UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 775-xii
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
IMMIGRATION CONTROL
Tuesday 13 June 2006
MR LIAM BYRNE MP, MS LIN HOMER,
LORD TRIESMAN and MS DENISE HOLT
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1138 - 1234
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Home Affairs Committee
on Tuesday 13 June 2006
Members present
Mr John Denham, in the Chair
Mr Richard Benyon
Mr James Clappison
Mrs Janet Dean
Mr Shahid Malik
Margaret Moran
Gwyn Prosser
Martin Salter
Mr Richard Spring
Mr Gary Streeter
Mr David Winnick
________________
Witnesses: Mr Liam Byrne, a
Member of the House, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality, Ms Lin Homer, Director General,
Immigration and Nationality Directorate, Home Office, Lord Triesman, a Member of the House of Lords, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, and Ms Denise
Holt, Director, Migration and Overseas Territories, Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, gave evidence.
Q1138 Chairman: This is the last evidence session in the
inquiry into the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. We have of course spent quite a few hours
over the last few weeks looking particularly at the foreign prisoners' issue,
but our inquiry has been much more wide-ranging, looking over the whole
immigration operation. We will be
concentrating, mainly at least, on those border issues this afternoon. For the record, could you introduce yourself
and your officials.
Mr Byrne: I am Liam Byrne. I am the Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility
for asylum and immigration. On my right
is Lin Homer, the Director General of IND.
Lord Triesman: I am David Triesman. I am the Minister in the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office responsible for UK visas and the Foreign Office's work, and
my colleague is the Director of these matters, Denise Holt.
Q1139 Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr Byrne, the Home Secretary talked about
IND and said that it was "not fit for purpose". That raises two questions.
One is about how well organised and managed it is. But it raises another question: What is the
purpose? What do you see as the purpose
of the UK's immigration system?
Mr Byrne: I think the purpose was set out fairly
clearly and most recently in the five-year plan which was published in
2005. One of the objectives that the
Home Secretary has set for us over the next two months is to reconfirm the
strategic objectives in every part of the Department, but I cannot imagine that
we will be moving radically from objectives such as managing migration to the
benefit of this country and ensuring that it is something that is positive for
us and contributes importantly to our economic growth, but at the same time
balances the need for people to come into this country with the need to keep
people who live here safe, and to keep communities cohesive.
Q1140 Chairman: If I may push you a bit further, if you
narrowed it down - because managed migration means lots of things - is the main
aim of IND to stop the wrong people getting into the country?
Mr Byrne: I do not think it should be to stop just the
wrong people coming into the country.
This really comes to the heart of this question, as you say, that if you
were to ask how you ensure that IND is fit for purpose then you need to be
clear what the purpose is. When the
Home Secretary came in front of you, he talked about the changing context in
which IND found itself, and I think he was absolutely right, in particular, to
talk about the very changing nature of the world in which IND is required to
operate. I would add to those points of
context just a few more thoughts about the future. If you think about what is going to happen to the world and our
role in it over the next 15/16 years, we think that the global population is
going to grow by two billion. We think
that 95% of that growth will be in developing countries, creating a real
imbalance in the age structure between the developing world and our own country,
but, within that world, we think our growth will grow between by 20% to
25%. We think there will be huge new
markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China, and all of those markets are
enormous opportunities for British people, for British firms. I do not just think IND's job is, as you put
it, to stop the wrong people coming into the country. I think IND has a crucial role in ensuring that, in the
interdependent world of the future, Britain has the right relationships with
people. When we talk about managing
migration to the benefit of Britain, it is very much with that future world in
mind that we need to think.
Q1141 Chairman: Lord Triesman, that said, looking at the
press over the last few weeks gives the impression at least that the main test
of all of this activity is keeping the wrong people out of the country or
removing them when they are here. Do
you think there is a fundamental conflict between that role and the role the
Foreign Office plays and has interests in, which is about maintaining good relations
with foreign governments, enabling business leaders in India and Brazil, and
students from those countries, to move here, really without very much
impediment, because we need them for this country and also for our
international relations?
Lord Triesman: Chairman, I would hope there is not a
conflict, but there is a very difficult balance to strike and I think we should
be straightforward in acknowledging how difficult that balance is. Particularly through the UK visa system, we
try very hard to ensure, if I may put it this way, that we move our borders as
far away and to the place from which people come as we can, so that there is
not just an issue of border control here.
I think having good controlled borders in that sense is absolutely vital
to the FCO operation as well. But you
make a fundamentally important point.
In 2005 there were approximately 30 million people who visited the
United Kingdom, half the size of our own population. I was looking at the figures.
If you add the populations of Belgium and Sweden and Portugal together,
you get to that kind of figure, their total populations. There are 2.1 million jobs tied up in
tourism in the United Kingdom, and, although of course some of that is internal
tourism, roughly speaking £74 billion of the United Kingdom economy is due
to that. International students
generate over £10 billion. We certainly
would not want to cut off those arteries, that is absolutely true.
Q1142 Chairman: Mr Byrne, given those tensions, the Home
Secretary has given you and the Home Office until the summer recess basically
to tell us how you are going to reform the immigration system. Can you tell the Committee today where your
thinking has got to, and, in particular, because you must have distilled it
down a bit, what your top three priorities are going to be.
Mr Byrne: Eleven days in, it is a little bit early for
me to give you the top three priorities.
There are two reviews which I am chairing on behalf of the Home
Secretary. The first is a review of the
Home Office as a whole, but second - and this absorbs more of my time at the
moment - is the review of IND itself.
There are three key phases to that work. The first phase is to really lock down and clarify for the new
ministerial team what the strategic objectives of IND need to be over the next
one, three and five years. The second
phase of work consists of quite a wide-ranging organisational review, which
will consider five key things. It will
look at core processes; culture; organisation; IT; and, crucially, human
resources. It will then look at two more
cross-cutting issues, one around resources - the use of resources, resource
allocation - and the second related issue will be the relationship to the Home
Office. Once that second phase of work
is done, we will move into a third phase of work, where, having looked at what
we think the targets are for those seven areas, we look at where we are
today. We have done the gap analysis,
so we have looked at the bridges that we need to cross. The third phase of work will then be a
process of structuring what are the action plans for the next six to twelve
months. At this stage, I apologise, I
do not quite have the top three priorities, but we have a process up and
running now.
Q1143 Chairman: That sounds like a management review process
of the sort one might hire a management consultant to do, but the management
consultant needs to know what his job is.
I am trying to press you: all right, you are only in 11 days so far, but
is there a part of the system or more than one part of the system that you say
absolutely must be fixed? Yesterday we
had a session with the former permanent secretary who essentially told us, in
relation to foreign prisoners, that everybody was dealing with asylum as a top
priority and actually one of the reasons the issue never really registered on
the radar was because of the emphasis that was being given to asylum. We know the dangers of chasing off after one
thing. Do you have a sense, at the
moment, about the areas that absolutely must be fixed to have some credibility?
Mr Byrne: I would not want to pre-judge the outcome of
the second stage, so I hope the Committee will take the initial smell, if you
like, in very much that spirit. After
11 days of looking at this, my sense is that the areas we will really want to
drill down on are the way that processes operate; the culture - in particular,
the culture of transparency and accountability - and, thirdly, the area of HR -
and I mean HR in its widest sense. It
is making sure that at different levels of the organisation you have roles that
are defined in the right way, responsibilities being executed by people at the
right grade, that you have the right structure of incentives in place.
Q1144 Chairman: This suggests to me - and I accept your
caveat - that your view at the moment is that, basically, there is not much
wrong with what IND is trying to do; it just needs to be managed better.
Mr Byrne: If I compare my feelings about IND today to
my feelings about IND 11 days ago, they have changed. Over the last 11 days, the more that I have seen of IND, the more
that I have felt it is fixable. What is
interesting is that, the more you look into it, the more you can see that there
are strengths on which you can build: the fact that IND has helped the Government
achieve the tipping point is good news; the fact that the policy design for
things like the new asylum model, on the one hand, or the points based system,
on the other hand, is in place and is coherent; the fact that there is already
work around e-borders extending, I think, to 37 different routes. So there are strengths on which to build,
but, as I say, the real comfort comes from a sense that, having begun to get to
grips with the problem of asylum, there is now a policy architecture in place
which looks right and which looks coherent for the future. The challenge that we have over the next 12
months - and this was really echoed by Lin in the evidence that she gave - is
to make sure that inside that policy architecture we do not have a centre that is
too soft to execute against the responsibilities that it has been given.
Q1145 Chairman: That is helpful. You are talking very much from a Home Office perspective. One of the things that has been suggested to
the Committee earlier in this inquiry is that there is not anybody in
Government who owns the whole of migration policy. You have the immigration work controlling and managing migration,
but it is not clear how that relates to the decisions which are taken about EU
accession or decisions which are taken elsewhere about how many people we need. It is not clear that that relates to the
issues about handling some of the social issues that can arise with very fast
migration or access to public services.
Do you think, looking at it from a Home Office perspective, that it
would be helpful if there was a clearer place, in the centre of government,
where migration policy as a whole was owned, and it was clear what we were
trying to achieve by it?
Mr Byrne: My observations over the last 11 days are
probably three-fold on this subject. I
think the first is that, in the world in which we are going to live in the
future, it is extremely difficult to imagine any kind of scenario where you
have hermetically sealed 2,000 different points of entry.
Q1146 Chairman: My question is on government and
responsibility of government.
Mr Byrne: Absolutely.
If that is the case and you accept that as a precursor for the argument,
I think it is very difficult for any one department or any one locus within
government to take full responsibility for managing migration. I think it is unrealistic. The corollary of that is that helping manage
immigration and asylum has to be a bit of everybody's business and you will
only really come to grips with the problems if you have everybody involved. I think there are two or three things that
government as a whole, therefore, needs to do.
