Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600-619)
BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP, MR BILL
JEFFREY AND
MS ANGELA
RAMLAGAN-SINGH
TUESDAY 4 MARCH 2003
600. In which case, if you knew the baseline,
you knew he was going to say "I am going to cut the asylum
seekers in half", otherwise why would you set a baseline?
(Beverley Hughes) We are playing with words here.
601. I am not.
(Beverley Hughes) We had set ourselves, in discussions
about how we internally would monitor the impact of the measures
in the Bill and the other measures that we have brought on-line
since, what we would regard as an indication of success and what
we would be looking for. Those discussions had taken place.
602. So why did the Prime Minister not talk
about an October baseline? If you say you are going to cut something
in half by a date, September, is it not most likely you are either
talking about cutting it in half compared with the time you make
the promise, or compared with the previous September? Why did
the Prime Minister not mention October?
(Beverley Hughes) He was not asked. If you saw that
interview, it was a wide-ranging one; Jeremy Paxman at that point
was asking the questions; it simply did not come up but we have
always said that the benchmark will be the time immediately before
we have got the powers through Royal Assent to bring in the measures
we have legislated for.
603. Is it then just coincidence that October
happens to be by quite a long way the highest month of asylum
applications in 2002? 8,900 compared with a thousand fewer the
month before?
(Beverley Hughes) No. It could have worked either
way. The principle was that we had legislated because although
the figures came down slightly in 2001 we are looking very closely,
monitoring, and using our intelligence systems all the time to
look at trends and we knew the trends were going to go up. That
is why we took what some people regard as very tough measures
in that legislation and fought very hard for them, and therefore—
604. But nevertheless, if you had to pick one
month in 2002 that would be the easiest to halve, it would be
October.
(Beverley Hughes)—And therefore it seems right
and reasonable that the immediate benchmark, however that had
panned out, was the period of time immediately before we had the
power to implement the measures that we had provided for in legislation.
That was the principle and there was no deviation from that.
605. But would you confirm that even if you
cut in half by September that would still be 4,500 a month, and
if you analyse that that would be well over 50,000 a year which
is about 10,000 more than five years ago?
(Beverley Hughes) As the Prime Minister went on to
say before he concluded that piece of the interview, we go on
from there. That is not an end target—it is a position in
time we want to get to—and we will go on from there.
606. It is a strange way of setting targets,
but thank you.
(Beverley Hughes) Not at all.
Miss Widdecombe
607. Minister, you say that the beginning of
this period of measurement is last October and the end of it is
September, therefore we are halfway through. What is the progress?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot give you figures for January
and February because they have to be confirmed statistically and
they will be produced, as you know, for January, February and
March at the end of May. What I can say is that, apart from an
increase immediately prior to the implementation of the Section
55 provisions where we saw in that first week in January an increase,
for November and December as revealed by the Q4 figures on Friday
the trend downwards has continued.
608. I would find it very surprising if, as
a Minister with a target to be reached in a few months time and
half the year already elapsed, even if you have not got publishable
figures, you were not getting monthly information. What is that
information showing you?
(Beverley Hughes) I am getting weekly information.
609. What is that showing you?
(Beverley Hughes) It is showing me that the trend
for November and December of a downward pressure on the numbers
of people claiming asylum is continuing, and I cannot give the
Committee any firmer figures than that because of the way we publish
those figures and give them to Parliament after they have been
statistically verified.
610. So what you are telling the Committee is
that currently there is a downward trend, although you cannot
give us the detail?
(Beverley Hughes) I have the figures: I am not able
to give them to the Committee because of the way in which we publish
the figures to Parliament.
611. I appreciate the fact you cannot give the
figures to the Committee. What I am trying to get you to tell
me, or you can tell me the opposite if you want to, is whether
there is in your view a quite clear downward trend that gives
you confidence?
(Beverley Hughes) The downward trend for November
and December has continued into January and February.
612. You mean it has gone on going down?
(Beverley Hughes) It has gone on going down and, as
I said earlier, this is a phenomenon that is acutely sensitive
to changes that are external to us. We can pull all the levers
that we are able to internally and domestically and that is what
we are doing, but the figures can change quite quickly in relation
to events outside so I am only cautiously encouraged. In a steady
state position, without any dramatic events or other factors that
we cannot control impinging on the flow, then the evidence so
far suggests that what we have done so far is having a significant
impact and I would expect that, all other things being equal,
to continue.
(Mr Jeffrey) Adding to that, the one exception is
the point the Minister referred to which is that in the early
days of January, before we introduced the provisions denying asylum
support to those who did not claim as early as they could, there
was quite an increase in the number of applications. For several
days before these provisions came in on 8 January, but apart from
that the position is as the Minister claims.
613. Can I ask you some further questions about
this target? I imagine that one of the factors that will have
been taken into account in setting it is what happened after the
introduction of the 1996 Act when we also denied assistance to
those who applied in-country rather than at port, and there was
an extremely dramatic drop of about 40%, which was then reversed
not only by the incoming government but as a result of a court
ruling. You have recently had an adverse court ruling. Have you
made any assessment of the impact that that will have on this
target which you have set?
