Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I was at Hendon training college only the week before last, and it was a pleasure to see the new recruits passing out. We will continue to bring technology forward. The police have been crying out for technology, at the roadside and in the station, to ensure we are as tough on drug-driving as we are on drink-driving. That is exactly what we will do.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister would accept there is relatively free movement of drugs up and down and across the country. Is he in discussions with the devolved Administrations on the tackling of drug crime and the free movement of drugs?

[Mike Penning]

The National Crime Agency looks at organised crime across the country. I am very pleased to say that the NCA is now in Northern Ireland, something we have been waiting for for some considerable time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we do not conduct random operations; we conduct intelligence-led operations, as did the previous Government, and they are very successful. The street operations we have conducted this year have led to the arrest of almost a third of those encountered. They are very successful in enforcing our immigration laws. We do not stop people at random; we are not empowered to do so by law and even if we were, we would not do so as a matter of policy. We stop people when we think there is intelligence to indicate that they are breaking our immigration laws, and I make no apology for that.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister and his staff for the support they gave recently to a constituent of mine to clarify a situation and smooth over the problems.

The number of illegals being identified by the police at the ferry terminals in my area—which is part of the common travel area—has fallen only slightly. Is the Minister able to tell the House the number of people in that category who are stopped but not properly processed and who simply disappear?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks.

I do not have the figures to hand, because I was not aware that he intended to ask that question. I will look at the issue in detail and write to him, but on the common travel area in general, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims signed an agreement with the Irish Justice Minister in, I think, December 2011. We are taking steps with the Irish Republic to strengthen the common travel area to make sure that our borders continue to get more secure.

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

These are not matters that I am responsible for, I regret to say. On the point about the Health Committee, I am aware of its view. I suppose the only point I would make is that we would expect the Select Committee that was responsible for health matters to have a particular perspective on the issue. If we had a libertarian Select Committee, it might say that people should be free to drink even in ways that damaged their health, which would also be a legitimate point of view. I am not saying that, just because the Health Committee’s perspective is predictable, it is not relevant; of course it is relevant, but it is one of a number of points of view, all of which we are considering as part of the consultation.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

As a member of the all-party group on alcohol misuse, I believe that minimum unit pricing is only one of a number of tools in the box. The Minister attended one of our meetings a number of months back. Can he explain why some of his views today have changed from what he said on that occasion?

[Mr Browne]

I do not accept that they have. I enjoyed the conversation that I had and I recognise that there are harms caused by alcohol. In fact, at the beginning of my answer to the question, about half an hour or so ago, I talked about violent crime and how much of it is alcohol related, about the atmosphere in town and city centres—everybody in the House will know from their constituencies how disconcerting many of our constituents find such behaviour—and about the number of hospital admissions that are alcohol-related. I therefore recognise that there are serious concerns, but there are issues that need to be balanced. Otherwise, we would logically end up with the Government being urged to ban alcohol sales altogether—as far as I am aware, nobody is urging us to do that—or with a minimum unit price of, say, £5 rather than 45p. That would have a very big impact on alcohol consumption, but there are other, competing concerns that would not be addressed by going down that route. That is why a Government who govern responsibly for the whole country need to consider all these matters.

Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is a very keen sportsman, and I am not surprised that he raises the important role that women play in rugby. I applaud the work in his constituency to make sure that that is happening. He may be aware that as a result of the Olympics and the Paralympics over 600,000 more women have participated regularly in sport. We can see no finer example of the contribution of women in sport than the women’s six nations tournament, which is going on at the moment. I am sure that every Member in this House will be supporting their home team.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right about the achievements of women during the Olympics. The figures show that 36% of medals won at the Olympics were won by women, yet women get less than 1% of the sponsorship. Will she do something to try to redress that significant imbalance?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: sponsorship can be crucial in not only increasing the prominence of women’s sport but in enabling more women to go to an even higher level within their sport. I have been looking at this with people who are setting up support systems. Importantly, I recently held a round table with the press and with governing bodies, because we need to create the demand for such sponsorship, and that is all about creating an increased profile for women in their sporting areas.

