UK Border Agency and Glasgow City Council

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE    To be published as HC 733-i

House of COMMONS

Oral EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE the

 Scottish Affairs Committee

UK BORDER AGENCY AND GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL  

Wednesday 19 JANUARY 2011

damian green mp, matthew coats and phil taylor

Evidence heard in  Public Questions  1 - 142

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the  Scottish Affairs Committee

on  Wednesday 19 January 2011

Members present:

Mr Ian Davidson (Chair)

Fiona Bruce

Mike Freer

Cathy Jamieson

Jim McGovern

David Mowat

Fiona O’Donnell

Mr Alan Reid

Lindsay Roy

Dr Eilidh Whiteford

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Damian Green MP, Minister of State for Immigration, Matthew Coats, Head of Immigration, UK Border Agency, and Phil Taylor, Regional Director for the Scotland and Northern Ireland Region (Immigration Group), gave evidence.

Q1 Chair: Welcome, Minister, and thank you for meeting us today with your colleagues. I also thank you for meeting the Glasgow group of MPs about this and the helpfulness of both yourself and your PPS, who was very useful in setting up the meeting. I also thank Phil and his staff in Glasgow for meeting those of us who were up there. I think everything went very helpfully. Particularly, though, I would like to thank you for being willing to change the date of the meeting from last week to this in order that we could participate in the debate on the Postal Services Bill. So, no more Mr Nice Guy. Let us now get on with the business of the meeting. Perhaps for the record you would like to introduce yourself and your colleagues.

Damian Green: I am Damian Green, the Immigration Minister. On my left is Matthew Coats, who is head of the UK Border Agency Immigration Group, and on my right is Phil Taylor, who is the UKBA Regional Director for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Q2 Chair: What we want to do first, if it is agreeable, is discuss issues relating to the Glasgow City Council accommodation contract and then some other issues relating to the work of the UKBA in Scotland. To set it in context, on 5 November a letter was sent out to all asylum seekers in Glasgow City Council accommodation saying that they might be required to move elsewhere in the Scotland region-we are not necessarily used to it being described as "the Scotland region"-that they might have three to five days’ notice, and they would be allowed to take no more than two pieces of luggage. As I think you can understand, this caused a considerable amount of panic and upset. I would be grateful if you could tell us how that happened in that way.

Damian Green: It was not a good letter to send out and it happened because somebody used a standard template in a way which in the circumstances was inappropriate. As you say, it may well have caused some distress, for which obviously the UKBA apologises, and I have taken steps to ensure that letters like that will not go out again.

Q3 Chair: Can I clarify, first, whether or not the Glasgow staff saw the letter at all before it went out?

Damian Green: Phil is probably the best person to go into the details of who saw what and when inside the office.

Phil Taylor: No. The answer is that we didn’t see the letter. It was sent out by the central contracts team who manage the contracts across the whole of the UK.

Q4 Chair: Can I clarify whether or not the city council had seen the letter before it went out?

Damian Green: Not to my knowledge.

Phil Taylor: Not to my knowledge.

Q5 Chair: Did the Scottish Refugee Council see the letter at all before it went out? Were they aware of it coming?

Phil Taylor: No. The Scottish Refugee Council did not see the letter and weren’t aware of it coming.

Q6 Chair: So, nobody in "the Scottish region", as you describe it, was aware that this letter was coming when it arrived and caused this panic among all the people involved.

Damian Green: As Phil has said, the system had bypassed our own office there, and it is a legitimate criticism that that shouldn’t have happened.

Q7 Chair: Can I clarify the contents of the letter? When we met, as I understood it, you agreed that the three to five days’ notice period would be withdrawn and there was a change. Can you clarify that for the record?

Damian Green: We had said that nobody would be moved at less than 14 days’ notice.

Q8 Chair: Similarly, on the question of the two pieces of luggage, has that also been changed?

Damian Green: We are not specifying anything as detailed as that. As I say, this was a template letter for other purposes.

Q9 Fiona O’ Donnell: If I may come in there, I am Fiona O’Donnell, Member of Parliament for East Lothian. In the spirit of thanking the Minister, I would thank him for his statement apologising for the error made in responding to my oral question. I wanted to seek reassurance that the 14 days’ notice applies not just to tenants of Glasgow City Council but to all asylum seekers, as in the case that I raised in oral questions.

Damian Green: It is specific to this case. We do have different rules. Obviously, we try to give as much notice as possible but we have specific rules for different circumstances. Phil, do you want to detail that?

