Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
FOREIGN AND
COMMONWEALTH OFFICE,
UKVISAS, AND
THE HOME
OFFICE
21 JUNE 2004
Q100 Mr Bacon: Because Sir John Ramsden
wrote his letter in which he said: "It is clear from what
they told me"—that was in Sofia—"that this
has developed into an organised scam and completely undermines
our entry control procedures, and indeed makes a bit of a nonsense
of having a visa regime at all." He wrote that in November
2002. You saw it, Mr Barnett, did you not, because it was copied
to you? In fact, you are the first person on the list. So that
was written in November 2002, and you saw it: did you not tell
Sir Michael or anybody senior in the Foreign Office? This is actually
written on Foreign Office notepaper.
Sir Michael Jay: As I have already
said—
Q101 Mr Bacon: Sorry, this is a question
for Mr Barnett now.
Mr Barnett: No, I did not tell
anybody more senior. I was in contact with John Ramsden about
the issue. John Ramsden had written to the Deputy Director General
in the Home Office, but I did not myself put the note up to anyone
more senior.
Q102 Mr Bacon: Right. That is why Sir
Michael did not find out until March this year—because nobody
told you—is that right?
Sir Michael Jay: That is right,
and, as I have said, I—
Q103 Mr Bacon: Is Sir John Ramsden not
quite senior?
Sir Michael Jay: He was the head
of the department at the time.
Q104 Mr Bacon: You see, I think basically
there was a secret policy to rush through applications regardless
of the quality, was there not?
Sir Michael Jay: Not as far as
I am aware.
Q105 Mr Bacon: Not as far as you were
aware. Mr Jeffrey, do you think there was a secret policy to rush
through applications, regardless of the quality?
Mr Jeffrey: No, there was—
Q106 Mr Bacon: You do not. In that case,
can you explain this document that is headed up "Flexibility
Guidance"? This is about the BRACE (Backlog Reduction Accelerated
Clearance Exercise) in which it says that basically an applicant's
past immigration history in the UK cannot be held against him
or her, even if they have records of a previous failed asylum-seeker
or an illegal entrant; then they can still benefit under entry
clearance rules. But this was purely based on your interpretation
of the law, and your belief that you had no alternative, and it
was not trying to rush things up in order to get rid of the backlog.
Mr Jeffrey: There are two distinct
issues. There was the Backlog Clearance Exercise, which was the
subject of some public attention several months ago, which did
involve, for older cases, staff being instructed—and this
is the generality of cases, not these particular ones—to
deal as far as possible with the application in front of them
on the basis of the papers that had been put to them. The second
issue, which I took your question to be about, is applications
under the European Community's accession agreements. There, what
went wrong—and I readily accept it went wrong—was
that IND took an unduly restrictive view of the circumstances
in which such applications should be refused, but it was not about
flushing things through just for the sake of doing so.
Q107 Mr Bacon: Why does it say in these
flexibility guidance notes for the ECAA, "do not mention
BRACE in the case note; use words `granted pragmatically'"?
Why would it say that?
Mr Jeffrey: I think the guidance
you are now quoting from—and I may have misunderstood your
first question, Mr Bacon—is the guidance that was drawn
up by staff in Sheffield that was the subject of Mr Sutton's first
investigation, which, as his report showed, was developed locally
and went beyond anything that had been approved by ministers or
by senior management.
Q108 Mr Bacon: Is it correct that the
Managed Migration Nationality Group in Liverpool, which processes
applications for British citizenship, have been instructed not
to check whether applicants meet the statutory residence requirement?
Mr Jeffrey: No, it—
Q109 Mr Bacon: It is not correct; it
is incorrect?
Mr Jeffrey: What happened here—and
I am aware of the point that is being made—was that there
was a considered decision taken in consultation with the then
minister, that since the information given by applicants about
their movements in and out of the country was almost invariably
accurate, then the steps that would have been taken to check against
passports for the actual movements in and out of the country in
some cases did not need to be pursued. The Minister explained
all that at the time.
Q110 Mr Bacon: In relation to the Sheffield
point, there is another piece of guidance here, that initial leave
should be approved for 12 months on code 2, but no expiry date
should be put on the system. Why would it have said that? Is your
answer that it is just again a locally-derived policy that—
Mr Jeffrey: I confess I cannot
recall from what you have quoted, which—whether it was the
Sheffield guidance or not, it must be the same document. I cannot
explain that particular reference in this, although I could try
to do so in correspondence, if it would help.[5]
Q111 Mr Bacon: We know that Sir Michael
did not know what was going on because he admitted it, or it sounds
as though there are policies being pursued—of course, we
know in the case of that one the Minister did know about it—either
senior officials do not know what is going on, but they do know
what is going on but they want to hide the fact. Is that not true?
Mr Jeffrey: I do not think it
is as simple as that. In the case of ECAA applications, the issue
was certainly never put to me; although, as I put in response
to Mrs Browning's questions earlier, the correspondence between
Mr Ainsworth and Ms Hughes was copied to my office. As I said,
I do not recall seeing it. It was a question really of not being
aware of the detailed nature of the dispute between the staff
in the post and the staff in IND.
Q112 Mr Bacon: But there was also a desire
to cover up what was going on, was there not? For example, in
this note here, which was copied to you, about the backlog of
citizenship applications, it specifically says that this is intended
to meet the specific task of clearing the backlog, and then it
says: "There is no reason why it should be disclosed outside
of nationality group." In other words, there was a change
in the policy, but you wanted to keep the fact secret.
Mr Jeffrey: The reason for that,
Mr Bacon, was the one I alluded to; that we were essentially—and
Sir Michael was saying earlier, there is an extent to which this
whole immigration control business is about managing lists. It
is about working out where it is sensible to deploy resources,
and focusing the resources on the areas of doubt. In this case,
in the nationality case, we did decide that one of the checks
that was routinely generally undertaken was not necessary, but
it would have been a big mistake to have made that known publicly,
because people could then . . .
Mr Bacon: I have run out of time, I am
sorry.
Q113 Mr Williams: Mr Barnett, will you
clarify for me an answer you gave to Mr Bacon when he was talking
about the scam? What was it you were notified of in 2002 that
you did not notify anyone else of?
Mr Barnett: I received a copy
of the letter from Sir John Ramsden to Chris Mace, the then Deputy
Director General in IND. I discussed it with members of—
Q114 Mr Williams: What was it saying?
Mr Barnett: This was the letter
which said that Sir John Ramsden had found that ECOs had concerns
about the ECAA scheme.
Q115 Mr Williams: When in 2002 was that?
Mr Barnett: That was October 2002.
The letter was dated early November.
Q116 Mr Williams: So you found that out;
you had that letter but you did not do anything about it.
Mr Barnett: I tasked a member
of my team to be part of the ongoing discussions on what to do
about the problems with ECAA.
Q117 Mr Williams: But you did not think
it worth notifying ministers?
Mr Barnett: I did not think it
was necessary at that time to notify ministers.
Q118 Mr Williams: I see; so you made
that judgment, rather than let them know and decide for themselves
whether it was important or not.
Sir Michael Jay: I—
Q119 Mr Williams: I am sorry, no, I did
not ask you; I am asking Mr Barnett.
Mr Barnett: No, I did not make
that judgment. I simply understood that this was an issue that
the Foreign Office had raised with the Home Office, and that UKvisas,
as a joint department, needed to be fully involved in the discussions
on this issue.
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