(Beverley Hughes) Well, it will have an impact. If
the Court of Appeal in its decision confirms the initial decision
in the High Court then clearly it will have an impact and it depends
how we respond to that. We will have to wait and see the outcome
of the Court of Appeal process but certainly we are considering
the position as to what we might do if the Court of Appeal does
confirm. I have to say that I am not convinced at this stage that
the Court of Appeal will confirm the High Court's decision at
all, but this is their second day of deliberation and we have
to wait at this point and see what the decision is.
(Mr Jeffrey) The other point to make is this is not
a strategy with a single measure; there is more to it than the
restriction on asylum support. In terms of the impact on the intake
of asylum seekers, we are probably looking for more of an impact
from the steps that have been taken at channel ports to improve
our performance in detecting people before they were sent off
to each country.
614. If I could just go to your 30,000 removals,
your other target, and just probe a little how on earth that target
was arrived at, if you are going to set a target for removals—and
I take the point about it being necessary to be ambitious and
to have a target that stretched people even if you know you might
not quite get there, that is fine—but if you are setting
a target as considerable as 30,000 removals from the base that
you were coming from, you would know at the time that you set
and published that target and said to the British public, "This
is a serious government target", that there were all sorts
of factors including adequacy of detention space, for example,
that would determine the success or the failure of that target.
What I would like to know is this: I assume the 30,000 was a reasonably
scientific target and not just plucked out of the air so on what
did you base it? How did you arrive at the figure of 30,000? So
far I have asked this question in a different number of ways and
a large number of times, and nobody has been able to tell me where
this 30,000 came from.
(Beverley Hughes) I am not sure, Chair, whether I
can be of any more help than others have been so far.
615. You surprise me, Minister!
(Beverley Hughes) Unfortunately neither the Director
General nor I were party to that decision and I can only say,
insofar as I am able to look back, that I think ministers at the
time genuinely felt on the basis of where they were then that
the key—and it is the key but I think we now feel it is
not the only key—was to remove more people, and that all
the effort and energy resources needed to be applied to that,
and having looked at the figures removed previously they wanted
to see a real step change in the number of people demonstrably
being removed, and set a target that was two or three times more
than what had been achieved hitherto in an attempt to get that
step change, to get that drive—and it was not achievable,
as the Home Secretary said when he last appeared here in January.
616. I do not want to delay the Committee much
longer on this but I do have to probe you just a little. You said
that you were not a party to the original decision and nor is
your current Director General. That is fine but it was your administration
therefore you have full access to all the records; there is also
presumably some corporate memory within the immigration service
who will have been advising your predecessors when they were setting
that target; there will have been I assume—perhaps falsely—a
fully worked out rationale in some submission that resulted in
that target, and all I want to know is, apart from telling me
that somebody sat there and said, "Let us multiply the present
achievement by four quite regardless of whether or not we have
the space and the officials and the capacity and the ability",
how you got to that target? I suspect I shall not get much further
enlightenment but I do not buy the argument that because you did
not set it you do not know how it was set when it was done by
your administration?
(Beverley Hughes) The fact is that the current Home
Secretary, as soon as he became Home Secretary, looked again at
that target and made it clear I think in June 2001 shortly after
he had been appointed that in his view this target was not achievable
and needed to be re-examined, which is what he did. We have moved
on from there. That was getting on for two years ago and I do
not feel it is productive to delve into this issue any further
or, in fact, for me to wade through submissions that must have
been put up to previous ministers from three or four years ago
to understand how they got to a figure which the current Home
Secretary, openly and honestly, said to Parliament almost two
years ago was not achievable. So Miss Widdecombe is right—I
cannot give her the information because I have not gone back myself
to find that submission, whatever it was, from three or four years
ago to understand the mathematics or the assessments that produced
3,000.
Chairman: I think Miss Widdecombe's question
is whose idea was this target and where did it come from?
Miss Widdecombe: My question is how on
earth this target was arrived at. Somebody must know that.
Chairman
617. Rather than get bogged down with this,
can I suggest you send us a note on this subject?
(Beverley Hughes) We will.
Mr Clappison
618. Can I take issue with you when you say
that you are not responsible for what previous ministers have
said—
(Beverley Hughes) I did not say that, and I would
not say that.
Chairman: I did not hear Ms Hughes say
that.
Mr Clappison
619. Can I remind you of the words of the then
Home Secretary to the special Select Committee on the previous
Asylum Act when he said that he had no more important responsibility
for getting the asylum system right in 1999, and he was not saying
that future ministers would not be judged on what was achieved
in the interim; he was saying there was no more important responsibility.
So you do accept responsibility for everything that has happened
over the last five years?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, and nothing I said contradicted
that, and I do very much take issue in fact with the way you contorted
my words. I simply said that neither the Director General nor
myself, and I was appointed last year and the Director General
more recently, were there at the time when the considerations
about arriving at that figure took place, and we have not spent
our time in the last few months since our appointment delving
back into that kind of detail which now is somewhat out of date.
That is not the same as saying that I do not take responsibility
for what my administration ministers have done.
Mr Clappison: And there are lessons to
be learned.
| 