Phil Taylor: In other cases we give a minimum of five days’ notice except in cases of emergency. Emergencies would be where the building becomes uninhabitable for some reason or there is some sort of crisis issue. Perhaps there has been domestic violence and we have to move somebody fairly quickly. But in normal day-to-day business it is a minimum of five days’ notice.

Q10 Chair: What is the rationale behind the different time scales?

Phil Taylor: There are two sets of moves which have to be made here. One was the potential to move a large number of people and the ability to handle those cases as individual cases, which is where the 14 days come in, but in terms of normal business and day-to-day moves we can handle the five days on a one-to-one basis much more effectively.

Q11 Lindsay Roy: We have heard of various attempts to improve the co-ordination between the Scottish Parliament, the UK Parliament, the Scottish Government and the UK Government by having so-called Scottish champions in each Department. Is there a Scottish champion in your Department?

Damian Green: We have a regional director based in Scotland who covers Scotland and Northern Ireland, so for the UKBA effectively Phil is the Scottish champion.

Q12 Lindsay Roy: How is that position linked with the representatives of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government? Is there a close dialogue there?

Phil Taylor: My office is in almost daily contact with officials in the Scottish Government, and quite often I have meetings with Scottish Government Ministers. We have formal meetings with Scottish Government officials on a monthly and quarterly basis.

Q13 Lindsay Roy: Was the Scottish Government aware of the proposed changes, although Glasgow City Council was not?

Phil Taylor: Both Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government were aware of the termination before it happened, and we had been speaking to Scottish Government officials for two to three weeks before the termination took place.

Q14 Chair: But nobody was aware of the letter?

Phil Taylor: No one was aware of the letter.

Q15 Chair: Minister, perhaps I could come back to the question of Scottish devolution champions. My understanding from previous discussions with central government is not that the man on the ground in the area would be the devolution champion but it would be somebody in the centre who was there specifically charged with making sure that local circumstances were taken into account, and there should have been somebody in the centre who picked up not only the inappropriateness of "the Scottish region" but also the fact that this was being sent out without communications with the local area. It’s in that context that we want to pursue the question of who should have spotted this but didn’t.

Damian Green: Of course, it’s a different situation inside the UKBA from many other Departments because immigration is a reserved power. Therefore, there is not the day-to-day interaction with the devolved parliaments, assemblies and so on. Indeed, I spend a certain amount of my time working out the actual ground rules for engagement with parliamentarians in the other countries of the UK apart from England as well. Within the Home Office some of our other principal areas of activity are devolved. It is quite difficult to do a standard read-across from other Government Departments where part of what they do will be devolved because immigration is a national UK policy and there is no devolution of it.

Q16 Chair: But I think the concept of devolution champions was to take account not only of the different legal circumstances but also to do with the administration on the ground, as it were. Clearly, when this letter came out it was going to have an impact on the ground not only on the work of your own Department but also on local authorities, charities and the like. The fact that nobody centrally seems to have noticed that somebody locally should have been consulted gives us concern. You said this was a template. In circumstances where the template has been used previously has anybody locally been told beforehand?

Damian Green: It’s different circumstances. It is a template letter for an individual circumstance, as Phil has explained. We are engaged in a UK-wide renegotiation of these contracts because they have all just come to an end. So this is a new context for the UKBA. The inappropriateness of the letter to which I referred is because it is designed to refer to individual circumstances. But I think there is a slight danger of misunderstanding as though the whole proceedings emerge from somewhere inside the UKBA. It is important to remember the context. It was Glasgow City Council that instituted the end of the contract. To take the point of your question, it couldn’t have come as a surprise to them because they approached us and said that because the numbers had fallen, and the number of asylum seekers in accommodation is falling quite rapidly, they could no longer sustain that contract. Essentially, they wanted more money for it. So it wasn’t a shock new move.

Q17 Chair: The termination of the contract wasn’t a surprise, but the letter appearing out of the blue indubitably was.

Damian Green: Yes. As I say, I take that point.

Q18 Chair: Can I ask about the alternative arrangements that were made? You wrote to me on 24 November following my letter to you. At the top of the second page of your letter you mention that, "Contingency plans are in place and the current near 1,300 asylum seekers being accommodated by Glasgow City Council will be moved to at least one of the remaining two providers operating in Glasgow." Can I clarify this point that "contingency plans are in place"? Given that no agreement has yet been reached with any possible provider in Glasgow, how could it be said that contingency plans were in place?