Alcohol Strategy

Russell Brown Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. We want to ensure that existing powers that should be used, particularly on dealing with premises that continue to sell alcohol to people who are drunk, are exercised. However, I am sure that responsible landlords will welcome the statement. Indeed, the chief executive of Greene King said today that he strongly believes that the Government’s intention to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol is an important step.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

This is undoubtedly a problem, but it is disappointing that the Home Secretary makes some of our town and city centres at weekends sound like the wild west. Alcohol is a health issue, and the figures clearly show that. Earlier this week, figures published on liver disease were extremely worrying. The Home Secretary says that there is a consultation, yet she is determined to introduce a minimum price, even if the results of the consultation go against that. Pricing is only one tool in the box that needs to be considered. Young people may laugh at the Home Secretary’s comment this morning that they are particularly sensitive to changes in price—many are not.

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the health aspect. There has been a 25% increase in liver disease between 2001 and 2009. As he said, figures on that came out earlier this week. That is why the document is a comprehensive strategy. It deals with alcohol pricing, health, relationship with the industry and the powers for licensing authorities. It is a cross-Government strategy, which brings all those issues together, to deal with what I hope Members of all parties recognise as a problem that has not been tackled for too long.

Metal Theft

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and other hon. Members who tabled the motion.

Some members of the public have said that the current economic climate and the financial plight in which some individuals find themselves have led to the massive increase in metal theft that we are witnessing. Frankly, I find such a statement to be naive. There can be no excuse for theft at the current levels. I believe that across the House we are united in our determination that something should be done—and it should be done now. As we have heard this evening, the incidence of metal theft has soared throughout the country as metal prices have increased, and we all want the police to be given the powers that will enable them to tackle the epidemic.

The figures given by Members can leave us in no doubt that the amount that individuals are receiving for the stolen metal in their possession represents but a fraction of the cost of replacing it. The weekend before last, ScottishPower reported the theft of power cables from a farm near the town of Castle Douglas in my constituency. In such instances, not only are people put in danger because the cables carry thousands of volts of electricity, but misery is caused to communities and neighbourhoods that are left without power—sometimes for a number of hours—until repairs can be completed.

I know that many other Members wish to speak, so I shall not repeat much of what has already been said. Let me merely emphasise the need to replace the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 and take immediate action to end cash transactions, especially large-scale high-value transactions. Anyone selling scrap metal must provide proof of identity, which must be recorded at the point of sale. We must give the police powers to enter premises and shut down rogue metal scrap yards, thereby protecting decent and legitimate dealers. There are such dealers out there, and they want the House of Commons to act. I also believe, as someone from north of the border, that the powers vested in the Scottish Government will enable it to act in conjunction with the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Immigration

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right. I will come on to the subject of removals shortly, if he can hold on. The other way to improve the asylum system is to ensure that it is faster. If we leave failed asylum seekers here for many years, as the previous Government did, they establish rights that enable the courts to leave them here. That is why I am so pleased to report that 59% of new asylum claims now get a decision within a month. The asylum system is completely transformed from what is still the public image of it. Indeed, half of new asylum claims are now entirely decided within six months. I assure him and the House that the asylum system is genuinely unrecognisable from the state that it was in a few years ago.

I talked about a selective immigration policy. It is not just about numbers. We want the brightest and the best to come here, and we want to support economic growth. That is why we have consulted business and the higher education sector so carefully on our reforms. On the work front, every month since we introduced the limit, the visas on offer have been undersubscribed. It is important for the House to know that not a single valuable worker has been prevented from coming here by our limit. To promote the brightest and the best, we made the investor and entrepreneur routes more attractive and accessible, for instance through an accelerated path to settlement. The latest quarterly figures show that the numbers for both investors and entrepreneurs have more than doubled compared with the same period last year. We have opened a new route for exceptional talent, through which applicants do not need a job offer but must be endorsed by a competent body as world-leading talent.

