PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

1507 UK Border Agency
26 MARCH 2013
UK Border Agency
1508
[Nicola Blackwood]
apart from the inability to manage its data or communicate
it correctly to the Home Affairs Committee, has been
an identity crisis? It has tried to be an enforcement
agency that pursues criminal investigations, but it has
also tried to convey the message that Britain is open for
business by offering a friendly customer service. Can
she assure us that the new structure will fix that problem?
Mrs May: The aim of the new structure is that the
two parts of the Home Office that will be dealing with
these two areas of immigration policy will be focused
more clearly on the roles within each part. The immigration
and visa section will be focused clearly on giving an
efficient and effective service on immigration and visa
decisions, making the right decisions about who should
be able to enter the country, but doing so in a way that
gives individuals good customer service. The enforcement
section will be able to focus clearly on the enforcement
part. We are doing that precisely to get the focus my
hon. Friend wants.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab): From time to
time, high-tech employers in my constituency ask for
help with getting visas or work permits for highly
skilled workers whom they desperately need for their
businesses. If, in future, such workers do not have access
to NHS care, there will be an increased cost either on
the employer or the employee. Will the Government be
reducing national insurance contributions for employers
and employees in respect of those workers?
Mr Speaker: It is very hard to see the link with UKBA
—[Interruption.] Well, it is a slightly strained connection,
but we shall see, if the Home Secretary wants to give a
brief reply.
Mrs May: It is a very strained connection. I understand
that a similar point was raised in the urgent question
yesterday and was responded to.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Can my right hon.
Friend confirm that the immigration Bill that the
Government will introduce in the next Session will seek
to ensure that those who have no right to be within the
jurisdiction are removed from it? Does she not think it a
pity that the shadow Home Secretary does not have the
same perspicacity as the Chair of the Home Affairs
Committee?
Mrs May: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend’s
latter point. Yes, the immigration Bill that I intend to
introduce will look at a range of problems to do with
deportation to ensure that we can remove from this
country people who have no right to be here.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP):
The Home Secretary alluded to the setting up of the
National Crime Agency with the border police command.
Will she reassure the House that there will be ongoing
discussions to try to ensure that the entirety of the
United Kingdom is safeguarded, particularly the border
between Northern Ireland and the Republic?
Mrs May: I recognise, Mr Speaker, that my referring
to the National Crime Agency opened up the possibility
for the hon. Gentleman’s question. I am well aware of
the operation of the National Crime Agency in Northern
Ireland. We want to ensure that the agency is able to do
the job that it needs to do across the United Kingdom,
and we are happy to continue discussions with those
who share the same aim.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con): I congratulate
the Home Secretary on her statement. Should not UKBA
now join the long list of Labour’s immigration failures,
including the Human Rights Act 1998, an immigration
backlog of 450,000, out-of-control and increasing net
immigration and a total lack of control of eastern
European immigration?
Mrs May: My hon. Friend makes very good points. It
is precisely because of the difficulty that Opposition
Front Benchers have in defending their poor record on
immigration that we hear them trying to go on the party
political attack rather than accepting the necessary
decisions to deal with our immigration system.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op):
Will the Home Secretary confirm her estimates of the
cost of her reorganisation and whether it will be met
from existing budgets?
Mrs May: I can assure the hon. Lady that any costs
incurred in reorganisation will be met from existing
budgets.
Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con):
Does my right hon. Friend agree that until the shadow
Home Secretary apologises for Labour’s shambolic
immigration policy when in government, anything that
she or her party says on immigration lacks any credibility
whatsoever?
Mr Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is always a
most courteous Member, but his question suffers from
the notable disadvantage that the Home Secretary has
absolutely no responsibility for the matter in question.
She is responsible for the Government’s policy but does
not have any responsibility for the policy of the Opposition.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
(SNP): As the Home Secretary’s colleague, the Minister
for Immigration, knows, I have been dealing with the
case of Gordon Murray, a local councillor and college
lecturer from Stornoway, who is trying to get his pregnant
Chinese wife and unborn child from China to the
Hebrides before she is unable to fly. The Minister has
been very helpful—Gordon Murray and I are grateful
for that—but he was bequeathed a system that is excessively
bureaucratic and intimidatory and, in this case, is still
cruelly dividing his family. Can we have, as Mr Murray
has asked, a system that puts people’s needs at the
centre rather than numbers and quotas?
Mrs May: I understand that, as the hon. Gentleman
said, my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration has
been dealing with this case. I want the immigration and
visa part of the Home Office, as it will now become,