Damian Green: The contingency plans are to use one or other of the other providers in Glasgow. It was clear that when Glasgow City Council decided to pull out of the contract, and I emphasise it was that way round, then obviously we would need some plans. We have been negotiating ever since with Ypeople, who are one of the other large providers in Glasgow. Those negotiations are going well. I pay tribute to Glasgow City Council, who are behaving in an entirely sensible and constructive manner in these negotiations. We very much hope that we will have the proceedings over by the end of March and beginning of April so that there can be a smooth transition which will involve as few people as possible having to move home. We are very aware of the inevitable uncertainty and the more people we can keep in the same accommodation they are in at the moment the better. That is what we are working towards. Those negotiations are proceedings smoothly, but inevitably they take some time.

Q19 Chair: I think that’s right. Everybody has behaved very well in this context. However, to come back to the point I made, it was not therefore true, was it, to say that "contingency plans are in place"?

Damian Green: Those are the plans we are doing.

Q20 Chair: But they weren’t in place, though. You are working on these plans now. When I spoke to the Ypeople this morning, they only received the novation contract yesterday to look at for the first time, so, surely, it was not true to say, as you did, that "contingency plans are in place".

Damian Green: If you are asking whether we had signed all the contracts, then, no, but Glasgow City Council was not about to evict 1,300 people, or whatever it was then. It is now lower than that. It is 1,137.

Q21 Chair: What does "in place" mean?

Damian Green: "In place" means that we are working; we know what’s happening.

Q22 Chair: No; surely it doesn’t.

Damian Green: We know that the contract is coming to an end and, therefore, we have a contingency in place.

Q23 Chair: No. Surely, that is stretching language. If somebody said, "We’ve got an idea about what our contingency plans might be," or, "We’re working on contingency plans," or, "We have an idea at the back of our head about how our contingency plans might work out," that is one thing, but to write to me and say, "Contingency plans are in place" suggested to me that you were ready to make the move, that things were in place and were ready and that if this failed then that would happen. That is not the case, is it?

Damian Green: I think this is an argument about language, because we knew that at some stage during the course of this year-the Glasgow City Council contract lasts through quite a lot of 2011-we would have to find housing for a significant number of people. We knew what we wanted to do and were in the throes of doing it. It seems to be perfectly reasonable to say that contingency plans are in place.

Q24 Chair: I can understand why as a Minister you would want to say that.

Damian Green: Because it’s true.

Q25 Chair: Perhaps I can clarify one further point. You said in your letter: "I confirm that we will shortly issue further communications to asylum seekers to clarify the position." Has a further letter gone out to asylum seekers?

Damian Green: No, because I don’t want to give them another letter that creates uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain of everything, then we will send out another letter. That seems to be the sensible way to do it.

Q26 Chair: So a letter has not gone out. How long is "shortly"? You said: "I confirm that we will shortly issue further communications …". The letter went out on 5 November, two months ago. That does not slot in with my perspective of what "shortly" would mean, particularly to people who were in a panic.

Damian Green: I think they have now been reassured.

Q27 Chair: By me as much as anybody else.

Damian Green: Indeed, for which thanks. There does not appear to be any panic at the moment, nor should there be. I think it would be unhelpful to bombard tenants with a fortnightly newsletter saying that negotiations are moving forward smoothly but not give them anything concrete. I think it’s more sensible to wait until we have something concrete and we can say, "Look, this is happening and when it’s happening."

Q28 Chair: When do you envisage that will be?

Damian Green: It is not in my power to say when people will sign contracts, but Ypeople, Glasgow City Council and UKBA are all talking to one another and final letters are going out this week. If people sign them, then we will be in a position to say in absolute detail what’s happening and when it’s happening.

Q29 Chair: When is that exactly?

Damian Green: Our aim is to have the transition at the end of March, and, as I say, I am confident that we will be able to do that.

Q30 Chair: The end of March is the transition?

Damian Green: That is the point of transition; clearly, they will know before that.

Q31 Cathy Jamieson: Could I go back to the point that the Chair has already raised about the statement that contingency plans are in place "and the current near 1,300 asylum seekers being accommodated by Glasgow City Council will be moved to at least one of the remaining two providers operating in Glasgow"? That was in your letter of 24 November. at the time when the letters were sent out to the asylum seekers had any discussion taken place with the other two providers?