The first is quite obviously shutting down the privileges of being in
this country if you were here illegally.
For example, the work to implement e-borders will, over time, shut down
the ability for people to move freely in and out of the country. The work that we can do together with
colleagues in the Inland Revenue or in DWP or in DfES or indeed in DFID will
begin to change the risk profile of being here. We need to make it easier, so that if people are here working
illegally consequences then will follow.
Why is that important? It is
important because of the signals that it sends people who are here illegally. The third thing is stepping up enforcement
and removal. All of that involves government
working together. Your question was
about how we coordinate that. There are
two schools of thought. One would say
that you need some kind of strong centre that pulls it altogether. I think the Home Office has the potential to
act as that centre. I think the
machinery of government will help.
There is already a cross-government committee on this subject, but the
reality is that it will be strong, bilateral, trilateral, quadrilateral
relationships around specific aspects of the problem that will really make the
difference and make the difference fastest.
Those are my observations over the last few weeks.
Q1147 Chairman: Again, it is early days, but can I ask you
how confident you are about that. You
have almost anticipated my next question.
If you look at the evidence that we have received, it is that DfES has
not really pulled its weight on dealing with dodgy colleges; the DWP has not
pulled its weight on the issuing of national insurance numbers; the Revenue has
not really pulled its weight on tax enforcement against employers of illegal
labour. That is the past, that is
history. How confident are you that
government now recognises, as you say, that this is a cross-government issue
that cannot just be left in the hands of the Home Office, and every bit of
government has to pull its weight?
Mr Byrne: I am an optimist - as I think you have to be
in my job - and from what I have seen over the last couple of weeks of the
relationship between the Home Office and the Foreign Office, you can see how
that relationship is making a significant difference, for example, in hitting
the tipping point - and David might want to comment. Secondly, if you look at the very clear instructions that the
Prime Minister gave to Dr Reid in the appointment letter that he issued, one of
those points was about maximising the benefits of identity management across
government. At the highest level of
government, if you like, there is a very clear recognition that things like
identity management, which are so central to these kinds of answers, has to be
something that is taken seriously across government.
Q1148 Margaret Moran: Not far from here, a few weeks ago, a lady
who had overstayed her visa, who was here by virtue of the fact that she was
part of a college, a legitimate college, on a training course in my
constituency, complained to me about the state of the National Health Service
and the fact that she was paying too much tax.
Given that you were talking about dealing with this long term, what does
somebody do about that now?
Mr Byrne: Somebody being ...?
Q1149 Margaret Moran: Somebody who may have concern about the fact
that here is an illegal immigrant who is accessing a range of public services.
Mr Byrne: We had a debate when the ID card legislation
was piloted through about, for example, compulsion.
Q1150 Margaret Moran: With due respect, that is in the future and a
long way down the tracks.
Mr Byrne: Absolutely, but perhaps I may start long and
then work backwards. We had that
debate, and there are a lot of people who think that is the right place to go
in the future, but you are quite right to highlight this point that, unless
there is effective intergovernmental working and a shared agenda around this
area, the government as a whole is not going to punch its weight. There are some parts of government - if you
look at the way departments have cooperated on the gang masters legislation,
for example - where you can see this agenda emerging. There is a pilot currently going on in the West Midlands, where
HMRC, IND and several other agencies, DWP, are working together too to
strengthen an intelligence-led approach to this. If the question is really: Have we gone far enough on this
agenda? then my argument would be that we have not. Again, I would come back to this point that, in future, we have
to shut down the privileges of being here; change the risk profile by getting
government to work better together; and step up enforcement and removal. One of the key things for the future under
enforcement and removal is going to be working not just with partners across
government but working with partners across the business community. I have already asked how is it that we can
accelerate the arrival of the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality
Act. As you know, that introduces new
civil penalties, but not massive penalties, in my view. I would be interested in some of the
analysis about what kind of impact it is going to make, but I have also asked,
for example, how we could use the Proceeds of Crime Act, so that, if people are
knowingly employing illegal immigrants and there is a financial gain there, why
can we not take steps to confiscate those assets and use that money to pay for
cases and to send people home. I think
we have to take a pretty strong approach to enforcements and removals in the
future - and I suspect we will come to this.
Chairman: We will come back to those issues in due
course.
Q1151 Mr Spring: I would like to pick up what the Chairman has
talked about, which is the functional relationships, particularly in relation
to immigration control. We have
UKvisas, IND, an appeals process which is under the umbrella of the Department
of Constitutional Affairs - and the Home Secretary has talked about
fragmentation in silos very memorably.
We even have a unit which is under the umbrella of the IND, one of many
separate units, which is mesmerisingly called "managed migration". In view of the multiplicity of bodies in
respect of immigration control, given that there are different ministers,
different departments, different computer systems, we have an external and an
internal input, and of course we have considerable criticism, not least by the
Home Secretary's own department, is there not a thought that a single
immigration agency which would really embrace all of this is something to be
considered, as a way of drawing all these strands together, with the clear
objective of deciding ultimately, to echo the point you have just made, who
should and who should not be in this country?
Mr Byrne: I think that is a very helpful question. I hope the Committee will forgive me for not
prejudging the outcome of the review which is underway over the next two
months. I very much hope the
Committee's report is published before it is completed. These are absolutely questions that we have
to consider, but, as I say, I think the way into these questions is not to
start with some picture of government and try to construct the machinery at
that level. I think the approach we are
taking is the right approach, which is to look at the objectives, look at the
basic organisational design and issues that are required to fulfil those
objectives, and then to make recommendations about the future. I do not want to appear discourteous or
indeed to duck the question, but the issues that you raise are important and we
need to reflect on them over the next seven weeks.
Q1152 Mr Spring: I should add that this may, of necessity,
given the reputation and the organisational imbalances within the Home Office,
be something which might be considered at arm's length from the Home
Office. I simply put that point to you,
but I would like to move on to something else.
There is an increasing culture, quite rightly, and I am sure we would
all applaud it, of having individuals who are named in dealing with the public
in a very specific way, whether it is the JobCentre or anything else. Ms Homer talked about her own business being
under-managed. We have had both the
Home Secretary and Sir David Normington talking about the accountability of
officials and clear lines of responsibility, and, again - just talking about
lines of responsibility - specifically named individuals, each with different
functions, really defined within the context of immigration control. Surely this is something at which you
urgently need to look in your deliberations.
Mr Byrne: I think that is right. It is going to be important, in particular,
to ensure that, where there are particular processes, there are individuals who
are accountable for the end-to-end operation of that process. Within the operation of IND, I have already
seen several parts of the business which are very complicated, which involve a
lot of people, but where there are handoffs to different parts of an
organisation or different parts of the immigration system - and, Chairman, your
Committee will have seen lots of this evidence over the last three or four
months. Of course the great risk is
that, as cases are thrown over the wall, as it were, to a different part of the
system, then people do not feel accountable, and, in particular, people do not
necessarily feel motivated. I think you
are absolutely right to underline this point about accountability, and
accountability, in my view, for an end-to-end process ----
Q1153 Mr Spring: Ms Homer has made it very clear that it was
impossible for her to know who was responsible for what within her own
organisation. It is very important now
that this is rectified.
Mr Byrne: Yes, quite.
Q1154 Martin Salter: On the theme, Minister, of fragmentation in
silos, can you tell me how much longer British citizens with "foreign-sounding
names" - and I would cite my own constituent Mr Jack Ahmed as an example - are
going to be locked up in secure rather than open prisons whilst the Home
Office, the IND and the Prison Service try to sort out who is and who is not a
foreign prisoner. Your own office has
been passing this case backwards and forward between the prison minister and
yourself for the last three weeks.
Mr Byrne: Chairman, I would be delighted to meet with
Mr Salter to talk about that in slightly more detail.
Q1155 Chairman: But on the general point.
Mr Byrne: As the Committee knows, when the Home
Secretary came here he made the point that there were about eight areas of
policy design that needed to be run through over the next couple of months,
and, in particular, the lack of a single identifier throughout the criminal
justice system is something which is problematic. But there are other areas too, and I think the kind of problem
you are describing is symptomatic of that analysis.
Q1156 Mr Winnick: Mr Byrne, I think all of us have a great deal
of sympathy for the job you have been saddled with or given and we will be
interested in the outcome. Arising from
the questions Mr Spring put to you, I am wondering how far in your chairing of
departmental committees you are taking evidence from some of the more junior
people. The general feeling we have is
that morale, especially in Croydon, is pretty low - even before what has
happened in the last few weeks. Have
you been to Croydon?
Mr Byrne: I have.
Q1157 Mr Winnick: Simply on one occasion.
Mr Byrne: Yes.
Q1158 Mr Winnick: Do you agree with what I have just indicated,
that morale amongst the junior people is far from what you would like it to be?
Mr Byrne: I do not have enough evidence to answer that
question directly, but one of the big jobs for me over the next five or six
weeks is to identify those parts of the business that I go and spend quite
substantial periods of time with. Three
generations of my family have worked in public service and the lessons that we
were handed down, typically, were that those people working on the frontline,
at the sharp end of the business, are generally the people who know most about
what is wrong with the business and what needs to be put right with the
business.
Q1159 Mr Winnick: We are dealing with people at the coalface,
Mr Byrne.
Mr Byrne: Exactly.
Q1160 Mr Winnick: Who day by day face the customers - who are
obviously applying and all the rest of it - and, unless those people at the
coalface, for many of whom the earnings are pretty low, do not have that
feeling of confidence and the rest, it is quite likely that what you are trying
to do otherwise will not be achieved.