Britain has always been a nation with a worldwide reputation in the education sector. We want top students to come here. We cannot have world-class education if our institutions are closed to the outside world. That is why our changes to the student visa route are raising the standards for licensing colleges that sponsor foreign students. Only colleges offering a genuine, high-quality education will be able to sponsor international students in future.

Being selective is also about enforcing the rules robustly. Our border controls must be strong. The idea of the UK border starting at Dover or Heathrow is becoming increasingly out of date. Where it is appropriate, we will continue to export our borders so that they start at airports and visa application centres around the world. If people come through France, the borders may start at juxtaposed controls at Calais or Gare du Nord in Paris, or Brussels, rather than at Dover or St Pancras International. We are working hard with France and Belgium to ensure that people cannot exploit their Lille tickets to come to this country. We will continue to work with the authorities of other countries to align and strengthen border security arrangements. We now have a network of staff who work abroad with carriers to ensure that only correctly documented passengers are brought to the United Kingdom.

One statistic not often quoted about the UKBA is that last year it refused 385,000 visa applications. Every year, many thousands more people without the correct documents are prevented from boarding planes overseas in the first place. That is the best way to protect our borders, rather than waiting for people to come to this country, as we used to do.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Minister knows, from discussions that he and I have had, about the problem with southern Ireland. Can he tell the House how many people have been refused entry from the south of Ireland into the north?

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are no border controls between southern Ireland and Northern Ireland because we all subsist in the common travel area. However, I am happy to tell him, as I think I have before in this House, that I am shortly to visit Dublin to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Irish Government that will strengthen the common travel area. He makes a valid point, from his constituency interest in the port of Stranraer, that we need to ensure that the common travel area is as robust as it should be. I am determined to do that and so are the Government of the Irish Republic.

Under e-Borders, we already screen more than 90% of non-EU flights and more than 55% of all flights into and out of the UK. We are continually extending the number of routes and carriers covered. More than 10,000 wanted criminals, including murderers, rapists and those responsible for smuggling drugs or humans into the country, have been arrested at the border as a result of such advance passenger screening. As a result of joint working with the French authorities and the use of improved technology, it has become even more difficult for clandestines to evade border controls. That has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of attempts to cross illegally from France to Dover from more than 29,000 in 2009 to 9,700 in 2010. That is a significant strengthening of our border between Calais and Dover.

To move on to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), we are tackling those who come here illegally as well as those who have come for a limited amount of time and then not gone home. We are making life more uncomfortable for those people. Those who are not compliant in one area usually are not compliant in others. We are therefore working ever more with organisations such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the NHS and credit reference agencies to track people down and encourage them to go home of their own accord. We tell credit reference agencies about illegal immigrants so that they cannot easily access credit.

We are also focusing on criminals who facilitate people staying here illegally, such as sham marriage facilitators and passport factories. The UKBA and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are working together to come down hard on rogue businesses that use illegal labour to evade tax and minimum wage laws. The first year of that joint work resulted in more than 130 arrests and potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax liabilities for HMRC. A targeted campaign this summer saw more than 550 arrests. We are seeing the results. On 25 November, a Moroccan serial fraudster who used a fake identity to get British citizenship and claim an estimated £400,000 in benefits was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison. Last month, a Vietnamese woman was found guilty of conspiracy to facilitate and smuggle immigrants from Vietnam to Europe and was sentenced to five years in prison at Maidstone Crown court.

Immigration (Stranraer/Cairnryan)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I am pleased that I have managed to secure this debate this evening. That said, I am disappointed that it has needs this action to try to secure answers from the Minister. That, along with a number of freedom of information requests, has meant I have had to bring my concerns to the Floor of the House.

