency has undertaken change with a view to delivering better services and reducing costs. Its workforce was reduced by more than 3,000 between 2008-09 and 2011-12. A new IT programme, known as Immigration Casework, is being implemented in conjunction with improvements in processes, with the objective of transforming immigration and asylum casework by 2015. However, the Government’s 2010 spending review imposed a duty on the UK Border Agency to reduce its budget by at least 15% between 2011 and 2015 and its workforce by approximately 5,000 staff, or some 22%, with the result that it has had to look for additional cost reductions beyond its transformation initiatives. The result has been changes and staff reductions being forced through at a faster rate than planned and at a faster rate than the organisation can apparently properly handle.

A recent report by the National Audit Office, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, referred, found that caseworking and UK Border Force changes have often been independent of head-count reduction plans. The National Audit Office reported that in 2011-12 the agency’s workforce was reduced by more than 1,000 more than planned, even though progress was slower than expected in the Immigration Casework programme and workforce modernisation at the border, and no agency-wide skills strategy was yet in place. The result of this disconnect, says the National Audit Office report, was, in some places, a dip in performance and the need to hire new staff or increase overtime. For example, performance in London and the south-east has come under pressure due to staff shortages. Two of the three regions visited by the National Audit Office team reported that they now needed to recruit caseworkers, having allowed too many to leave. Continuing, the National Audit Office report says that achieving significant change in any organisation requires strong leadership and good communication, which have not been evident enough to date. Apparently the most recent Civil Service people survey results show that only one-quarter of staff believe that the agency’s board has a clear vision for the future, and less than one in five consider that change is managed well.

The UK Border Force, which is in the process of being separated from the UK Border Agency, has to reduce its workforce by 10% over the 2011-15 spending review period—that is, by around 850 full-time equivalent staff. During 2011-12, staffing declined by around 350 full-time equivalents, which was much faster than planned. We have seen the effect of this pressure from the Government to make excessively quick and deep cuts in expenditure under the spending review in the length of queues and waiting times for many passengers arriving in this country, particularly at Heathrow. In that regard, the National Audit Office report has again drawn attention to a lack of transparency in how passenger clearance times are reported. That may not have mattered too much before the spending review staff cuts and lengthening queues but it certainly does when official figures—government figures—fly in the face of what everyone can see is happening.

The UK Border Force’s stated performance target is to clear 95% of passengers within published standards, which are within 25 minutes for European Economic Area nationals and within 45 minutes for non-European Economic Area nationals. According to UK Border Agency data, this target was achieved every month in 2011-12. However, in his recent report on Heathrow Terminal 3, the independent chief inspector highlighted shortcomings in both methodology and reporting. He found that measures were not taken frequently enough, and were reported in a way that made no distinction between the different experiences of EEA and non-EEA passengers, particularly during peak arrivals periods. The chief inspector reported that queue-measuring techniques did not provide an accurate reflection of performance.

The true figures show that in the last week of June of this year, waits in immigration queues for non-EEA passengers at Terminals 3, 4 and 5 at Heathrow exceeded the target time of 45 minutes on four, five and four days of the week respectively. For the month of June as a whole the figures for Terminals 3, 4 and 5 were 13, 21 and 18 days respectively when the targets were exceeded, with the longest wait being over two hours.

The Government’s Immigration Minister has previously given assurances that all immigration desks at Heathrow and other key ports and airports in the south-east will be fully staffed during peak periods over the summer. Unless one takes the view that June is not a summer month those assurances have not been delivered. The figures show that all desks were not being manned at peak times in June, hence the long queues and unacceptable waits. We have heard today from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, of his personal experience in queues at Heathrow and the non-manning of all desks. Long waits for passengers arriving in the UK give a poor first impression of our country and our level of efficiency. Along with additional staff temporarily drafted in, special arrangements have been made to avoid extended waits for Olympic Games personnel.

The question, though, is what happens after the Olympics. Will we be reverting back to waits of up to two hours in passport and immigration queues once the additional staff drafted in have gone and the special arrangements no longer apply? At the moment that looks like a distinct possibility, with the Home Secretary intending to cut staff levels by 5,000 at the UK Border Agency and UK Border Force by the end of this Parliament. This is despite the long queues at our major airports; despite an increase in the number of people absconding from Heathrow; despite the Government deporting some 1,000 fewer foreign prisoners last year than were deported in the last full year of the previous Government; and despite the considerable concerns that a number of noble Lords have raised in the debate today over different aspects of the role and performance of the agency and the impact—as my noble friend Lord Judd so eloquently articulated—that this has had on some of those who come into contact with the agency.

The Government need to get a grip on border control and security. It is not much good trying to encourage new businesses, investors and more visitors to come to Britain if their welcome on arrival is a wait of up to two hours in a queue at the airport, or before departure a less than helpful, fair or speedy process for dealing with their application to come here. If that continues some will simply be put off coming and the potential loss to our economy, image and reputation will be considerable. I hope that the Minister can assure us that we will not be reverting back to extended queues and long waits for non-EEA nationals at our airports, particularly at Heathrow, and at other points of entry after the Olympic Games and that the target times will be met.

Although policy decisions and procedures are at the heart of some of the concerns identified by noble Lords who have spoken today, it is clear that government decisions to reduce budgets and staff numbers at the UK Border Agency under the 2010 spending review much further and more quickly than planned, without regard to the consequences, have contributed significantly to a number of the problems that have been identified today. The Government’s responsibility is to see that the agency, including the border force, is properly staffed to do the job that it is meant to do on our behalf on immigration and asylum work, ensuring the effective, fair and efficient control and security of our borders. If you cut too fast and too deep, as the figures show that this Government have done at the border agency, they should not be surprised at the outcome and should not try to suggest that all responsibility for the problems that arise lies elsewhere.