Michael Ellis
Main Page: Michael Ellis (Conservative - Northampton North)Department Debates - View all Michael Ellis's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. I appeal to the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr Campbell) to calm himself. Perhaps he should take up yoga. It is only Monday, and I know that he will want to hang on every word of the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] I do not know what he is chuntering about with such good nature from a sedentary position, but it cannot be as interesting as what the Home Secretary has to say.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Having heard the bluster from the shadow Home Secretary, will the Home Secretary confirm to the House one thing: that the Vine report entirely vindicates what she and the Immigration Minister said last November, and that all the suspended checks that she told the House about in November occurred without ministerial authorisation?
Mrs May
The report makes it clear that the suspension of checks outside the limited pilot that had been approved took place without ministerial authorisation. The shadow Home Secretary raised an issue in her opening remarks about my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister. He and I have made it clear that his comments on the proposed pilot early last year were provisional; that, crucially, no new operating instructions were issued to staff as a result; that there was no change to policy as a result; that secure ID checks were suspended before January last year until May; and that, sadly, despite my explicit instruction that the checks should not be suspended after May, they continued to be suspended.