Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
23 MARCH 2004
BEVERLEY HUGHES,
MR BRODIE
CLARK, MR
CHRIS POND
AND MR
RICHARD KITCHEN
Q300 Chairman: When?
Beverley Hughes: I cannot recall
when I signed it off. Some time in the last fortnight.
Q301 Chairman: Some time in the last
fortnight? So you are two weeks and DWP—
Beverley Hughes: No, you asked
me when I signed it off. It was a process that was going on before
that. As I say, this update builds on the response that you received
in December. In formulating that response, just for the record,
I met Lord Whitty on 16 October to discuss the immigration aspects
of your original report. We then had the further two meetings
that have already been referred to on 11 November and then subsequently
on 18 March. I cannot remember, but we will give you the date,
after the December report was produced and in the light of Morecambe
Bay and the need to update you, there has been a process over
recent weeks when we have wanted to update and finalise—
Q302 Chairman: — I am intrigued
by all this. Clearly Morecambe Bay has had a tremendous focusing
effect but I get the impression that nothing much happened between
10 December and the tragedy at Morecambe at the beginning of February
that gives me any impression that any kind of work was actually
going on in this area at all.
Beverley Hughes: I do not think
that is the case—
Q303 Chairman: You have just said Morecambe
Bay triggered something, "Oh gosh, we have got to reply to
Defra; they are going to have another go at this."
Beverley Hughes: There have been
a number of developments. There has also been Jim Sheridan's Bill
and colleagues in Defra and DWP have been considering—
Q304 Chairman: Mr Sheridan's Bill arose
out of the tragic events of Morecambe Bay.
Beverley Hughes: No, that is not
true.
Diana Organ: No, that is not true.
Q305 Chairman: In terms of it coming
before the House there is an association between the two, but
I accept my colleague's observations that the work began on that
earlier. What actually did happen in the Home Office in between
December and Morecambe Bay on this? Were you busy providing information
through to DWP?
Beverley Hughes: There were a
number of things. Discussion around Jim Sheridan's Bill did, as
your colleague just said, predate by some considerable time discussions
between Departments at official and ministerial level about the
response to that and formulating a response. I also from January
to now have had two meetings of the Illegal Working Steering Group
and these issues were discussed there, together with issues in
relation to our response and update to your report. So it was
a normal process of further consideration of the initial response
in December together with how we could update you on what was
being done and driven as well by considerations of Jim Sheridan's
Bill and then later the events in Morecambe Bay, which were clearly
relevant. Or we think they may be relevant. We do not know yet
if it is gangmaster activity, but clearly there was something
very wrong.
Chairman: Mr Hall has a short question,
Mr Drew has one and Mr Breed has one. In that order please, gentlemen.
Q306 Patrick Hall: Can I follow up a
point made by colleague here to the Minister, the point about
the Government's response. Could I just go back to your earlier
remarks about the evaluation report which becomes an annual report
on Operation Gangmaster which was completed, you will see,
at the beginning of April you said, and Lord Whitty will see it
later. When will it be published?
Mr Pond: I would be very happy,
Mr Hall, for the Committee to have that at the earliest opportunity.
It will need of course to be cleared by each of the other Ministers.
I will certainly do that very quickly, I am sure my Right Honourable
Friend will move very quickly, and although Lord Whitty is not
here, I know he shares our sense of urgency on this. So I hope
that the Committee will have an opportunity to see that very shortly.
Q307 Mr Drew: Can I go back to something
Beverley Hughes said as an aside but which concerns me and that
is the degree to which this is being steered from outside this
country. When you were talking about the prosecutions you were
talking about prosecuting British nationals. Can you just give
the Committee an understanding—is this something that is
tacklable at a national level or is it pan-European or even pan-world
in terms of who is actually bringing illegal labour into the country
and does that mean to actually attack the gangmaster issue you
have got to work with other governments, let alone, dare I say,
the problems you have got working across Departments?
Beverley Hughes: You are quite
right but we need to be clear. There is an undoubted connection
between organised international crime, people smuggling, people
trafficking, and people ending up in the country illegally. How
far the problem of rogue gangmasters connects with the international
dimension, I think that is the bit that is unclear. Clearly, for
example, if the Morecambe Bay incident and the employment of those
Chinese people does turn out to have had some connection with
gangmasters—and we do not know that yet but if it does—then
that clearly is some evidence, because we are also pretty clear
that most Chinese people who come in here come in through a very
highly organised system with Chinese criminals behind it. That
is why both in the Immigration Department and through the multi-agency
on organised immigration crime, Reflex, which supports IND as
well as leading on its own on major disruptions of international
trafficking, their work is so important. As I say, we cannot be
quite clear how far it does connect with your focus of interest
which is rogue gangmasters, but I think clearly there will be
some connection because we know that so much of illegal working
is connected to international organised crime. There is a great
deal of work going on, not only with other countries to police
the routes through but also with source countries from which people
come to help them develop both their criminal justice and their
policing and their intelligence systems. We have people out in
a number of countries helping to raise the game of source countries
so we can actually tackle the traffickers there as well.
