Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

We think of the family and friends of the seven-year-old who lost her life in the channel this weekend. It matters more than ever that we stop the criminal gangs and dangerous crossings that are undermining border security and putting so many lives at risk.

The Tory Home Secretary has shamefully tried to bury or hide 13 inspectorate reports and one National Audit Office report with damning revelations about Britain’s borders, and now he has gone into hiding himself. He should be doing a statement on those reports, which show shocking border security failures, including border and customs posts not staffed. In one airport, the inspectorate was told,

“customs is shut down for the summer”.

It found that equipment was

“either broken, not available, or untrusted”,

and that there was

“a lack of anti-smuggling capability”.

Mr Neal said that

“protection of the border is neither effective nor efficient”.

Will the Minister tell us how many times customs and border posts have gone unstaffed this year? Does he even know? How many high-risk private flights were not checked in person? How long will there be no inspector in post?

More findings: only two people have been removed under the inadmissibility process that the Government claimed would cover tens of thousands, and 147 unaccompanied children who went missing have still not been found. On Rwanda, £400 million of taxpayers’ money will have been spent even if no one is sent. If 300 people go, it will be £580 million. That is over half a billion pounds on a scheme that will cover less than 1% of UK asylum arrivals —nearly £2 million per person. I say to the Minister: do not give us any garbage about the Tories having a plan. That is not a plan; it is a farce. Why do they not stop wasting that money and instead put it into rebuilding border security and stopping the criminal gangs? That is Labour’s plan.

Finally, there is the revelation that the Home Office has gone a shocking £5 billion over budget this year because it failed on the backlog, on returns, on hotels and on Rwanda—14 years of Tory Government, wasting taxpayers’ money, weakening Britain’s security. They have bust the Home Office budget and broken Britain’s borders. Instead of hiding and running away, why do they not just get out of the way and let someone else do the job properly?

[Tom Pursglove]

That was a contribution to the House full of soundbites, as ever, but light on policy substance. We hear time and again from the right hon. Lady and her colleagues a lot of criticism of what the Government are doing and absolutely no credible policy alternative in response. It is incredibly frustrating. It just will not do, and the British people see straight through it.

I share the right hon. Lady’s sentiments about the terrible incident at the weekend when that young girl lost her life. In the last few weeks, we have yet again seen lives lost in the channel, and that is a source of regret for all of us. That is why the Government are absolutely determined to put an end to these channel crossings. We are making progress—that is why the number of crossings last year was down by over a third compared with the year before, and Albanian arrivals are down by over 90%—but there is more work to do, and we will continue to see through the plan that is delivering those results.

The right hon. Lady mentions Rwanda. We have a fundamental point of difference in that the Government believe that the Rwanda policy is an important part of the answer in putting those evil criminal gangs out of business. It is not acceptable to spend £8 million a day in the asylum system. However, it does not take many spends of £8 million a day to get to the figures that have been provided to the NAO in a transparent manner. We will continue to publish those through the annual report and accounts. We think that advancing that policy and putting those criminal gangs out of action is the right thing to do, recognising that the policy is novel and has been challenging. She will, of course, have the opportunity to vote for the Rwanda legislation when it comes back from the other place, and I certainly encourage her and her colleagues to be in the Lobby with us, because it just will not do to have no credible plan.

The right hon. Lady refers to one of the comments made in the report. We do not accept it. The inspection covered only a small part of our border operations at a specific location and over a limited time period—it is a snapshot—and it is inappropriate to draw unsubstantiated wider conclusions through sweeping statements based on a three-day inspection. Ultimately, Border Force facilitates 132 million passenger arrivals last year, processing over 96% of passengers within service standards. Significant progress has been made since the report was commissioned to increase the number of officers trained in vulnerability and behavioural detection, and that is set to continue. We treat the inspector’s recommendations with the utmost seriousness; we get on and deliver on those recommendations and, as I have consistently set out to the House, we now have a commitment to respond to those reports within eight weeks.