My concerns are about one of the most irresponsible cuts this Government have imposed—the withdrawal of UK Border Agency funding from the police ports unit protecting the Galloway ports in my constituency. At the end of this week, I will be attending the official opening of Stena Line’s new terminal building on Loch Ryan. This has replaced its old base in the heart of Stranraer, where ferries have crossed the Irish sea for 150 years. There is also a ferry port operated by P&O just a few miles further round the loch, in the village of Cairnryan.

The Galloway ports are the second busiest ports in the UK, and they have more immigration issues than anywhere else in Scotland. Even though they are entry points to the UK mainland, they are internal ports and a well-known route for illegal immigrants seeking to gain access, and for organised criminals to smuggle contraband goods or illegal drugs. It is well recognised that those last issues were a regular source of funding for terrorist activity in the past.

The chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway constabulary has described the ports as a

“nexus point for illegal immigration”.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has been a champion for Dumfries and Galloway for the 13 or 14 years that he has been a Member. I am disappointed that not a single Scottish National party Member has bothered to come to support his case tonight. He has mentioned the chief constable. Will he say whether there have been any further cuts recently to the number of police officers in the region, from which the ports might have suffered?

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on to that point.

The chief constable’s comments did not stop the Government deciding last summer completely to withdraw the UKBA funding that paid for three officers in Dumfries and Galloway police’s ports unit. That funding had been put in place in 2006. A former Home Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), visited the Stena facility with me early last year and agreed that we needed to increase the resources to ensure security. She was astonished by what she witnessed.

Just a few weeks after the general election, the position was turned on its head and the Government announced the complete withdrawal of the UKBA funding. Clearly what had changed was that the Government had embarked upon deep cuts, whatever the price. That was confirmed by the UKBA’s regional director for Scotland and Northern Ireland, Phil Taylor, who admitted in a letter to the Scottish Government’s Justice Secretary that the cuts at the Galloway ports were due to the

“government’s requirement to bear down on the cost of the public sector”.

It is pertinent to note that the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch was based on witnessing at first hand the difficulties at the ports. The decision to terminate the UKBA funding at the ports was decided without anyone having the decency to visit the facility to witness how the system operated. In fact, no Minister, not even the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who represents part of the region—I appreciate the fact that he has turned up this evening—has visited the Galloway ports, despite imposing major cuts on them.

I come now to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). It is worth mentioning the role of the SNP Scottish Government in this. Although they have been quick to join the chorus of criticism of the UK Government’s cuts, they themselves cut the equivalent of 14.5 officers from the ports unit over the previous couple of years. The crocodile tears from the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, who visited the ports to discuss security issues yesterday, are shameful in the extreme. The truth is that the Galloway ports have suffered from a double whammy of cuts, first from the SNP Government in Edinburgh and then from the Conservative-led coalition Government.

Today I call on the UK Government to consider either reinstating the UKBA financial support to the Dumfries and Galloway ports unit or providing UKBA staff at the ports. The case is overwhelming and I want to highlight three areas. First, the Government must take heed of their own national security strategy, which identified a

“significant increase in the levels of terrorism relating to Northern Ireland”

as a tier 1, or priority, risk to the country. It makes no sense to recognise an increased threat and then to essentially downgrade the security at the route on to the mainland through the Galloway ports.

Secondly, Dumfries and Galloway constabulary has revealed that the scale of the illegal immigration is worse than had been measured previously. Indeed, a UKBA study earlier this year found that the number of illegal immigrants detected at the ports had rocketed by 65% since the previous year. The Government clearly decided to cut the resource based on an estimation of the number of illegal immigrants passing through the ports. Surely the Minister must concede that if the facts change, so must the conclusions. The most recent figures show that the number of immigration cases between 1 September and 10 November increased by 20% compared to the same period last year, and that whereas in the past one in every six people who were stopped were non-EU citizens, that has now increased to one in five.