Damian Green: Do you want to go through the timeline?

Q32 Cathy Jamieson: A straight yes or no answer would suffice. I don’t need the whole timeline.

Phil Taylor: I am trying to remember when the letters went out.

Damian Green: It was 5 November, wasn’t it?

Phil Taylor: No; it was the letter terminating the contract. As soon as we were clear that the contract had to be terminated we talked to Ypeople about whether, given the bids they had made for contract extensions, they would be interested in taking on this contract from GCC.

Q33 Cathy Jamieson: It is unclear to me whether there were any discussions before the asylum seekers were notified. At what stage did those discussions take place and what had been arrived at when the Minister put in his letter that contingency plans were in place?

Phil Taylor: It is important to explain that two processes were going on here. One invited all service providers around the UK to bid for extended contracts. So we knew from all the providers across the UK what they were hoping to do for an extended contract. Both of the other providers in Glasgow had indicated that they could take significantly greater numbers which were sufficient to take on Glasgow City Council’s capacity, so we knew that in that context. We did not have that information in the context of moving people from Glasgow to Ypeople. As soon as we knew that the contract was being terminated we started to talk to Ypeople about whether they would take on the novations of the current Glasgow City Council contract.

Q34 Cathy Jamieson: I would be interested to know the date, if it’s possible, when that particular discussion started.

Damian Green: The termination letter was issued to Glasgow City Council on 5 November. That was the key point.

Q35 Cathy Jamieson: For ease, Minister, what was the date of the first meeting with Ypeople to discuss taking on not a new contract and something different but the transfer of people who were already in Glasgow City Council accommodation?

Damian Green: I would imagine the first one was a phone call. You would have spoken to them.

Phil Taylor: It was with the contract team.

Damian Green: The first contact would have been made by phone with Ypeople by the contract team. I am afraid I don’t have that date with me, but we can obviously let the Committee have it.

Cathy Jamieson: My understanding is that any phone call like that would have been recorded and noted, so you will be able to provide us with the date.

Q36 Chair: Am I right in thinking that Ypeople were not contacted about the possibility of taking on the people from the Glasgow contract until after the individuals involved had received the letter?

Phil Taylor: It’s difficult to know because my understanding is that the letters arrived over the weekend. Some of them arrived on the Saturday and some did not arrive until Monday and Tuesday. I can’t be certain when the discussion started with Ypeople.

Q37 Chair: My understanding is that the letters went out before Ypeople had been contacted in any way, which tends to somewhat perplex me given the phrase that "contingency plans are in place", as I think you can understand.

Damian Green: Of course, we had the confidence that Ypeople had told us both that they wanted to continue accommodating people and, indeed, that they could take on a significantly extra large number. They were looking for business.

Q38 Chair: We are talking about 1,300 people. When was the due date for termination of the Glasgow contract?

Damian Green: We were talking about 1,300 and I think that’s a really interesting point because it does help to set it in context. That is falling hugely. Nationally, the numbers in accommodation have fallen by 25% between June and January. The service users in Glasgow City Council accommodation, which as you say were 1,300 in November, were 1,137 as of 5 January. Actually, it’s a very dynamic, moving picture.

Q39 Chair: Notwithstanding it being dynamic and moving, perhaps I can clarify something. You had not asked Ypeople whether or not they would be able to take 1,300 people by the date of the contract terminating at the time the contract was terminated.

Damian Green: It is not at short notice. The key point is that we knew Glasgow City Council had a contract until October/November of this year, so we are not talking about something we had to have in place by the following weekend, by that Christmas or anything like that.

Q40 Chair: But is not the date of termination of the contract 2 February?

Phil Taylor: Yes.

Q41 Chair: So it’s being terminated as of 2 February. I am just trying to clarify whether or not at the date you terminated Glasgow’s contract-

Damian Green: We didn’t terminate Glasgow’s contract; Glasgow terminated it.

Q42 Chair: Okay. The contract was terminated as of 2 February. I am trying to clarify whether or not you had any discussions prior to that with Ypeople and the letter going out, and unless I am very much mistaken the answer is no.

Damian Green: I think they were happening simultaneously.

Phil Taylor: We had the discussions in terms of the contract extension which told us the capacity was there. Ypeople said they had the capacity. But we were not anticipating having to terminate the contract with Glasgow and so we weren’t having a side negotiation with Ypeople at the same time as we negotiated with Glasgow.