Would you agree?
Mr Byrne: Absolutely right. If you think about the number of people who work for IND, every
one of those individuals will have thoughts and values from which we could
learn. It is not as if we have too much
brain power working on the problems that we confront with IND. We need to draw on the intellect and the
energy and the imagination and the values of all of those people.
Chairman: Thank you.
Point well made.
Q1161 Gwyn Prosser: The Government is often criticised for trying
to get things done simply by setting targets, performance indicators, issuing
instructions, et cetera. Though they
have their merit - and you have mentioned a few times today the tipping point,
which was an important target met - what are you going to do during your
investigation into IND to prevent these quite strict targets and set points
impacting negatively, and undermining other areas? - and we could cite lots of
examples of those.
Mr Byrne: I think that is a very important
question. I have never worked for an
organisation that has not set targets.
I am a great believer in targets as a way or orchestrating, if you like,
the movement of an organisation that is big and often complex, so I am afraid I
cannot promise a bonfire of targets in eight weeks time. However, I think it is important that we do
understand what these processes look like.
Very often in organisational development or in turnaround situations you
will see two or three different themes that emerge. One is about making sure there is a strong vision and a great
deal of communication, one is about making sure there are the right people, but
another is making sure that you have the right dynamic management information
that is available about the right points in the process at the right time. When Lin Homer gave evidence to the
Committee last week, she made the point that there is a lot of management
information around, and, unless you have the organisational capacity to
interrogate that information in the right way, it is not going to be of much
use. I will be looking for where there
are targets which are causing serious distortions in processes, but, to be frank,
I will also be looking at areas where I think additional metrics are needed,
because, unless we are able to define these processes very clearly, unless we
are able to track, using management information, what is going on at different
stages of the process so that we can see where the bottlenecks are, only then
will we be able to say, "Yes, this is a system that is being dynamically
managed effectively, where the right calibre and the right attention is being
paid to breaking those bottlenecks," and very often that will need to be done
within metrics that define how those processes should operate end to end. It will be important over the next six or
seven weeks to look at any conflicts that have been imposed from targets, but
equally - cards on the table, if you like - there may be areas where we will
say that there should be more standards that define different things in parts
of the business too.
Q1162 Gwyn Prosser: On the subject of what you call dynamic
management information, the Home Office and IND, in particular, have had a lot
of difficulty with numbers and figures and statistics lately. What are you going to do to ensure that the
quality of that information, which will then need to set targets and widen the
scope of your policies, is accurate and reliable?
Mr Byrne: It is unfortunately one of those things for
which there is no silver bullet. There
is no simple-shot solution to getting that sort of thing right. To give you a simple example, you cannot get
information systems right unless you have processes that are well defined, so
that people actually know what the process looks like. You cannot get it right if there is a
culture within the organisation of denial or opacity or obfuscation. There has to be a culture that is open and
transparent. Equally, you cannot get it
right unless you have your human resources strategy straight too. As I think we observed with FNP, in putting
individuals who are too junior to look after a patch, sometimes it is
unreasonable to ask that individual to do certain things. I am afraid that is a very long way of
saying that there is no easy answer to getting management information
right. You do have to look at all the
different components of the organisation and try to bring that sort of thing
into alignment. It is very difficult to
do and you have to start, review and get better. You have to do, learn, do with these things.
Q1163 Gwyn Prosser: You have a lot of work to do, frankly, to
raise the credibility and integrity, if you like, of the IND system, and the
immigration system in particular.
Although there are lots of different monitors which look at different
and disparate parts of the organisation, there is no central body overlooking
immigration as a whole. Do you see any
value in having a strong independent body which looks over those matters and
might regain that essential integrity and credibility?
Mr Byrne: I think this is an extremely important
question. When you look at public
service reform across the piece over the last five or six years and you look at
those parts of the public economy where there has been improvement of some
order - and I think, for example of local government and I think of the
comprehensive performance assessment - a lot of us might disagree about how
successful local authorities have been in securing improvement over the last
four or five years. My own personal
view is that a lot of authorities have got a lot better, and I think CPA had a
big part to play in that. Making sure
that there is systematic scrutiny of an organisation is very important in
helping make sure that there is a culture of transparency. That process of external challenge needs to
be robust. Part of the reason that we
will look at this cross-cutting issue, not only of resources but also of the
relationship with the Home Office, is for this very point that you identify,
that unless there is the right structured challenge of the organisation then I
think it is very difficult for any organisation, no matter what it is doing, to
improve. It is a corporate governance
issue, ultimately. If the corporate
governance is wrong, then it will often be very difficult to get the rest of
the business right.
Q1164 Mr Clappison: I would like to ask you about applications,
but, before I do, I would like to go back to one point you were raising
earlier. After hearing your evidence I
was not quite sure whether you were saying that the Department was fit for
purpose or not before you came in 11 days ago, and whether or not you thought
there was a benefit in having one body being responsible for looking at all of
the implications of immigration. Do you
think there should be somebody in government who looks at all of the
implications which flow from immigration?
Mr Byrne: At this stage I hope you will forgive me in
not pre-judging the outcome of the review that we will do over the next six or
seven weeks. The point I would make
about your fitness question is that there are reasons for optimism and there
are reasons for believing, as the Director General said last week, that it will
take some time but IND is very much within the realms of the fixable. When I look at the Home Secretary's analysis
of the changing context in which IND now operates, and, in particular, when I
look at the future, my personal assessment is that IND is not fit for the
future but I think it is within the realms of the fixable. I do not know if that answers your question.
Q1165 Mr Clappison: If we can disconnect the administrative and
the management from policy formation, my question is about policy. Do you think that somebody should be
responsible for looking at all the policy relating to immigration and all the
consequences which flow from it, some of which you have described in your
introduction but not all of which everybody would see as flowing from it?
Mr Byrne: The process of policy developing is
absolutely a core process of IND, and so is subject to that review, and so that
will be something that we will have to look at over the next five or six weeks.
Q1166 Mr Clappison: Perhaps I may give you one very brief example
of what I am thinking of. Do you
discuss, for example, with colleagues in other departments in government the
housing implications which flow from immigration?
Mr Byrne: I have not personally got to that stage yet,
but that is absolutely the sort of thing I would expect to have discussed. My constituency, as many people will know
who came to the Hodge Hill by-election, is a constituency with a 46% BME
population. I have schools in my
constituency that have gone from 5% Somalian intake to 25% in the space of a
year. I have fights in playgrounds
between Somalian parents and other parents.
Q1167 Chairman: Mr Byrne, fascinating though all that is ----
Mr Byrne: I will expand, perhaps, later, Chairman.
Q1168 Chairman: We have not managed to track down anybody in
government who thinks that dealing with the housing implications of immigration
is their job. Does that surprise you?
You are making some very bold statements this afternoon.
Mr Byrne: Or ambitious.
Q1169 Chairman: But have you recognised that there is a massive
simile? We could not find anybody who
could explain how the fact that probably ten times as many Eastern Europeans
have turned up as had been predicted, or 20 times as many, has in any way
influenced the issue of work permits to non-EU citizens. There are huge areas here, which Mr
Clappison is right to pick up, where there does not appear to be anybody in
charge of overall policy on these issues and responding to events. I suppose I am putting to you that what you
are saying is very welcome, but do you realise the implications of what you are
promising the Committee this afternoon?
Mr Byrne: This is an area where I think the Committee's
evidence will be extremely helpful. When I say that we will look at the core
processes of IND over the next five or six weeks, we have to include the
process of policy development. If the
Committee is able to present structured evidence on this point in particular,
it would be enormously helpful to the review that we are trying to conduct.
Q1170 Mr Clappison: If I may move on then to applications. Minister, your colleague made a very
important point a moment ago about giving people who legitimately wanted to
come to this country, but who need a visa, a good experience of applying. That is very important. On the visits which our Committee has
undertaken, both to the Indian Sub-Continent and also to West Africa, we were
very impressed with some of the outsourced visa application centres that we
saw. Have you given any thought to developing
these, and, in particular, to introducing a similar system in the UK?
Mr Byrne: May I suggest that Lord Triesman answer.
Lord Triesman: Let me start with those outside the
country. We have also had a very good
experience and I am pleased that you did.
Many of the more mechanical parts - because the final decision still
remains with our ECOs - have been taken out of the ECOs' job and it becomes
easier to direct ECOs to deal with risk management, assessment and then to make
sure it is a good experience, as you, Mr Clappison, have very kindly described
it. We would like to see that
extended. I want to be certain that, in
every case where we do extend it, the business that we use is robust, works to
standards and understands that if there is any fault line in those standards
then they will lose their contract with us.
If there is any criminality, the criminality will lead to
prosecution. We are very rigorous about
all of that. It may very well be -
though it is harder, from my position, to judge within the UK - that there are
aspects of that model which could be very useful in the United Kingdom. As the review goes forward, I would myself
welcome the opportunity to explain why I think that is the case to those
undertaking the review. I do not want
to take any more time on past questions, but I wonder if I could add one
comment to the discussion about whether there should be a central agency or
not. It can be very appealing as a
concept - and I am sure it is going to be discussed very thoroughly. One of the things I found was that, where we
needed to develop policy with some sophistication, it was absolutely vital that
a range of stakeholders who had not been much consulted were brought into the
loop. I will give an example of it,
because it is a useful one and that is the joint educational taskforce, which
brought together the Home Office, obviously, the FCO, DfES, the Treasury and
the universities. In the discussions
that have taken place there, has been a lot of information fed into policy making,
which, candidly, could not have been fed in other than by the people who really
knew about it, were present and took part.