Thirdly, the cut at the Galloway ports was made with the assurance that greater effort would be put in at the Northern Ireland end. That approach has so far failed. In September, Dumfries and Galloway police told me that

“a lack of checks/coverage at the Northern Ireland side…has led to more offenders getting through the Northern Ireland ports undetected.”

It is clear that the UKBA failed properly to plan how the ports would cope with the withdrawal of the funding support. New procedures came into place only in September this year, 10 months after the cuts. That should have been done before any decision was taken but it was not, because the cuts were rushed through in a matter of weeks. The consequence is that the Government not only reduced security at the ports but left us exposed for almost a year as they decided how to try to compensate for that.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this debate, especially following last week’s debate on immigration. Is it not the case that the Government did not understand, and still do not understand, the importance of people coming into the UK from Ireland, and how easy it is to do that? Will that situation not be exacerbated at the new terminal, which is expected to take in far more people through that same gateway? Unless the number of staff there is increased, there will be a real problem in future.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I said earlier, the previous Immigration Minister came to see the site and was quite shocked by what she witnessed. My plea all along has been that before the Government withdraw the funding, somebody should come to have a look. According to Stena’s figures, we are expecting a potential 50% increase in traffic. Thankfully, the Scottish Government Justice Minister has decided that he will look favourably on another four officers, but that will simply take us back to a situation that the chief constable sees as having been sustainable; it does not take account of the additional traffic that there will be.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. As well as the issue of terrorism, does he accept that there is great concern in Northern Ireland about the fact that people can so easily enter the Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom across the border with no real check, as a result not only of cuts but of a deliberate policy?

[Mr Brown]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and his concern. This is a serious issue, and I hope that even if the Minister cannot give us answers this evening, he will give the matter serious consideration and take the time to come to have a look at what we are experiencing.

One of the most damning aspects to emerge from the situation is the revelation that no one has any idea how many illegal immigrants simply disappear after being stopped at the ports. The police have no authority to seize and arrest any of them. Two weeks ago the Home Secretary was under fire for immigration failings over the summer. The scandal is that she has known for more than a year that there is no way to keep track of illegal immigrants entering through the Galloway ports, and she has not done a thing about it.

Upon detecting illegal immigrants at the ports, Dumfries and Galloway police issue them with an instruction and an appointment to appear at a UKBA office in Glasgow or Manchester. They then release the offenders, in the hope they will keep their promise. That is shockingly lax. If someone has entered the country illegally, are they really going to hand themselves in the next morning?

[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.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) on securing this debate. I know how strongly he feels and I will deal with the specific matter of the common travel area and Ireland in a minute. However, I must first tell him that it is slightly bizarre for him to say that he was expecting a review, that a review was done by UKBA, and that that somehow had nothing to do with me. I am the Minister responsible for UKBA, so if it does a review, it has something to do with me. That is how these things are done.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman overran his time slightly, so I will not be able to take interventions from him—he has had a good go.

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman recognises, and as I need to make explicitly clear, Stranraer and Cairnryan are domestic ports. Those western Scottish sea ports are not designated ports within the meaning of immigration legislation. They are not international ports of entry such as Dover. The ferry routes between Northern Ireland and Scotland are domestic UK services. Legally and in immigration control terms, they are no different from ferry services between the Scottish mainland and the western isles or between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. There are no international passenger services between Stranraer or Cairnryan and any foreign country. We must be clear that we are talking about people moving within the UK; we are not talking about people coming into the UK.

I am sure that, beneath the rhetoric, the hon. Gentleman recognises that it would be wholly inappropriate to introduce passport controls at domestic UK ports. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Journeys within the United Kingdom are not subject to border controls, and nor should they be. Our intelligence shows that the route is subject to abuse. The UKBA knows that some come here with the intention of flouting the immigration laws, and that those here illegally deliberately move around the UK to avoid detection. That is why we work closely to clamp down on those who come here and abuse the system.