Q43 Cathy Jamieson: Just for clarity, in essence, the discussions going on were about something different; they were not about the need to do something immediately but about the possibility of extending the contract.

Phil Taylor: When we say "immediately", although the contract for Glasgow ran to well into 2011, which is when we would be looking to extension implementation, the termination process still allowed for a three-month transfer of properties. It was not immediate or within a couple of weeks.

Damian Green: We knew that there were properties available and we had at least three months to move people from one set of properties to another. So, as I say, there’s an argument about that from which I am not about to move.

Q44 Chair: You thought there were properties available?

Damian Green: We knew there were properties available.

Q45 Fiona O’ Donnell: To establish that I have picked this up correctly, the letter terminating the contract went out to Glasgow City Council on 5 November.

Damian Green: Yes.

Q46 Fiona O’ Donnell: But Glasgow City Council had already indicated at that point that it wished to terminate the contract?

Phil Taylor: The way the contracts are structured is that if the numbers fall below a certain minimum level that can provoke a renegotiation. Glasgow instituted that quite properly under the contract in May last year.

Q47 Fio na O’ Donnell: I was going to ask when. Therefore, from May of last year you knew that the contract was going to come to an end?

Phil Taylor: No. We knew there was to be a discussion about reviewing the contract. Glasgow wrote to us asking to reduce the threshold of the numbers.

Q48 Fiona O’ Donnell: They asked for it to be reviewed, not to end it?

Phil Taylor: Indeed, and to increase the prices. Our difficulty was that as the highest cost provider in the UK outside London at that time we could not meet the significant increases for which they were asking. It came to a point where we were able to offer a minimal increase on the current terms that they currently had. They wrote to us and said that that was unsatisfactory, they could not run the contract for less than they had quoted, and that under the contract if we could not accept their terms we had no option but to terminate the contract. We did not respond to that for about a week because we were carrying on some further discussions and trying to establish whether that was a negotiating move or a serious one. We were sent a following letter enclosing the first one saying, "You have not replied to our letter of last week which said that if you don’t agree to our prices then you must terminate the contract," and from that point we terminated the contract.

Q49 Fiona O’ Donnell: From May through to November there was an opportunity for the contingency planning to take place.

Phil Taylor: Indeed, and within the contract Glasgow City Council were required to have and did have a contingency plan in place. That is part of the contract terms. They have the contingency plan in place.

Q50 Cathy Jamieson: I would like to move on because I heard what was said earlier about the next phase of things perhaps not being entirely agreed yet. One of the issues that we heard about from Glasgow City Council was concerns about TUPE and subcontracting. Have those particular issues now been resolved? What is your view about whether TUPE transfers apply when new contracts are put in place?

Damian Green: TUPE transfers do apply, and that is one of the reasons why we are having negotiations. Obviously, we want all of that signed and sealed as well. That is one of the things we are confident we shall be able to complete by early April/end of March. There are two things. First, there is the rehousing, and, secondly, there are the staff who are going to be transferred. I do not know whether you want to say any more about the details of that.

Phil Taylor: Ypeople and Glasgow City Council have had several discussions. I believe there is going to be another meeting in the next day or so between the two sets of legal advisers. There is an acceptance that there is a TUPE issue there. It is a question of identifying the roles and particular posts that are liable to transfer. The other issue that has been going on is that both parties believe they would need more time than the three months provided for in the contract. We have been waiting for them to come up with an explanation as to what that is for and why they need it. They have provided that in the last week, and the contract change control notes should be issued today to Glasgow agreeing the extension of that contract.

Q51 Cathy Jamieson: Could I ask another question in relation to whether any compensation may be payable to Glasgow City Council under this contract? Have those issues been resolved?

Phil Taylor: There are terms within the contract which allow for termination costs and those will be negotiated as the contract goes forward, but they are rarely concluded before the contract comes to an end.

Q52 Cathy Jamieson: Is there a limit to the amount of costs that would be involved in that?

Phil Taylor: There is a limit but that is usually set for a contract which is terminated almost immediately after being issued, and this contract is close to its termination by natural causes anyway.

Q53 Cathy Jamieson: So at the moment there is no estimate?

Phil Taylor: There is no estimate. Again, that will be a negotiating process and a discussion.

Q54 Jim McGovern: On the subject of TUPE, will the pension rights of the employees who are transferring be maintained? Will they remain members of the local government pension scheme?