That is not a comment necessarily on the coordination of policy making,
but it is a comment about the necessity to make sure, where there is
complexity, that that material is drawn in in an adequate way. I am very fearful sometimes that highly
centralised structures can press ahead without always recognising the degree of
complexity that they need to address.
Q1171 Mr Clappison: May I refer back to what you said earlier on,
because I think it is very relevant.
You spoke about the balance to be struck between the smooth running of
the system for people who are legitimate and also checking on people to make
sure that they are indeed legitimate and not taking risks with whether they
overstay in this country or not or may do.
It is a difficult balance to be struck, I think we would accept that,
but we understand from our visits abroad that time pressures have led to many
posts now interviewing only around 10% of visa applicants and to skimping on
some of the checks made on some of the applicants. Are you satisfied that everybody is being checked sufficiently
before they are allowed into the country?
Lord Triesman: I am, broadly. Roughly speaking, half a million people did not get visas who
applied for them because those visa applications were rejected. I think that is the result of a pretty
rigorous process. In cases where people
are seen either very briefly or the thing is handled on the basis of the
documents, it is frequently, for example, people who have come over on business
repeatedly: they have never breached any condition of the visa, they have
conducted the business they have said they were going to conduct. This is really about risk management. It is about having a profile. Rather than, as it were, addressing every
single individual, having a really strong, viable profile of people who pose
very low levels of risk and dealing as expeditiously as we can with people who
pose low levels of risk. It is very
important, if that is to work, to make sure that we do not just work on a
comfort zone of assumptions and that we on occasions interrogate our own
process to make sure that the risk we have assigned is realistic and accurate.
Q1172 Mr Clappison: I think you have dealt with this to some
extent already, but, given the way in which a lot of these, as you would say,
routine cases are dealt with, the people who have a good record, do you see
scope for removing some of the work of routine cases to this country?
Lord Triesman: I would certainly be prepared to explore
that, although my principal concern at the moment is to ensure that, where we
try to control borders because of significant risk or where we think we are
still not 100% certain about the level of risk we should assign, we treat our
borders as being as far offshore as we can; that we do the job in the countries
of origin, so that we do not find ourselves having to put people back on planes
unnecessarily, having to turn them round at borders unnecessarily. Where we do that well, the results are very
clear, and you will have seen that, I think, in posts.
Q1173 Chairman: I would like just to pursue that, because I
am not quite clear. If you have an
application visa determined entirely on paper, by a member of staff who is
temporarily living, say, in Pakistan for three months, staying in the High
Commission compound in Pakistan and not having any opportunity - mostly, I
think, for security reasons - to interact with local Pakistani society and very
little time to build up country knowledge, why determine that application at
that expense in Pakistan? Why not
determine it here?
Lord Triesman: The critical question I think there is
whether somebody looking at the papers comes to the conclusion that interviews
are necessary. It is really quite
useful that the person who has looked at all the documents is also the person
who does the interview. One of the
things that you will have seen in posts is that we are highly sensitive, for
example, to forged documents or documents where the provenance is not at all
clear. You really want to get the
people and the documents together in order to make sure the questions you ask
are the absolutely right ones and the conclusions you draw are the right
ones. I am not saying it would not be possible
to separate out parts of that with some people, but I think you increase the
risk quite considerably by doing so.
Q1174 Mr Benyon: On that point, those of us who have recently
been abroad and seen the country clearance officers working, came back, by and
large, very impressed with the quality of work and thought they were putting
into their job. There is a concern
under that under the points based system they are going to be a straightforward
clerical operation and they are not going to be allowed to use their skills and
ability in a way that a lot of us appreciated they do, in a way that I believe
is not understood in the appeal system.
I hope you will allow entry clearance officers in this new system to
exercise their skill at identifying the fraudulent from the genuine.
Lord Triesman: I think it is a very good point. I do not want to lose the skills they have
being applied to the job either. I do
want them to develop to a greater extent the other range of skills that I
mentioned, which is to help work on and develop profiles, and to make really
good risk assessments against those profiles.
It would be unhelpful, where you had somebody who would be scored very
highly in our points system, where the documentation was all plainly
legitimate, to then go through a process which took up time, which I would
rather have used for people where I was very much less certain of that. There are going to be some people, quite
aside from business people travelling here, who are family visitors, some of
whom - and they are not in the points system, which is why I pick on them -
make claims about their families which are perhaps wholly fanciful. It is in those circumstances that I would
like to see those skills deployed and the time deployed, rather than looking at
somebody who is plainly a highly qualified chemical engineer, with a job on
offer as a chemical engineer in a major production plant in the United Kingdom,
and who has done it before.
Q1175 Mr Benyon: I could go on about an issue like Zimbabwe,
where the only people who can tick all the boxes tend to be either dishonest,
or members of the ruling elite, and the genuine people whom we want to allow
here, to escape from that awful regime or to come here to contribute and to
improve themselves, cannot afford it. There is a big discussion which I would love to have with you, but
I do not have time now. I really want
to talk about the appeals. The amount of appeals that have been allowed has
gone up from 30% to 47% - and it is probably over 50% now. On our visits abroad, time and time again we
heard from ECOs that they felt the good decisions that they were taking were
being overturned on appeal. To what do
you attribute this lack of confidence in the appeal system?
Lord Triesman: I think there is a variety of things which
can be set out under a small number of headings. The first is that, quite often, when people appeal, they produce
material which the appeal is entitled to hear which they have never produced at
any other stage before but which adds credence to the original
application. There are many legal
systems where you are not allowed to do that, but this is one where you are; so
that material that might very well have been available to the original ECO was
not available to her or to him, and, as a consequence, they might have come to
a different decision. Secondly, on
appeal, judges simply double‑guess what the ECO has seen. I would put it very plainly to you - and I
am probably being very undiplomatic - but that is what I have seen.
Q1176 Mr Benyon: We heard examples where a judge will say, "I
don't know what this ECO is talking about: that looks like a genuine bank
statement to me." The ECO sees bank
statements from the Bank of Punjab every day, and he knows a forgery from one
that is not. There is a question mark
over the way the case is presented.
That really leads me on to the next point, which is about the way ECOs'
decisions are defended at appeal. On
our visits, talking to ECOs and their superiors who have had the results of
those appeals back to them, it seems that there is a lack of quality amongst
the presenting officers. We saw no
testing of evidence, we saw no proper cross-examination of witnesses, and we
saw some presenting officers up against some highly skilled, articulate
immigration lawyers. Are you satisfied
with the standard of our presenting officers?
Do you believe that there is more that can be done to improve this area
of work?
Lord Triesman: I do not think there is any doubt that we can
improve the area of work. I think the
whole of the training regime, whether it is for ECOs, presenting officers or
anybody else, can and should be improved.
I have sat in myself at Croydon and almost done the whole of the course
to see how it works and what it looks like.
Whenever I to go to a post, I always go to the visa section. Whenever I am abroad I always go to the visa
section, including sometimes when I am on holiday - I probably ought not to do
it, but there you are.
Q1177 Mr Benyon: Sad.
Lord Triesman: Well, they are a much unloved group of people
often, and I think popping in sometimes is not a bad thing. I have watched - as I know you have - the
interviews take place. My feeling with
all of these things is that we need to get ----
Q1178 Chairman: I am sorry, but could we pin you down on the specific
question about the quality of the presenting officers. There is a general issue about the quality
of training, but I think the Committee has concerns about the quality of work
done by the presenting officers, and you were asked a very direct question: Do
you think they are doing the job adequately?
Lord Triesman: I am sorry, Chairman, I should not have
strayed. I think it could be
improved. I think the reports that we
are getting now are being analysed in UKvisas in detail. We are trying to identify and make sure that
we disseminate the best practice, that the guidance and training materials for
them contains all of that best practice, and our intention is to drive up the
standard.
Q1179 Mr Benyon: You are also concerned about the lack of
communication in the appeal system.
There seems to be a lack of communication between presenting officers
talking to the ECO who made the decision or the IND case workers. What plans do you have to improve the level
of communication at this crucial stage in the immigration process?
Lord Triesman: I think that is one of the very good examples
of best practice. Where you do see it
working, people prepare the cases very much more effectively and they are very
much more effective in advocacy. There
is no doubt; it is a very simple lesson to learn.
Q1180 Mr Benyon: A further point - and I suspect you will give
a similar answer. We saw cases come
before a judge where there were no papers presented by the Home Office. It seems to be crazy situation. It has brought people, sometimes many miles,
to hear a case which could not be heard.
Surely there must be a system whereby, if the papers are not there, the
case is in some ways delayed. It left
the whole system running idle at one point.
Surely there must be a means to get a more joined-up approach to this.
Mr Byrne: It is completely unacceptable if you have
observed cases where papers were not there in time. That is an extremely basic part of the process, you would have
thought, and so those standards are not acceptable. I read the uncorrected
transcript of Judge Hodges and Judge Collins and I noted with interest their
observations about how things had changed over the last four or five
years. I think it is probably fair to
say that there are strengths on which to build, but you are completely right to
make the point that, where there is practice like that, it has to be stamped
out.
Q1181 Mr Benyon: Do you think the increase in the number of
appeals that are allowed is a cause for concern? Or it is just a function of the increased number of people trying
to come and live here?
Mr Byrne: That is an issue that I need to understand a
little bit better than I do at the moment.
I would come back to this point about ensuring that we have an
organisation that is fit for the future.
When you look at the scale of population growth in the future and you
look at the difficulties in the demographic structure of the developing world
to the developed world, let us not kid ourselves that these issues are going
somehow to melt away over the next 15 or 16 years. Surely they are going to get more intense. That is why I say we
do have to think about what the future is going to look like, if we are going
to get an organisation that is fit for it.
