Examination of Witnesses (Questions 574-579)
BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP, MR BILL
JEFFREY AND
MS ANGELA
RAMLAGAN-SINGH
TUESDAY 4 MARCH 2003
Chairman
574. Ms Hughes, Ms Ramlagan-Singh and Mr Jeffrey,
welcome. This is the final session of our short inquiry into removals,
though we will be looking later at other aspects of asylum policy
so we expect to see you again before too long.
(Beverley Hughes) It will be my pleasure,
Chairman.
575. Would you like, first, to introduce your
colleagues?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. I have with me Mr Bill Jeffrey,
the Director General, and Angela Ramlagan-Singh, who is the head
of the Removals Delivery Unit.
576. We met Ms Singh, I think, and Mr Jeffrey's
name I recognise from responses to lots of letters sent out by
my constituency office. Mr Prosser is going to start the ball
rolling.
(Beverley Hughes) Could I make a few opening remarks,
please, Chairman?
577. Yes, but I hope you are not going to read
out a page of double-spaced typing?
(Beverley Hughes) No, but I do want a couple of minutes,
if I may, to put into context the important subject you are talking
about today, because removals are important but I think it is
important too, as we are increasingly trying to do in the Home
Office, to see removals as an integral part of the whole end-to-end
asylum process, and to put it in the context of our overall objective
about managing migration, welcoming people to this country, finding
new ways for them to contribute to our economy, but at the same
time to bear down on those people who do not have the right to
be here, who do not qualify, and who are abusing some of the processes
including the asylum process.
578. We are all agreed about that but how much
have you got there?
(Beverley Hughes) What I would simply like to say
is we have had a week in which we have seen a record intake on
asylum published last week for 2002, although the indications
in those figures are that, in the last two months of the year,
the measures that we have been instituting including the Royal
Assent on the Act together with the closure of Sangatte, the measures
that the Home Secretary instituted with the French Government—measures
that are, at the moment, as we speak before the court on support—and
introducing visas, all of those together we think cautiously are
having an impact on intake, and I think that is one of the main
points I would make. Removals are very important and as you know
remain a target for us, but equally if not more important is the
focus at the front end of the process in terms of reducing the
numbers overall. As you obviously want me to be very brief, I
will stop there!
579. You have it. On the questions of the front
end, which we all understand is important, that is what we are
going to address in our next inquiry but today we are doing removals.
(Beverley Hughes) That is fine.
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