PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

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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,
1509 UK Border Agency 26 MARCH 2013 UK Border Agency 1510 to focus on customer service, but, of course, against the background of making the right decisions for individuals who apply to come to the UK. Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con): Many of my constituents work at the UK Border Agency in Leeds, as do many other people across Leeds. Will the Home Secretary reiterate what these changes mean to the people who work there? Will she comment on how they will be able to do their job more effectively and get the results that they strive to achieve? Mrs May: We do not intend that as a result of these changes there will be changes to any of the UKBA’s current sites. Most people will continue to do the job that they have been doing. As I have said, many staff are doing that assiduously and with the right commitment. It should be easier for them to do their job in the future because that part of the organisation, when within the Home Office, will have a much clearer focus but will also be making decisions that will enable us to improve the IT system and the processes within the organisation. Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab): The Home Affairs Committee discovered a backlog of some 33,000 legacy asylum cases and found that 59,000 cases have not even been entered on to the computer system. Is not one of the major reasons for that the loss of staff and resources presided over by the Home Secretary since mid-2010? Will she pledge not to be so comprehensively out-manoeuvred by the Chancellor in the next spending review as she so clearly was in the previous one? Mrs May: When the hon. Gentleman is thinking about figures he should remember that the Government inherited a backlog of half a million asylum cases. The Government have cleared that backlog. Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con): I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Although we always find that we get great personal service from individual members of UKBA, she knows, because I have raised it with her before, that many people in my central London constituency find themselves frustrated by some of the current arrangements. Can she assure me that the new arrangements will make it easier for some high-performing people to get their visas more quickly and thus send a keen pro-business message? Mrs May: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that in the House, as she has done with me directly. We certainly intend to ensure that the service provides a premium service for business people and others who may need to come here on a faster basis. Indeed, we are setting up in India the first super-premium service, which will provide a 24-hour visa service for individuals who need it. Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. One of the biggest complaints in my office about the UK Border Agency is the processing of visas and passports, which often takes up to 12 months. Staff are always helpful, and we appreciate that, but what assurance can she give to my constituents, who are totally frustrated with the delays that they face? Mrs May: I am very conscious that this is one of the issues that we have needed to address in relation to the processing of applications. Particular concerns have been raised with us about the length of time that it has been taking to process business applications for tier 2 workers to come to the UK. That is currently being dealt with inside UKBA. I believe that having a clearer focus on that part of the business, but also working overtime to improve the IT systems and processes within it, will lead to the sort of outcome to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): Given that most asylum seekers come to our shores via other nations, what happened to the previous convention of returning these people to the last safe country from which they came? If that has lapsed, can we bring it back through the immigration Bill that the Home Secretary has promised? Mrs May: My hon. Friend refers to the Dublin regulation, which does indeed enable a country to return an asylum seeker to the first country in the European Union that they entered. We are still able to do that, with the exception of one country—Greece—and we do. Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/ Co-op): We all see in our surgeries lots of cases—sometimes dozens or hundreds of cases—of bona fide applicants who are waiting months and months, sometimes years and years, beyond the guidelines to get their applications dealt with. Can the Home Secretary assure us that the changes will lead to improvements in the near future for these people? We do not want this reorganisation merely to lead to more interim delay while it is put into effect. Mrs May: I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point about ensuring that the reorganisation does not lead to further problems in the short term. Like the longer-term changes to IT systems and processes, it is intended to try to deal with precisely some of the problems that he identified regarding the length of time taken to make decisions. Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con): Will the Secretary of State clarify whether the new system will quickly implement judicial decisions to deport foreign criminals back to their countries? Mrs May: A number of problems are encountered when trying to deport foreign national prisoners back to their country of origin. The new enforcement command in the Home Office will be able to put greater focus and emphasis on the removal of those who no longer have a right to be here and the deportation of foreign national offenders who should be removed. There are other issues in such cases and those will be dealt with in the immigration Bill that I intend to bring forward.
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