This has to be one of those areas that we explore in detail.
Lord Triesman: I would just make the point that this is an
area of exponential growth. There has
been a phenomenal growth in the number of people applying to come to the UK. I think that is reflected in the numbers and
I think that the systems that we will need for the future will need to be
continuously redesigned to take account of it.
I do not see any slackening in that growth at all.
Q1182 Mr Benyon: Mr Byrne, you talked about moving as much of
it abroad as possible. One area that
could possibly be moved, or elements of it, is part of the appeals
process. Would you consider the
possibility of one aspect of some sort of screening operation? The bundles we saw of the paperwork that has
to follow, coming across the world in diplomatic bags. There must be a method whereby a greater
amount of screening can be done in-post rather than in Islington.
Lord Triesman: It would be very attractive to be able to do
that. It would give those hearing the
cases much greater experience of the places about which they are taking
decisions. But there are also quite
significant security problems in a number of countries in having people doing
that work there. We are trying to
simplify the issue of the documents. As
you will know, by and large, the lawyers insist on seeing the original
document; they are unwilling to look at photocopies. In the case of some forgeries, that is entirely
understandable. There is an insistence on
original documents. We are just
beginning to get acceptance in ACRA of the use of photocopied documents in some
cases or of documents which are faxed.
But we are having to break through lawyers' understandings of what is
legitimate documentation in the presentation of the case.
Q1183 Mrs Dean: Lord Triesman, you mentioned that very often
new information is brought forward at the appeal stage. Do you agree that there are times,
therefore, when there is no time to verify that? If you wanted to cut back on the appeals, would it be best to
refuse appeals that are based solely on new evidence and advise people to
reapply?
Lord Triesman: I certainly think that documents are looked
at, on occasions, without sufficient time to make a proper assessment of the
veracity of the document. My own
preference, in terms of the operation of such things, is that it is better and
it does not necessarily damage natural justice if people have to start again
with documents that they should have produced the first time round, rather than
having the documents parachuted in at a later stage. Not all lawyers take that view. At the moment, certainly, most of
the lawyers in this area are very defensive of their clients' rights and they
argue that position. The frustrating
thing is that while I could understand that an ECO, in arriving at his or her
judgment, might say they would like to see a document which the person coming
in had not realistically thought about, a very high proportion of the documents
that the ECO has asked for are precisely the documents that everybody should
have thought about: bank statements; the education certificates; the documents
which tell you what the high school graduation was. This is not rocket science: anybody applying with particular
purposes in mind will know that is what is expected of them and it seems to me
to be absurd that the documents are not there, and that later, in an appeal,
they are produced and all that time has been wasted.
Q1184 Mrs Dean: Could the system be changed whereby new
information could not be used at an appeal?
Lord Triesman: It could potentially. I would like to take clearer legal advice on
that under the current legislation. I
am not 100% certain whether it would require a change in legislation. I think not but I would need to check.
Q1185 Mrs Dean: Another common reason why entry clearance
appeals are won is that, whereas the ECO makes decisions based on the
applicant, the appeal is taken with the information provided by the
sponsor. Again, the decision is clearly
being taken on a completely different basis at the two stages, and the judge
may have no understanding of the ECO's decision. Have you any remedy for this?
Lord Triesman: I agree that you are describing something
that unquestionably happens, and often the sponsors are very credible in their
presentation at a hearing. I think we
need the clearest agreement in advance about the documents that are needed -
and there will always be one that the ECO may feel would help and has not been
thought of, but, generally, the documents that are needed - and the information
that is needed about the sponsors - because, although the judgment is taken on
the basis of what the applicant's bona
fides and data are, there is no doubt at a later stage that the sponsor's
credibility does come up, and I think we need to work through a checklist which
goes over all that ground. I am quite
sure it could cut down on the number of appeals.
Ms Homer: Chairman, if I could just add a point of
detail there. The points-based system
is introducing a form of administrative review in the place of some of the
current judicial reviews. The IA Act
also removed a number of appeals in the work and study routes, for example some
of the non-asylum routes. There are
still a significant number around the family visit routes which will be subject
to appeal rights and I think that is an area where continuing discussion about
the balance of the right to challenge a decision that may be flawed versus the
burden of hearing that challenge which needs to be kept on the table.
Q1186 Mrs Dean: Looking at the changes to the right of
appeal, currently appeals do have an effect on the way officials make
decisions, and the fact there is going to be an appeal, those who make the
initial decision are aware of that. How
will you replicate the supervisory effect of appeals? Will you, for instance, implement a rigorous system of reviews
and introduce more effective independent monitoring?
Mr Byrne: If I could invite the Director-General to
respond on my behalf.
Ms Homer: That is exactly the balance issue I was just
referring to. We are talking with a
number of our stakeholders to try and establish a system that has as much
rigour in it as possible both in the context of auditing and quality assuring
the decisions but, also, as you say, ensuring that there is a degree of
inspection. Going back to an earlier question,
one of the Committee asked about regulation.
We have already begun to talk about the degree to which inspection and
regulation of our activities might then properly need to include our overseas
activities so that those could be the subject of that independent scrutiny that
you referred to earlier.
Lord Triesman: May I just add that there is, of course, in
the areas where there is not an appeal an independent monitor who looks at a
large sample and indeed does make a number of visits, about three months
overseas each year in the future, and writes a report on the generality of
these things which is quite helpful guidance.
Q1187 Mrs Dean: Looking at the new tribunal system, it is
described as a single-tier system but Mr Justice Collins pointed out to us that
it is nothing of the sort. In fact, he
said, "as things stand there has not been any difference". Do you agree with him that the new system
still has all the disadvantages of the two-tier system?
Lord Triesman: I doubt that it will. My feeling is that the quality of
information which will be fed in at the beginning and the quality of the
decisions that will be made are liable to reduce the number of appeals and the
necessity for any further legal complexity at all. The independent monitor, as I said, will be a useful adjunct in
the cases where there are not appeals.
Q1188 Mrs Dean: I was referring to the new tribunal system
that is already in and that Mr Justice Collins did not think there has been any
difference.
Mr Byrne: I am not sure we have quite achieved our
objectives in this area. When you ask
people to go through this process right from the beginning to the end, what
strikes me as a relative newcomer to the matter is the potential for a morass
to develop at the end of it. A lot of
my questions have been how we build sufficient confidence in the judiciary that
actually, for example, they eliminate things like judicial review much
faster. I think there are a couple of
responsibilities for us. There are a
few actions that we can take in order to help with that. I do think that we have to look quite hard
at our original objectives and where we have got to because it is quite clear
that we have not perhaps arrived at the point which we intended. On the direct action that we can take I
think there are two things which strike me immediately. First, we have got to increase the
processing speed of decision-making, which is something that IND must do. You
will have heard evidence, for example, on the new asylum model, which sounds
like a good start for me. I think I would ask whether it can go further,
whether there is the need for a new asylum model plus, as it were, that extends
much further into the process of enforcement ---
Q1189 Chairman: I am sorry, Minister, can you come back to
the appeals procedure that Mrs Dean was asking about. I think the Committee is in a benign mood this afternoon but if
you put together the questions, the observations and the answers so far from
ministers you cannot actually defend the current appeals system, the way the cases
are presented, defended and information is put forward. I think what the
Committee would like a sense of is what is part of your review and what you are
going to do about it?
Mr Byrne: Just to finish this point, one thing is
process speed but the second point is obviously decision-making quality. What we have to satisfy ourselves on over
the next six or seven weeks is how much of this problem can be solved by
increasing the line speed and increasing the quality of decision-making. I think it will be very helpful for us to
see the Committee's conclusions in this area because my instinct is after 11
days - so possibly flawed - that we are not going to solve the problem by
simply increasing decision-making speed or improving quality. I think we may have to go further than
that. When we look at how we optimise
that process over the next six or seven weeks we have to reflect on that too.
Q1190 Mr Malik: Can I welcome both of the Ministers to their
first outing, I believe, to the Home Affairs Select Committee. I am just going
to focus on illegal immigration. There
is clearly an element of corruption amongst immigration and entry clearance
officials. I will just quote you some
figures that we got in February which show that the IND Security and
Anti-Corruption Unit had 703 cases referred to it of which 409 were being
investigated. Is this the tip of the
iceberg? The real question is what
steps are you taking to find the true extent of such corruption both in the UK
and abroad to deal with the perpetrators and to ensure it does not recur?
Mr Byrne: Chairman, this is an extremely serious issue.
It is naturally very difficult to comment on whether this is the tip of the
iceberg. I have worked with the Home Secretary for just over a month now. I think actually to know the full extent of
it would require omniscience and, as impressed as I am with the Home Secretary,
omniscience I do not think is on his CV, although I may be corrected forcefully
later. I think there are two things to
say here. I am reminded of this
question about how you keep a nuclear reactor safe. Do you write reams and reams of guidance and loads and loads of
checklists and require people at all levels of the organisation to memorise all
the guidance and do all the checklists or do you guard against the risk that
actually people just fall into a slightly perfunctory checkbox mentality and
try and embed safety as a culture throughout the organisation? The truth is, of course, that you have to do
a little bit of both. When we are
thinking about this question of stamping out any trace, element, suspicion of
corruption within IND and then, secondly, how you are going to project
confidence in there to the wider public and the stakeholders that IND serves, I
think we have got to do two things. We
have to carry on the work of the Security and Anti-Corruption Unit. We have to carry on investing in the tools
to help them do the job, for example, in data mining, one of the
recommendations of a report earlier last year.
