Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Dr Kim Howells MP, Minister of State, FCO and Liam Byrne
MP, Minister of State, Home Office
WORK OF
UKVISAS TO
TRANSFER TO
THE UK BORDER
AGENCY OF
THE HOME
OFFICE
The most recent Management Letter updated you
on developments around the work of UKvisas following the Prime
Minister's statement to Parliament on 14 November 2007, in which
he announced a range of measures to counter terrorism, increase
the resilience of communities to resist extremism and to strengthen
our borders. That statement announced the decision to establish
a UK Border Agency to strengthen our border security.
The new UK Border Agency will be an agency of
the Home Office from 1 April 2008. It will bring together all
the work of the Border and Immigration Agency, Customs detection
work at the border from Her majesty's Revenue and Customs (HRMC)
and UKvisas. It will report jointly to the Home Secretary and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on its work at the border—managing
the flow of goods and people. Liam Byrne has been appointed the
minister responsible for the new agency. Lin Homer will lead the
UK Border Agency as Chief Executive.
The financial, resource and management framework
within which the UK Border Agency's overseas operations will operate
is set out in a Memorandum of Understanding (attached).[11]
Copies of the MOU will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The MOU also covers arrangements for governance
and Parliamentary scrutiny. UK Border Agency's overseas operations
and wider visa and migration issues will therefore be handled
at Ministerial level by Liam Byrne as the Minister of State for
Borders and Immigration and his deputy Meg Hillier, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary and overseen by the Ministerial Strategy Board
and the Home Secretary who will be accountable to Parliament.
The establishment of the Agency has a consequent impact on the
remit of the Foreign and Home Affairs Select Committees as the
Home Office Permanent Secretary and the UK Border Agency Chief
Executive will now answer to the Home Affairs Select Committee
for immigration policy and overseas operations. This change in
governance will therefore mean that the Foreign Affairs Select
Committee will no longer have automatic dual oversight of the
work of UKvisas as it forms part of the new UKBA, but will, of
course, retain the discretion to set its own work plan covering
relevant areas. Indeed we anticipate that there will be subjects
relating to the work of the UK Boarder Agency's overseas operation
on which the Foreign Affairs Committee will continue to take a
keen interest and the MOU leaves open the possibility of Parliamentary
scrutiny by Committees other than the Home Affairs Select Committee.
We would also like to advise the Select Committee
of the new arrangements for handling Parliamentary Questions and
correspondence on entry clearance related to matters with effect
from 1 April. All non-ministerial correspondence should continue
to be sent to the former UKvisas Visa Customer Services team (VCS),
which will remain for the present at: room WH 4.3, Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH. Members
are encouraged to contact the VCS team direct, including by using
the dedicated telephone line. They may also contact the Head of
VCS, Peter Hooper if the enquiry is urgent.
We recognise that Members of Parliament will
still wish to write to the Minister direct in some visa related
cases. Letters of this type currently addressed by MPs to the
Foreign Secretary or the FCO Minister of State (Dr Kim Howells),
should in future be addressed to the Home Office Under-Secretary
of Sate (Meg Hiller).
All Parliamentary Questions on entry clearance
related matters should be table for reply by the Home Secretary
after 1 April 2008, not the Foreign Secretary.
We thank the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
for its oversight of the work of UKvisas and the strong working
relationship that has been established.
31 March 2008
11 Not printed. Back
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