Phil Taylor: I am not an expert on TUPE, but my understanding is that for those who elect to move the terms and conditions on which they are currently employed transfer across to the new provider and are retained for a minimum of 12 months.

Q55 Jim McGovern: I would disagree with that. It’s my understanding that TUPE does not cover pensions, but the transferred bodies can opt to include pensions. I just wonder whether the employees who are transferred will remain in the pension scheme.

Phil Taylor: The answer is that the contractual terms will be between Ypeople and Glasgow City Council. We can assist if there is any assistance we can give, but that deal has to be done between the two parties to the exchange.

Q56 Jim McGovern: Just to confirm it, is it your understanding that TUPE applies only for 12 months?

Phil Taylor: I think that is what I have been told. The minimum terms are for 12 months, but, as I said, I’m not an expert on TUPE.

Damian Green: Of course, these are not UKBA employees; they are employees of Glasgow City Council, some of whom presumably will be transferring to Ypeople. We contract with one organisation. We already contract with the other organisation and we are having a larger contract with the other organisation, so we are not talking about government employees.

Q57 Jim McGovern: Can you confirm whether or not all terms and conditions, including pension rights, will be maintained?

Damian Green: What I am hinting at is that it is not for me as the Minister, or indeed for the UKBA, to negotiate the detailed terms between Glasgow City Council and Ypeople.

Q58 Jim McGovern: TUPE is not up for negotiation; TUPE is a straightforward transfer of terms and conditions.

Damian Green: Yes. As you know, it is complex and depends on whether somebody’s job is being transferred or whether it is a slightly different job. Obviously, part of the negotiations between Ypeople and Glasgow City Council will focus on precisely what jobs are being transferred and, therefore, what people are being transferred and under what conditions.

Chair: This is very much an ongoing negotiation between the City Council nd Ypeople, as I understand it. There is a meeting tomorrow.

Q59 Dr Whiteford: On the issue of TUPE, when we took evidence in Glasgow there were a great many concerns expressed by a number of people about the capacity of any voluntary sector organisation to take on the liabilities of a public sector contract under TUPE. Some very real concerns were expressed about a transfer on this scale and that the liabilities might be problematic. Are you confident that this transition can go ahead? Do you have confidence in the capacity of the voluntary sector to pick up what Glasgow City Council has been doing?

Phil Taylor: The only thing I can say is that up until fairly recently Glasgow City Council and Angel were the major providers in Glasgow and Ypeople had a very small share of that, a couple of hundred service users. They have picked that up from a couple of hundred to 1,100 now in a little over 18 months and they are pretty highly regarded as a good service provider. The level of complaints we get is on a par with those from Glasgow City Council, who are also a very good service provider. The evidence would suggest, and they are confident, that they can take it on and that they are capable of doing it.

Q60 Dr Whiteford: I have no question at all with the quality of the service that YMCA provides. My question is about the capacity of the organisation to expand so fast given the current financial climate in which it is working and the scale of the responsibilities to a workforce that it will take on in this transfer. Perhaps I can turn to another voluntary sector-related issue. One of the big concerns about the original letter was that the Scottish Refugee Council were completely out of the loop when that happened even though people were being directed to them for advice and support. Putting aside the past, and it’s been acknowledged that things did not happen as they should have, can we have cast iron assurances that the Scottish Refugee Council will be fully involved in and informed of any future developments in Scotland? Perhaps that goes back to the issue of the devolution champion mentioned earlier.

Damian Green: We have very good relations with the Scottish Refugee Council. They were one of the early bodies we consulted, for instance, on the Alternatives to Detention project. The first consultation meeting I had about that was in Glasgow and they were involved. Clearly, they have a very important role to play in ensuring that the asylum seekers housed by the UKBA are being treated appropriately, and, absolutely, we will keep talking to them.

Q61 Chair: If you have such a good relationship with the refugee council, why are you cutting their budget next year by 60%?

Damian Green: We move into the wider point about the public finances. More specifically, it relates to the point I have made several times that the number of people who claim asylum is falling quite rapidly.

Q62 Chair: But, to be fair, not by 60%.

Damian Green: The number of people being housed in Glasgow has fallen by 25% in six months. You can see what has happened to the numbers. A lot of the money we give not just to the Scottish Refugee Council but various other refugee support groups is precisely to do work with those asylum seekers who have support from the taxpayer, and those numbers are going down.

Q63 Chair: But not by 60%?

Damian Green: It is 60% over four years.