I am afraid the second thing that we do have to do - and it comes back
to this point about human resource policies - is we have to make sure that the
right people are doing the right performance assessment in the right
place. For example, at the moment in a
performance assessment of an IND member of staff I do not think that managers
ask juniors, "Is there anything in your immigration history which would be of
concern to IND?" Now if somebody
answered that and said "No" and the truth was "Yes" and they had lied then
obviously they would be guilty of gross misconduct and liable to instant
dismissal. We do have to look at this
question quite broadly over the next six weeks both in terms of culture but
also what the ramifications are for our human resource operations because,
frankly, unless you have got both I do not think we can keep IND safe and nor
can we project that feeling and sense of confidence into the wider
community. I am sorry that is a
slightly long answer but I think it warrants it.
Lord Triesman: Do you want me to say anything about the ECO
section?
Q1191 Mr Malik: Yes, I was just going to ask about the risk
element between the UK and abroad which are two separate approaches. Lord Triesman, please.
Lord Triesman: We have got an operational integrity section
which is charged with investigating any allegations of malpractice in missions
abroad which also uses IT and other systems to try and identify potential
weaknesses. Looking at what we have
uncovered through the use of it, one UK-based member of staff has been issued
with a written warning in the 12 months to the end of May 2006 for malpractice
in relation to visa work, a total of 12 locally engaged staff were dismissed
and a further three issued with warnings in the same period. There are two cases which are sub judice and
before the courts from an earlier period. I am always a bit sensitive about
figures but as far as I can tell, and on the information that I have, that is
an accurate picture.
Q1192 Chairman: Not as sensitive as we have learned to be,
Minister.
Lord Triesman: I think I am joining you in the spirit of
this, Chairman. That is what we have
been able to identify. One other thing
is many of the posts, of course, as you will know are very small, some are very
big but a number of them are very small and they can be like goldfish bowls and
any real changes in people's lifestyles or the apparent way in which they
conduct themselves can be very visible in those circumstances. These are people working very closely,
living very closely and so on. I am hopeful that what I have reported is an
accurate picture of all that has happened, not all that we have detected.
Q1193 Margaret Moran: Can we just touch on child trafficking
briefly. We know tragically little
about the extent of child trafficking.
In the brief Operation Paladin Child that was carried out in 2003 I
believe out of the number of children that were tracked and identified 12
disappeared entirely. Given that, what
plans have you got to follow up and extend Operation Paladin Child,
particularly the immigration officers notifying social services of all children
that are of concern and social services following up? Secondly, why have the recommendations of that operation not been
followed through? In fact, of the 26
recommendations only seven have so far been implemented. Why is that and what are you planning to do
about it?
Lord Triesman: Can I start with what we do when children
present to us outside the country?
Since 12 February this year in the visa issuing procedures there have
been increases in safeguards for children when they are entering the United
Kingdom as visitors. Each child is
issued with a separate entry clearance vignette. It is valid only for travel with a nominated adult, they have to
be with that nominated adult.
Systematic collection of records, including parents details, are in
place when the entry clearance is issued and it should act as a deterrent and
make it very much harder for those ---
Q1194 Margaret Moran: I am sorry to interrupt but I was asking
about the link between immigration control and social services specifically.
Lord Triesman: Inside this country?
Q1195 Margaret Moran: Yes.
Lord Triesman: I do beg your pardon, I was trying to say how
we dealt with it at a distance.
Q1196 Margaret Moran: Yes, I am aware of that.
Lord Triesman: I think that is probably for you.
Mr Byrne: Yes, absolutely. As a parent of three small children at home in Birmingham I
think, as is any parent, I am as concerned about this obnoxious crime. When I looked at this during the briefing
sessions over the last couple of days I drew comfort from the fact that there
is now a Home Office commissioned exercise into the intelligence that is
available in this area. I am afraid
this will have fallen to my predecessors.
In order for that operation to have been commissioned I guess that is
indicative of an acceptance that we do not know enough about this today. As Lord Triesman says, I think there have
been important requirements to tighten the visa requirements. I also very much welcome the appointment of
an ACPO lead in this area. I think
there are undoubtedly a number of concerns in my own mind, and I say this as a
former social care minister as much as the Minister of State at the Home Office
now. I just wonder whether we have got
procedures that are slick enough in place at the moment because I do not think
it is simply a question about the transition of services from immigration to
social care, I suspect there may also be - and I am venturing beyond my brief
now - issues once the child is placed in social care. I think there are questions that I have to explore with Ivan
Lewis and, indeed, with DfES over the next few months to actually make sure
that the process does not then break down once the child is in care. For example, 11 days in I cannot give you
chapter and verse on what happens to the child once they are in care, whether
they abscond from care ---
Margaret Moran: I was asking about your immigration officers
notifying social services and the problems.
Q1197 Chairman: Perhaps if you cannot answer that directly you
could get back to the Committee very quickly after this meeting.
Mr Byrne: Absolutely.
Q1198 Mr Malik: We have been told that there is no central
list which shows who is entitled to be in the country or to work here which
employers, colleges, local authorities and health authorities could check.
Indeed, not even all Home Office and UK visa officials have access to each
other's databases when making their decisions.
What are you doing to produce a single comprehensive list? Are you aware of any good practice which
exists in other countries? Finally, can
we ever truly have confidence that the IND can become fit for purpose?
Mr Byrne: I think what struck me since I started in
this role is that there are a number of important bits of the jigsaw which are
in the pipeline but actually the new ministerial team has to satisfy itself
over the next couple of months that there is a coherent strategy for putting in
place a single border and identity architecture. That, for example, links everything from the programmes that we
are currently implementing with biometric visas through to e.borders through to
biometric passports and in time the issue of biometric residence cards and in
time identity cards. We do have to make
sure that programme is being sequenced very clearly and rationally because it
is going to cost a great deal of money.
The potential I think is extremely exciting and the evidence that we
have seen from projects like Project Semaphore are quite encouraging. This architecture is not only important at
helping us clamp down on people who are here illegally, I think it has got two
other important benefits. The first is
the signal that it sends to the rest of the world and those who might come here
illegally. I am very struck by the
rapid decline in the number of people applying for asylum, for example, if you
look over the last three or four years.
Now that has not happened by accident, it is because people perceive the
risk of being sent back home is so much higher. I think the signalling effects
are extremely important. I think the second thing that architecture will allow
us to do is far more intelligently understand where the real risks to our
borders come from. It will help us
understand far more clearly what kind of individuals from what kind of countries
are, for example, overstaying on their visas.
It will also help us see what kind of routes are high risk as well. I think that kind of intelligent targeting
will become increasingly important over the next five or six years. As I say, Chairman, at this stage I cannot
profess to have that picture coherent in my head, it is something that we have
got to run through in some detail.
Q1199 Mr Malik: Are we going to see this single comprehensive
list? Is that an aspiration?
Lord Triesman: I think we can take some significant steps
towards it. I do not want to pretend it is literally going to appear across the
horizon. By 2008 nobody will have a
visa without fingerprints on it. Those
will have been checked against the IND's fingerprint database. I think it then
does become possible - and I know there are always issues of computers and
software and things - to consider access to criminal databases with fingerprint
data on them as well and that will be a huge step in getting a consistent
identification of individuals. The
other thing is that we are trying, and at the moment intend to try and make
sure that SOCA liaison officers are also, where they are available in post,
able to give us advice on criminal information and criminal records when we are
involved in the process of issuing visas.
I think that we will strengthen that.
People are hopeful that it will have a very powerful impact on it. We will be able to strengthen that over the
very near future. I am anticipating that we will be signing an MoU with SOCA on
this very issue very quickly. That is
short of what may or may not be the IT answers to it but important steps along
the way of getting greater security around the integration of different lists
as perhaps rather I should describe it than the existence of a single one.
Q1200 Chairman: We may have received this already but it
might be helpful, Ministers, if you could make sure that before we compile our
report we have got a note from you about the extent to which it is going to be
possible to provide different people with access to the existing lists prior to
the central one coming in. We may have
that in our evidence but I am not sure so it would be very useful to have that
and some sense of timescales on each of the issues Mr Malik has raised.
Mr Byrne: Yes.
Q1201 Mr Winnick: Why did it take so long for the Home Office
and the Work and Pensions Department to get their act together over National
Insurance numbers?
Mr Byrne: I think that is an excellent question which I
have also asked.
Q1202 Mr Winnick: I will take the compliment.
Mr Byrne: I have asked that question myself, Mr
Winnick, and I have not yet got an answer to it.
Q1203 Mr Winnick: You agree that it seems rather odd that it
should have taken so long. You are not responsible because you have only been a
minister at the Home Office for such a short time.
Mr Byrne: I am prepared to take ownership of the
solution going forward.
Q1204 Mr Winnick: Will the National Insurance numbers be
withdrawn from people who have no longer such a right to such numbers?
Mr Byrne: If I may, Chairman, that is a subject on
which I will just need to clarify our position with DWP and I will happily get
that information to the Committee as soon as I can.
Q1205 Mr Winnick: If you could, it is a very important point.
Mr Byrne: I appreciate that.
Q1206 Mr Winnick: Obviously if people who have no right to work
in the United Kingdom have been issued with such numbers the most accurate
information, hopefully, will be received by us.
Mr Byrne: Absolutely right.
Q1207 Mr Winnick: Employers may be accepting National Insurance
numbers as proof of the right to work here, what will be done to notify
employers that the position is not what they may believe? In other words, because a person has a
National Insurance number that does not mean, as we both agree, that they have
a right to be working here.
Mr Byrne: Part of the answer is definitely in the
implementation of the points-based system.