Q308 Mr Drew: Can I just have a quick
supplementary to that. What other countries are you talking to
in terms of their ability to track down on illegal use of labour
and is there a model anywhere within the EU that we could look
to as the basis that they have maybe not overcome this but they
are further forward than we are in terms of the ability to deal
with people who set themselves up to broker employment of illegal
labour?
Beverley Hughes: As I say, I just
have to be careful that you understand that we are not clear how
the comments I may make generally impact in relation to the gangmaster
situation. But clearly I think some of the work at the international
level that would be exemplary for you to look at is the work that
we have done in the UK, say, with Romania, having people out there,
helping them to develop their intelligence systems and their policing
operations, actually working with them to raise the skill level
and the capacity of their officers to identify and to police and
to detect illegal operations that actually start in that country,
and I have had contact with Romanian ministers too because we
are working very closely with them. I think that is a good example
that I would cite. I do not think we are behind the game in this
in terms of other European countries. I think we have got some
exemplary work going on with officers in the UK, the police and
IND on the international scene and I think it might be very worthwhile
for you to look at that.
Q309 Mr Breed: During our original report
on gangmasters we learned that Operation Gangmaster is
a pretty uncoordinated effort by the Government in trying to address
this particular issue. That is highlighted in our report. We also
have now learned that in June Geraldine Smith wrote to Ministers
expressing her concern about Chinese cocklers. On 29 July 22 Chinese
were found but they could not be held and they were released.
On 4 August 37 were arrested but they could not be held either
and they were released. On 10 September we produced our published
report which you then responded to in December and then on 5 February
we had the disaster. I know that we are talking with the benefit
of hindsight but with that benefit do you think that either of
your Departments acquitted themselves satisfactorily in response
to what was clearly a problem which was being highlighted in a
number of ways?
Beverley Hughes: I think that
the record of operations in relation to cockle-picking led largely
by DWP is one that shows that that issue was being taken seriously
not only in Morecambe Bay but also elsewhere where cockle-picking
activity was taking place with the suspicion that people were
being employed illegally. I think we have to be careful that we
do not fall into the trap of saying that the responsibility for
something like Morecambe Bay is with the agencies who should have
prevented it. I think the responsibility clearly has to lie with
the people who were employing those people illegally and exposing
them to terrible danger in which they paid with their lives. Clearly,
having said that, when we get the result of the police investigation,
and we know what we are dealing with here, whether it is a gangmaster
issue or it is not a gangmaster issue, I think we will be better
equipped then to ask the questions that you rightly ask—and
it is right to ask them—is there more that we could have
done and is there more that we can do more in the future together
as Departments in relation to this particular sector?
Q310 Ms Atherton: Do you think resources
was one of the reasons that when the Morecambe Police asked for
assistance last year they did not receive it from the Immigration
Service?
Beverley Hughes: No, as I say,
we have increased resources in IND enforcement and removal operations
nationally very considerably over this financial year.
Q311 Ms Atherton: I am sorry, I can hardly
hear you.
Beverley Hughes: I will come closer
to the microphone. I said we have increased resources by over
£40 million in the last financial year and it is not yet
clear when the police did ask IND for assistance. The Police believe,
although there is no record, that they tried to phone the Immigration
Service late on the evening of the 4th, although there is no record
of those phone calls. IND actually got the first call through
early on the morning on 5 August, and that was for assistance
not with the operation if you like but assistance with identifying
people because obviously we had foreign nationals involved. I
hope that the investigation which I have instituted, which Brodie
Clark is overseeing, into IND together with the police investigation
will elucidate the answers to those questions as to when assistance
was first asked and got through to IND and when they actually
responded.
Q312 Ms Atherton: We have talked about
ministerial co-operation and we have talked about international
co-operation. It does not sound to me as if there is a great deal
of national co-ordination and co-operation. Do you think the agencies
are working well together?
Beverley Hughes: Certainly my
impression is that the agencies on the ground are working very
well together. You will know, I think, that Ben Bradshaw made
a visit on 26 February to Morecambe Bay itself and got people
round the table. In fact, another Member of Parliament in that
area John Hutton had had a similar meeting himself some time before
and got people round the table and was happy that the agencies
were working together. The agencies reported that they were working
well together. I think that is what is crucially important. It
is the agencies on the ground who know who they can pick up the
phone to, who know that they can call in, who are sharing intelligence,
who are co-operating on operations that will actually be led by
different agencies according to what the intelligence says. It
does not have to be the same organisation that leads all the time.