The UKBA works closely with the police in Dumfries and Galloway, and I welcome that close working relationship. The agency is also working closely with the Irish Garda to tackle people who start in the Republic of Ireland and then try to enter Northern Ireland illegally. Relations with the Republic of Ireland are strong. Together we are working to secure and strengthen the whole of the common travel area and to narrow the opportunities to exploit it, as well as reinforcing the excellent co-operation that already exists between the UKBA and the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service in relation to the protection of the common travel area. Of course, I recognise the importance of that, and we are working hard to ensure that the CTA becomes a stronger border area as a whole.

I recognise that we are in difficult economic times and that changes to the structure of the UKBA may have been unwelcome to the hon. Gentleman. His concerns about last year’s decision to remove UKBA police funding to Stranraer and Cairnryan have been noted—he has made them clear in the intervening months—and we appreciate the impact that it has had on the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary. As he made clear, however, that came with a much greater reduction in funding from the Scottish Government of the force’s counter-terrorism work.

Dumfries and Galloway is Scotland’s smallest police force. I know that Chief Constable Pat Shearer has made his concerns public, as the hon. Gentleman said. Pat Shearer said last September that cuts in staff numbers meant that the force was going

“closer and closer to the bone”,

and he believed that there was a limit to how far cuts to the constabulary could go without adversely affecting police performance.

As we all know, policing in Scotland and its funding are devolved matters. The police have a duty to uphold and enforce the law and maintain the peace in Scotland. Dumfries and Galloway constabulary, like other forces across the UK, carries out a range of work, and it is its decision—the chief constable’s decision—how its prioritises and manages that work. The UKBA officials work with it to tackle irregular migration. Like the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary, the UKBA must spend public money carefully. The agency therefore took the decision to realign its deployment of seconded police. That decision affected seconded officers throughout the UK.

It was reasonable for the hon. Gentleman to ask what changed. When the UKBA began funding police officers in Stranraer, it had a limited presence in Northern Ireland. At that time, officers had to be deployed from other areas to conduct operations in Northern Ireland. In July 2009, the agency formed a new local immigration team in Belfast. From its offices in Drumkeen house, the UKBA now conducts a wide range of immigration services. A key part of that is tackling immigration crime. The UKBA therefore has more officers than ever before on the ground in Northern Ireland tackling irregular migrants.

The UKBA operates right across the United Kingdom, so it is right that we consider where best across the UK to place our resources to tackle illegal immigration. Tackling abuse of the immigration system is fundamental to the work of the UKBA, and our enforcement work produces real results. This year, a targeted summer campaign involved more than 600 operations across the country resulting in 557 arrests. Some 65 prosecutions have been initiated so far, and there have been 22 successful prosecutions.

I shall touch on specific examples of immigration enforcement work at the western Scotland and Northern Ireland ports. In September, an immigration fraudster was jailed for 18 months after being caught with a bundle of fake identities. Fayyaz Ahmed was arrested at Belfast docks in February while trying to get on the Belfast-to-Stranraer ferry. He was found to have three computer memory sticks and two mobile phones containing more than 700 false and fraudulently altered identity documents. His case, which involved a sophisticated criminal operation, underlines what we all know: that some migrants will seek to abuse our immigration controls. It also highlights the importance of the work that our team does on the ground in Northern Ireland.

Intelligence shows that the majority of illegal migrant traffic comes from the Republic of Ireland through Northern Ireland, and then on to Scotland. It therefore makes sense to transfer the responsibility for identifying those illegal migrants to the border agency’s local immigration team in Northern Ireland, where UK Border Agency staff replicate the work already done at the Northern Irish airports. The agency has more substantial resources on site in Northern Ireland, which is more conveniently located to service the ports and enable the agency to be more operationally effective. The UK Border Agency’s immigration officers in Northern Ireland therefore check the status of passengers arriving from or leaving for Great Britain, targeting routes shown to be most at risk.

