Labour

We need answers from the Home Secretary on borders security - Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, said today in the House of Commons in response to Theresa May's statement to the House of Commons on UK border security failings:

- Check against delivery -

"Mr Speaker, can I welcome her agreement to establish an independent inquiry. Reports have already reached me from the Border Agency today that the shredders are on and there is a ban on internal e-mails.

"Can she look urgently into what documents are being shredded today, and what e-mails are being deleted today in both the Home Office and the UKBA on this issue. The inquiry must also have access to all communications between Ministers, the Home Office and the Border Agency on this issue.

"The scope must also cover the resource pressures facing UKBA. We now know that 6,500 staff are being cut from the Border Agency, including 1,500 from the Border Force and we need to know what pressure officials were put under to cut corners as a result to keep queues down with reduced staff.

"We also need some answers from the Home Secretary now. In questions earlier the Home Secretary could not tell the House how many people came through our ports and our airports this summer without proper checks.

"100,000 foreign citizens enter Britain every day. Border Agency staff have claimed the reduced checks were in place almost daily and lasting at least half of every shift.

"So how many people weren’t checked against the watch list?

"How many people did not have their biometrics checked?

"Did anyone from the watch list enter Britain at that time?

"Did any convicted criminals or security suspects enter?

"The truth is the Home Secretary does not know.

"What is she now doing to assess who might have entered the country and from which locations?
 
"The Home Secretary has admitted that she took the decision to reduce checks for EU citizens in July.

"Not checking under 18s against the warnings index.

"Not doing the biometric checks on EU passports.

"Yet she will know cases have been identified by borders officials involving EU citizens – including people involved in organised crime, people trafficking, falsifying passports or removals of children who are wards of court.

"She made that decision. Not Labour Ministers in the past. This Home Secretary. That decision is her responsibility. She cannot run away from it or hide behind political lines.

"She will know that the intention of Labour – and we had assumed – Conservative Ministers was to roll out e-borders and to put the technology in place so that in future everyone could be properly screened entering and exiting the country. Not just everyone at quiet times.

"In fact the Immigration Minister claimed in May that 90% of non-EU flights were covered. And 60% of EU flights. Turns out they only meant 90% of flights in the winter, or quiet times in the afternoon.

"The truth is that instead of strengthening the checks year on year as all previous Ministers had committed to do, this Home Secretary decided to water them down as official government policy, even though she never told this House.

"She has blamed officials for relaxing the checks further than she intended. But she gave the green light for weaker controls.

"She said she wanted reduced checks. She claims in her statement that not checking the biometric chip 'should not be routine'.

"Yet the interim operational instruction she refused to publish says: 'We will cease routinely opening the chip within EEA passports, checking all EEA nationals under 18 against the warnings index... If for whatever reason it is considered necessary to take further measures, local managers must escalate to the Border force duty director to seek authority for their proposed action.'

"And look how far they went. Border Agency staff are saying: 'every day I let in ten people who I think there would be a good case against'.

"How on earth did Ministers not know about this?

"How could there be continual complaints from staff for months and yet neither the Immigration Minister nor the Home Secretary knew what on earth was going on.

"At best they were deeply out of touch at worst complicit in a series of serious breaches of border control.

"Mr Speaker this Home Secretary is presiding over growing chaos and corner cutting at our borders.

"Raed Salah banned from this country by the Home Office and allowed just to waltz in at Heathrow.

"100,000 asylum cases written off as just too difficult to deal with.

"And now a green light to experiment with watering down rather than increasing border controls given by Ministers.

"And she doesn’t even know how many people entered Britain without proper checks this summer.

"6,500 staff being cut.

"Thousands of people have entered this country without proper checks and without the Home Secretary having any clue what was going on.

"It’s no good blaming the previous government. It’s no good blaming officials. This is her watch, these are her decisions and her government’s mistakes. She should stop passing the buck."