Immigration Staff: Recruitment

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I reject my noble friend’s assertions that there is deep corruption within the Home Office. On releasing names, my noble friend will know that the Home Office is legally not allowed to disclose this information. It will not, to ensure that it does not breach statutory and data protection obligations, and that is what I outline to him. Although the names of staff members are known in court, this is not necessarily the same as being in the public domain. The disclosure of names would have to satisfy a high threshold under the GDPR and Section 9 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which makes it an offence to disclose the facts of an offence in respect of a rehabilitated person.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

In his 2018-19 annual report, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration states that only half the inspector posts were filled in the last few months of 2018-19; significantly fewer inspection reports were published than in 2017-18; none of the seven published reports in 2018-19 was laid in Parliament by the Government within the eight weeks to which the then Home Secretary had committed in 2014; the Home Office’s focus on managing the fallout of the Windrush scandal and on preparing for Brexit appeared to affect its capacity for other business, including inspections; relationships between the inspectorate and the Home Office were generally poorer in 2018-19 than they had been in 2017-18; and during 2018-19, the chief inspector had just one meeting with the Home Secretary and two with the Immigration Minister. I have heard of an arm’s-length relationship, but that is ridiculous. This is an unacceptable and potentially dangerous state of affairs in a key part of our border control and immigration system. Will the Government accept full responsibility and provide an explanation as to why they have allowed this unsatisfactory state of affairs, highlighted by the chief inspector, to arise and say what they intend to do about it?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the noble Lord asked a number of questions, one of which was about border staff. He will know that we have recruited almost all the 900 staff that we undertook to recruit in preparation for Brexit. I will write to him with a longer answer on the inspectorate because I do not have the details at my fingertips today.