It is going to be important that businesses where they are acting as
sponsors take their responsibilities seriously. I think the point here is that businesses benefit from
immigration a great deal, they benefit from that different and expanded labour
market, they benefit from access to the skills. Those privileges do come with a few responsibilities to take
things a little bit more seriously.
Lin, I do not know if you would like to add anything on particular
responsibilities that come in under sponsors for the points-based system?
Ms Homer: Chairman, I think the point is well made that
in the points-based system we are trying to get a stronger sense of risk
sharing with employers. Currently we do
both put out generalised advice in our leaflets and on our website to employers
and we also do a significant amount of work directly with employers, both if
there is an area that we have identified as being at risk in a proactive way
and also if we are approached for support and help. We might take a big employer and help them set up processes
whereby their veracity checks can be improved.
Bluntly, we will sometimes do that when we have done an intelligence-led
raid and perhaps ended up prosecuting them or removing members of staff and/or
we might do it when we are asked. We
will tend to struggle more obviously with the thousands and thousands of very
small employers and then the opportunity open to us is to work with some of the
associations and I think that is another very valid area for us to look at as
we go forward.
Q1208 Chairman: I am slightly confused, Minister, by your
response that it relies on the points-based migration system because that is
about people who get the equivalent to what is currently a work permit. Most of the people who are working illegally
are not people who came in on work permits, they came here on another basis as
a student, on a family visit visa and they overstayed. I cannot see any
relevance of the points-based migration system to Mr Winnick's question about
the validity of National Insurance numbers.
Mr Byrne: You are right to say that answer is
incomplete. The points-based system is
part of it because points-based system business will take some responsibility
of sponsors and, therefore, that is a locus for enforcement of immigration
rules for certain types of people. With
the implementation of the Immigration and National Act though later on this
year I do think it is incumbent on the new ministerial team to give much more
thought to what is the right enforcement and removal strategy for IND in the
future. As I say, I think that
enforcement and removal strategy has got a number of different elements to
it. One, as I say, is about shutting
down privileges of being here, but there has to be part of it that is touched
on in our organisational review. In
particular, is the process of commissioning enforcement and removal activity
right? When I looked at the new asylum
model, for example, I was not completely clear that actually the process as it
was defined was wide enough. I do not
think it necessarily extended into enforcement and removal sufficiently far. I was also quite interested by the fact that
a number of people have talked to me over the last couple of weeks about how we
can introduce much greater contestability commissioned by IND ---
Chairman: I am really sorry, Minister, I am going to
cut you off because Mr Winnick was asking a question about telling employers
not to rely on National Insurance numbers and we are getting a fair way away
from that issue.
Q1209 Mr Winnick: The IND's evidence to this Committee told us
that records show that IND received between "...200-300 status requests per week
from colleagues in JobCentre Plus." I
cannot at the moment understand why, if there was no link between National
Insurance numbers and working, that was done.
Be that as it may, do we take it that these requests from the JobCentre
to IND are going to be processed very quickly indeed?
Mr Byrne: Can I ask Lin Homer to come back on the
detail and then I will touch on the strategy?
Ms Homer: We are in discussion with DWP about how we
can work more collaboratively with them on National Insurance numbers. Because the National Insurance number is a
unique reference number it is used by DWP to administer benefits, and we are
very conscious of that. A number of
individuals who come in from abroad are entitled to a National Insurance number
because they are entitled to work whilst they are here and, therefore, we need
to establish a system with DWP which helps ensure that they can identify more
easily when they should issue and when they should not. What I can give you is an assurance that we
will be working with DWP to do that.
Obviously the ideal would be some way of setting that up so it is not
dependent on a referral that then has a time lag and then gets a transfer, and
I think it goes back to the earlier question you asked about access to
information jointly across government departments. We have had a number of meetings to take those discussions
forward, I have chaired a number of them myself.
Q1210 Mr Winnick: Let us be quite clear: up to the announcement
last week the fact that a certain applicant had no right to work here was not a
reason for refusal of a National Insurance number?
Ms Homer: Yes.
Q1211 Mr Winnick: What happened if IND told Work and Pensions'
people the applicants had no right, that did not stop Work and Pensions,
presumably, from granting a National Insurance number?
Ms Homer: It is difficult to see the circumstances in
which we could anticipate and tell a particular issuing office that somebody
had no right. The difficulty is that we
have got to set up a system that is manageable. If somebody comes in who has no right to work, say a person
claiming asylum, if we know their whereabouts, I guess, in a particular
geographical area you could make a judgment about where they might seek to work
and where they might claim a number but you will know from your own research
that they do not necessarily stay in one area.
We need a system where when an application is made a check can be done
that way round. I think it is the only way you could systematically ensure that
this does not happen. I think we have to put the effort with DWP into resolving
that and trying to find a system that is as secure as possible.
Mr Byrne: The point that I would add is that although
it is only 11 days in, I am not yet satisfied that the enforcement and removal
strategy is strong enough in two particular areas, co-operation within
Government but also the kind of co-operation that we need with the business
community once the Immigration and Nationality Act comes into place I think has
to be much stronger in the future. It
is incumbent on IND and the Home Office to bring those thoughts forward.
Ms Homer: Where we have received the request for
information we have sought to deal with it using a priority system. We will respond within four days or ten days
depending on the nature of the request.
Clearly we have not yet got a system where everybody is seeking that
check and we are dealing with them all.
We will need to resource a significantly greater number of requests, I
suspect, as we go forward.
Q1212 Mr Winnick: The announcement was made last week, what is
the procedure now? The legislation will
be introduced?
Ms Homer: I do not think we need legislation. The conferring of a National Insurance
number does not give somebody the right to work and so we do not need to change
any legislative framework.
Q1213 Mr Winnick: When does it come into force? If I can get it in sequence, the statement
was last week, it is not the regulation at the moment, or is it?
Ms Homer: It is not something that requires a statutory
framework or a regulatory framework.
The DWP can ask us for that information so it is about us putting in
place an adequate arrangement between the two government departments.
Q1214 Mr Winnick: That does not quite answer my question.
Ms Homer: I do apologise, I am trying.
Q1215 Mr Winnick: As I understood the announcement last week,
the DWP will check with the Home Office if the person concerned has the right
to be employed in this country. If the
answer is no, no National Insurance number will be issued. Was that the announcement, Minister, last
week, am I correct?
Ms Homer: That is correct.
Q1216 Mr Winnick: Is that in force now or what? It is a simple question.
Ms Homer: Yes, but the question you asked me was did
that need legislation.
Q1217 Mr Winnick: I did because I was wondering if it could not
be put into force because of legislation or whatever in Parliament, so what is
the situation?
Ms Homer: Not that I am aware of. What I am trying to be clear with the
Committee on is that I suspect what we have got to do is make sure we have a
robust process for putting that into place.
This is not dissimilar from some of the Home Secretary's points about
relationships between us and prisons.
We must commit to that procedure and then my counterpart in DWP and I
must make sure that the system is robust.
We are currently dealing with 200-300 requests a week, if that
significantly increases we will need to have resources to meet that. We must also satisfy ourselves that we are
identifying a correct procedure that will highlight those cases when it should
be checked.
Q1218 Mr Winnick: If someone comes into a jobcentre now, what
is going to be done before a National Insurance number is allocated to ensure
that person has the right to be employed in the United Kingdom?
Ms Homer: Evidence will be sought that they have a
status which will enable them to work.
Q1219 Mr Winnick: Which did not happen before the announcement
last week?
Ms Homer: Not routinely and in every case. It clearly
happened in a number of cases.
Q1220 Mr Winnick: It is being enforced now?
Ms Homer: Yes.
It is being implemented. I would
need to talk to DWP and I would want to refer back to you. It would not be my
experience that one asserts a change and puts that change into effect overnight
with 100% success.
Q1221 Mr Winnick: I would have thought we would have the
information. You see, Chairman, I think
it would be very useful, if we cannot be provided with it at the moment, to
know precisely what the procedure is over the announcement last week. We are getting quite a lot of coverage but
all I want to know is can it be implemented or is it being implemented at the
moment or is there some legislative drawback?
If we could know that, that would be very helpful.
Mr Byrne: I think the precise details of the
implementation will be extremely helpful.
Q1222 Chairman: Can I ask one further question, which is
simply this. There is a group of people
who have a right to live here but do not have a right to recourse to public
funds. At the moment it would appear
such people could probably successfully apply for a National Insurance number
and then, on the back of that, apply for housing benefit or tax credits or
whatever. I am not clear whether the
new policy is to refuse National Insurance to people who are legally in the
country but have no recourse to public funds?
I do not know, Minister, if you are able to clarify that for us this
afternoon, if not could you get back to us very quickly?
Mr Byrne: Absolutely.
I will clarify that for you.
Q1223 Mr Winnick: We will be notified as quickly as possible whether
the announcement of last week, Minister, is being implemented now and, if not,
why not.
Mr Byrne: Exactly.
Q1224 Mr Winnick: If we can have that by the end of the week?
Mr Byrne: Yes.
Q1225 Mr Spring: I would like to turn to the issue of
enforcement and removals. I think it was Jack Dromey who called for an amnesty
for illegal immigrants, of which there appear to be several hundred thousand in
this country and, of course, we saw some very emotive scenes in the United
States recently with marches by illegal immigrants. We have had a number of individuals, and indeed bodies, who take
a particular interest in this matter calling for the regularisation of illegal
immigrants in this country on budgetary grounds, family grounds and
humanitarian grounds. Obviously it is a
very difficult issue. Is this matter under any kind of consideration in this
country? I simply make this point, that
our EU partner, Spain, which has huge implications for us, has gone through a
series of amnesties in the last few years to try to deal with their particular
problem.