In the medium term, UKBA resources will shoulder more of the work of dealing with immigration offenders using that route, which will ease the pressure on Dumfries and Galloway police. For now, early results suggest that, with appropriate levels of co-operation, smart deployments and an increased ratio of detections by the UKBA in Northern Ireland, further improvements can be made in the detection rates of immigration offenders using the Galloway ports as a transit route between Northern Ireland and Scotland. In the long run, the new arrangements, with more effective controls on those routes, will lead to an overall reduction in immigration arrest rates and minimise the burden on Dumfries and Galloway constabulary. An early review of UKBA operations found that an increasing number of immigration offenders are being detected in Northern Ireland, which happens before they can travel to Scotland by ferry or the rest of the UK by air.

[Mr Brown]

I thank the Minister for giving way, and I wholly agree with him—I have here the UKBA report on the common travel area. Although more effort is being made in Northern Ireland—rightly so, because a commitment was given on that—and although more people are being detected, the reality is that more people are still coming on to the mainland through the Galloway ports. I think I mentioned this earlier, but we have all underestimated how serious the problem is; I hold my hand up to that as well. More needs to be done.

[Damian Green]

Of course, more always needs to be done, on every route. However, what I hope I am explaining to the House and the hon. Gentleman is what is being done and why I believe that the changes being made—which focus the operation more in Northern Ireland, which is the source of the problem in his constituency—are a more effective long-term way of tackling illegal immigration and, as a beneficial side effect, reducing the stress on the Dumfries and Galloway police.

Border Checks Summer 2011

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

No. I chose my words very carefully, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have no intention of withdrawing them because they are the truth. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not need to shout to say the truth. It is a shame that he adopted the attitude that he did, because this is a very serious issue, but it is not surprising given some of the other contributions from Opposition Members, which, unfortunately, attempted to blame the fall of the Berlin wall, my noble Friend Lord Howard and the late Lord Whitelaw for problems in the current immigration system, not recognising for a second how much their Government weakened border controls. We heard no recognition of how their Government allowed warnings index checks to be suspended on EEA children and adults, no recognition of how their Government threw open the border at Heathrow, and no recognition of their uncontrolled immigration policy that allowed net migration to this country of 2.2 million. There is only one phrase the British people need to hear from the Labour party on immigration, and that is, “Sorry—sorry we left such a mess.”

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out in detail once again for the House the exact nature of the pilot that she and I authorised to target investigative resources on intelligence-led checks. The shadow Immigration Minister said he assumed that I had authorised the unauthorised extensions. I am happy to be able to assure him and the House that I did not. Under the pilot, instead of always checking children travelling with their parents and in school groups against the warnings index of terrorists and serious criminals, and instead of always checking European nationals’ second photographs in the chip inside their passport, in limited and specific circumstances border force officers would have been able to use intelligence and operational judgment to decide which children to check against the warnings index and on which adults to open the second paragraph.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary talked about risks. I have been in correspondence with the Minister and the Home Secretary, and we disagree about the internal port at Stranraer and Cairnryan. Following the withdrawing of UKBA funding there, people arrive—[Hon. Members: “Speech!”] People arrive there, they are illegal and they are identified by the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary. Arrangements are then made with—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. If Members rise to intervene, they should make an intervention, not deliver a short lecture. I call the Minister.

Identity Documents Bill

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is talking about the abolition of the scheme. Is she telling the House, and the wider country, that the abolition of the scheme will include foreign nationals coming to this country?

[Mrs May]

No. I shall come to that point later. There are biometric residency permits for foreign nationals and they are completely separate from the identity card scheme. They were rolled into the ID scheme only because the Labour Government were trying desperately to bolster it; they claimed that the residency permits were somehow part of the ID card scheme, which they are not. Those biometric residency permits will continue to exist.