What is important is that the resources and the expertise of different
organisations can be brought to bear when they are needed in the
context of any individual operation.
Chairman: Can I just ask for my greater
education and understanding, last week we heard from the National
Crime Squad and we know that the National Criminal Intelligence
Service have an interest in these matters because for the last
two years their annual report has commented on illegals and gangmaster
operations. Last week we heard the National Crime Squad saying
that they operated what they described as a level-three activity,
which was a low-flying exercise looking at problems which they
then filtered down to level one activity, which was to do with
police forces and trying to get them interested in looking at
matters connected with illegality and, inevitably, gangmasters.
They did not in their discussion mention how they linked in with
other agencies and one got the impression that this information
was sort of filtering down through the system and some police
forces were picking it up and acting on it, but there was no sense
of how things were drawn together. Perhaps you could just wire
it together for me. And then Ms Atherton wants to add something
to my interjection.
Q313 Ms Atherton: I will finish my question
afterwards.
Beverley Hughes: Reflex is the
main organisation that I think you are talking about that brings
together the National Crime Squad, IND, the police and all the
agencies relevant to organised immigration crime, which will overlap
with this issue.
Q314 Chairman: Does Defra have any input
into that?
Beverley Hughes: Defra is not
represented on the board of Reflex but Defra and DWP and other
agencies are connected into that through the Home Office.
Q315 Chairman: So the policy department
for gangmasters does not have a seat at the board?
Beverley Hughes: It does not have
a seat at the board.
Q316 Chairman: Why?
Beverley Hughes: This is an agency
created to focus at that high level on organised immigration crime.
Q317 Chairman: Given the world of agriculture
and horticulture why are they not there because they set the policy
for this area? They should be at least there to listen to what
is said, should they not?
Beverley Hughes: This is an operational
activity. It is organised immigration crime and it does connect
with gangmasters and labour providers but it is not wholly exclusively
focused on labour providers but on the whole of illegal work in
organised immigration crime. I think Brodie Clark—
Q318 Chairman: Would not policy generation
from the Defra standpoint be better informed if they were listening
to some of the detailed information which inevitably is fed back
up the communications links that you have just been talking about
from the operational people with the various Departments at a
ground level? Should not all be sharing this information?
Beverley Hughes: Yes, but it does
not mean to say that they all have to sit round the table of an
organisation that is specifically operational at a very high level
using intelligence to decide what operations should take place
and who should be involved. With respect, to make the assumption
that because they are not that either in policy terms or in more
detailed operational terms for gangmasters they do not get fed
back to the relevant Departments is wrong. Can I ask Brodie Clark
to give some of the flesh on the bones of the "wiring"
as you call it.
Mr Clark: I concur in relation
to what has already been said in that the relationships at a local
level generally are very good between immigration staff and particularly
with police in terms of looking at taking forward joint operations
and doing that in the interests of both those organisations. My
impression of the relationships in the North West around the time
of the Morecambe tragedy has been that they were very good also
and I personally spoke with a group of police and immigration
staff about two weeks after that occasion in some kind of de-briefing
arrangement and again both speaking very well and very strongly
for each other in terms of how they had managed their way through
that. But coming from that some learning points inevitably in
terms of how the two organisations operate together under crisis
situations. In terms of the higher-level issues and Reflex, these
are joint fora, they are jointly funded, with participants from
IND at senior level sharing intelligence at a high level, producing
very regular threat assessments in terms of the immigration issues
for the Immigration Service to pursue and follow through, with
a rather more operational, tactical management set of networks
right through the organisations. So material is coming at the
higher level and being worked through with IND, with NCIS, with
NCS and then focusing directly through the organisations to delivery
at the front-line. So a lot of those mechanisms are in place and
working very, very effectively.
Q319 Ms Atherton: If I were an immigration
officer working in the field what level of priority would I give
to gangmasters?
Beverley Hughes: If you were working
in the enforcement and removal operations you would give priority
to those operations, wherever they are located, where the intelligence
showed you that that would be the most effective place to deploy
your resources because the intelligence was robust, it was comprehensive
and showed you that you were more likely if you invested resources
in that operation as opposed to maybe another to find a substantial
number or a number of illegal workers or you were able to conduct
an operation in relation to somebody about whom you had had suspicions
for a long time, in other words taking someone out and trying
to prosecute somebody who you felt really was a rogue gangmaster
or employing people illegally and flagrantly against the law.
So you would use intelligence to decide which operations are likely
to be most effective from the enforcement point of view, and in
that sense there is no fear or favour in terms of the sector.
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