Mr Byrne: The position I am in at the moment is really
needing to understand in far more detail than I do at the moment the precise
segmentation of people whose positions have not yet been regularised. I have commissioned some analysis because I
need to understand issues like the length of stay already here, how many people
have been here for X, Y and Z number of years, I need to understand where they
come from, I need to understand what process their cases are in. That is why I say IND as an agency needs to
bring forward a stronger enforcement and removal strategy that is rooted in an
analysis of the kind of problems that it is trying to solve. To be frank with the Committee, it is too
early for me to get into that question yet, because I have not got that
analysis in front of me. I think the analysis will have a critical bearing on
that question, I would have thought.
Q1226 Mr Spring: That is a perfectly reasonable answer. We now know from the National Audit Office
that it costs something like £11,000 to remove somebody from this country. I know it is difficult to generalise about
how to deal with this problem, how to get people out of the country. Is it a
question of tracing, is it the documentation, the problems of false
documentation or is it the manpower problem? Is it possible to identify one
thing in particular which creates an overriding difficulty with this problem or
is it just too complex to cite one overriding issue?
Mr Byrne: My observations to date are that when you
look at the enforcement and removal process within IND I am not yet convinced
it is slick enough, and I am not yet convinced that it is integrated enough
with, for example, the new asylum model which I think has been successfully
designed. I am very interested in the fact that a number of people have talked
to me about introducing contestability into enforcement and removal. I do not
know whether the Committee plans to reflect on that but observations on that
matter would be extremely useful. Until
I understand answers to both of those questions it is very difficult to make a
clear headed assessment about where we will get the biggest bang for our buck
in terms of enforcement and removal. We
have to make sensible resource allocation decisions. I need to understand what
the return on investment of different tactics looks like in a way that I do not
at the moment. There is still quite a
lot of work that we have to do over the next five or six weeks to get to the
bottom of that before we can answer that with any semblance of intelligence.
Q1227 Mr Spring: Can I add to the complexity of the next five
or six weeks in your life and deal with another very emotive issue which is
children. We had the other end of the
spectrum which is the human trafficking problem, which is a horrific one. We now have a situation, of course, of the
children of illegal immigrants in this country, or those perhaps being faced
with deportation, potentially going back to countries where at least in some
parts of these countries life is absolutely grim, countries like Angola and
Congo. Is it going to be a feature of
your thinking either to include in your judgments about how this matter should
be handled children perhaps born in this country, entirely brought up in this
country, who have very little affinity to where their parents have come from,
or at least to make very substantial enquiries and give assurances about what
happens to these children if then the families are then deported? This is a very live humanitarian issue particularly
as, as we have heard from my colleague here, we all face in our constituency
the horror of Zimbabwean children in this situation.
Lord Triesman: When we negotiate routes for return, which is
one of the things we do in the FCO, almost invariably we will make an
assessment of a number of factors which relate to children. Let me leave Zimbabwe on one side because it
is subject to legal process at the moment and there is nothing that we are in a
position to do about Zimbabwe at this stage in any case. Firstly, we make an assessment about whether
the country is in general safe. Let me give a quick example of it. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has
parts which are plainly very dangerous places but it is a country the size of
Western Europe, there are parts of it which are not very dangerous at all,
where there is settled life and community life goes ahead in a very normal
way. We try to get a picture of the
whole of the place and what is possible in different parts of the country. Secondly, we talk to the officials in order
to try and make sure that the arrangements which might be made are likely to be
ones where a child is not put at risk.
It is interesting to me that when you talk to both ministers and
officials in those countries now, quite often they will say that they regard
children as quite fundamental to their development, to their future, alongside
skilled workers who they also do not want to see coming out of the
country. They believe that in many
cases where children are no longer with their families the possibilities of
what we would regard as modern systems of adoption may well be available. They believe that the children would often
be better off in the circumstances in their own linguistic community and in
their own cultural community than if they were here. Now that would not entirely apply to children who had been here
for a very long time but it does apply to quite a large proportion of the
children who are here illegally and who it might be proper to consider going
back to their own countries. In short,
the child's interest has got to be considered with all these factors in mind
but there has to be, I think, some recognition that it is possible and it is
safe in many cases for children to go either with their families or, if they
are unaccompanied, to go back to places where they will have an absolutely
realistic chance of a decent and very good life, and there are some places you
could not dream of sending a child.
Mr Spring: Of course what you are saying is absolutely
admirable but I simply make this point from a slightly less humane point of
view, that naturally if a couple or one parent is here illegally this presents
a very big problem in terms of deportation if this comes into place. Of course this is a huge problem in itself.
I just say that in passing.
Q1228 Mr Benyon: Minister, you will know that you are as much
judged by what you do not say as what you do.
You specifically did not exclude the possibility of an amnesty for
illegal immigrants in this country. Is it something that you have discussed in
your 11 days? Is it something that you
have considered?
Mr Byrne: I just want to be straight with the Committee
and say it is just too early to tell. Unfortunately, I am one of those people
who has to have that analysis in front of them before getting into the sorts of
options that might be considered in the future. I do not want to mislead the
Committee or point in directions which are going to be fruitless for the
Committee's deliberations over the work that it has to do finalising the
report.
Q1229 Mr Malik: It is not a foreign prisoner scandal but
actually it is a domestic prisoner scandal, and I speak of people who are born
and brought up in this country who have a right to vote in every election we
have in this country and who are currently being deported. Is the Minister
aware that Irish nationals are being deported from UK prisons on completion of
their sentences? Does he accept that
this is in contravention of the EU Citizens Directive 2004/48, which I am sure
he is familiar with, transposed into British law on 13 April 2006?
Mr Byrne: Chairman, as you can imagine, as a third
generation Irish man I was interested in this issue when it was flagged to me
not very long ago. There are also a
number of honourable and right honourable Members who have raised this issue
with me. This is an issue on which I
have asked for further briefing over the days to come. I do not know if Lin
wants to comment any further at this stage?
Mr Malik: Would you agree to meet with me, Minister, on
this issue at your earliest convenience?
Q1230 Chairman: That is a bilateral constituency
arrangement. I think the Minister has
given his answer. Can I just ask two
questions to wrap this up because you have already said, Minister, that you are
not sure about your strategy on removal and enforcement. Two questions, one is do you accept, as we
have been told, that if you wanted to discourage illegal working, the
Government would be better putting its efforts into tax and National Insurance
evasion efforts by employers of illegal labour than trying to chase down
individual illegal migrants and kick them out of the country?
Mr Byrne: I think there has to be a mixed strategy to
this question.
Q1231 Chairman: At the moment there is very little emphasis
on tax and National Insurance evasion at all in the strategy. Would you be prepared to give it something
like equal weight for the strategy removals?
Mr Byrne: We have to look at the weight, absolutely we
have to look at the weight that is given to it because, as I say, I think
broadly there are three ways in which we have to tackle this. In the modern world that we live in
enforcement and removals has to be a bit of everybody's job. Closing down privileges, like access to
benefits and so on, and free movement is important. We have to take a more robust approach to enforcement, that
involves both working with the business community and looking innovatively at
powers we have already like POCA but, yes, the other partner under that heading
has to be other parts of Government.
There is some work that is already underway in the West Midlands which I
need to understand far better because, yes, my suspicion is that is a very
fruitful line of enquiry. I do not want
to mislead the Committee, I do think it is important that I put on record my
view that actually the process of organising enforcement and removal within IND
needs to be much stronger. We have to
look at different ways of working in IND when it comes to this area. Actually the frontier along which we must move
embraces all three of those areas.
Q1232 Chairman: Can I put a second point to you. We talked today about entry clearance
officers, presenting officers, tribunal appeal judges, the one thing they all
say in common to us is that they are taking part in a system where none of them
can be sure that at the end of an application if they say "No, you are not
entitled to be in Britain" they will ever get removed from the country. It does leave them all wondering what they are
doing sometimes. Can I suggest to you
one of the things you might want to look at in a removal strategy as a priority
is whatever resources you have got aligning those first and foremost with the
decision-making in the system so there is some certainty that a decision that
you cannot stay in the country is immediately followed up by removal action.
Mr Byrne: I think that is an extremely helpful
suggestion. When you are constructing an enforcement and removal strategy, like
any business, you have to construct priorities and I think we do have to have a
debate over the next couple of months about those priorities. The Committee's observations on those
priorities will be extremely helpful.
Q1233 Chairman: The final point is this: e.borders will come
in in 2008, which is only two years away.
We have had evidence obviously that information that you already have
about people who should not be in the country is not acted on effectively. What assurances can you give the Committee
that as you gather this information on whether people have left the country it
will be acted on in a coherent way and not left in some giant electronic
warehouse which is never dealt with?
Mr Byrne: Although this will ruin my credibility
amongst colleagues in the House I have to confess to having spent about half of
my career working in the IT industry and I am afraid that breeds a very healthy
cynicism about what IT delivers. I
think it is imperative that we develop this single border and identity
management architecture rapidly over the next few months and that we look at
the way we target risks that we know are higher and look at basic processes
before we get into the business of commissioning hugely expensive bits of
technology. As anyone who has run IT
implementation can tell you, unless you think through the business process
change first the IT system will typically fail.
Chairman: We will take that as a maybe.
Q1234 Mr Winnick: The Minister may feel it useful to study the
evidence given to this Committee during our inquiry by Mr Justice Hodge who was
rather cynical about people staying on when the Immigration Courts had said
otherwise. These are factors perhaps
which should be very much taken into account, plus, of course, the humanitarian
aspect when they arrive.
Mr Byrne: I am two-thirds of the way through the
uncorrected transcripts and I am already gripped.
Chairman: Ministers and officials, thank you very much
indeed.