Matthew Coats: The grants given to many voluntary sector bodies including the Scottish Refugee Council were set in a different time when the asylum system was much larger and the pressures were much greater. They have tended not to have been adjusted over time. In the current financial climate we have adjusted things to meet the size of today’s asylum system. As the Minister says, in the last few months during 2010 the numbers of those coming into the asylum system overall are at an historical low and the numbers of those housed in the asylum system are down.

Q64 Chair: I understand all that. I understood from the conversation today that it was 60% for the next financial year, not 60% over four years.

Damian Green: Sorry; yes. The period it covers is obviously the period of the spending review.

Q65 Chair: Maybe they would settle for 60% over four years. If that is the offer you make I will take it back to them. Thank you very much. I hope the Clerk got that down. I am sure there will be much revelling in the streets if they think that they will be cut by only 15% a year. Would you care to make that the situation?

Damian Green: I think not. Mr Chairman, you know I was saying that this is a settlement that covers the period of the spending review, which is four years, but the facts have changed.

Q66 Chair: But not by 60% in a year is the not unreasonable point I am making.

Damian Green: The point Matthew has made is equally reasonable, which is that the support rates were set for an era when the asylum system was fairly chaotic and the numbers were colossally high. Ten years ago there were five times as many asylum seekers as there were last year. It is that order of magnitude.

Q67 Lindsay Roy: You openly acknowledge that things did not work well and in fact were quite shambolic. What measures have been put in place to make sure that a similar thing does not happen again?

Damian Green: What I said was that clearly the letter, on which we have devoted a lot of our time, should not have gone out in the terms it did. It would be improper for me to repeat private conversations, but I made clear to the Border Agency that people who send letters out to families or individuals who may be vulnerable should consider to whom they are sending them and think about the reception it will have, and anything that goes out needs to pass through senior management or me, if necessary, to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again.

Q68 Lindsay Roy: Therefore, in essence it is about a strategic overview and co-ordination to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again. We are talking here about the finality of a piece of paper coming through, but in essence you have put in place a number of things to ensure that that does not happen again. If I read you rightly, you are saying there is a strategic overview and co-ordination. Would that be right?

Damian Green: It is partly a systems change to make sure the right people are involved at the right time, but it is also, if you like, a message that everyone wants from public sector organisations that they should be conscious of the individuals with whom they are dealing. It is not just a systemic change; it is a cultural shift as well.

Q69 Lindsay Roy: Who is monitoring that on a UK-wide basis? Is it yourselves?

Damian Green: Ultimately, I am responsible as the Minister. On a UK-wide basis it would be Matthew as head of the Immigration Group who is responsible for this area.

Q70 Fiona O’ Donnell: I imagine that the role of the devolution champion would be key to that. Has the devolution champion in your Department been involved?

Damian Green: Oddly enough, in this case, particularly as it is families, it would be our children’s champion, but I repeat, and I don’t want to go on too long on the same subject, that because immigration is not a devolved issue we tend to do things on a UK-wide basis and, therefore, Matthew as the UK head will be responsible for all of this.

Q71 Fiona O’ Donnell: I would not have thought that the fact it was a reserved issue was a reason for the role of the devolution champion to be less but more. Who is the devolution champion in your Department?

Damian Green: We don’t have a devolution champion because we are not devolved.

Q72 Fion a O’ Donnell: You do not have a devolution champion?

Damian Green: But Mr Roy’s point about who is responsible for this is a very good one. Just as we are having these negotiations with Glasgow City Council in Scotland, we are having similar negotiations with local authorities and private sector providers across the UK. One of the lessons we have learnt from this letter, which I agree with the Committee was somewhat less than ideal, is that we are trying not to do that in other parts of the UK. Therefore, genuinely this is not a devolution issue; this is an issue about how the UKBA performs its function and I am seeking to improve that.

Q73 David Mowat: I would like to ask a little more about the cost structure of your relationship with Glasgow City Council. You wrote to us and said that the amount they were asking for would have been a 48% increase in the prevailing rate and a further 13% in terms of the final thing. Was Glasgow one of the most expensive suppliers in the first place?

Damian Green: Yes, and it was becoming more so. We think that under the new contract there will be savings of around £4 million. Glasgow was not just significantly more expensive than other voluntary and private sector providers but was also significantly more expensive than any other local authority provider in the country. Obviously, there is a range of figures across the country. If you want the actual numbers, the existing charges are more than 35% above the average national price of all private and local authority providers. The proposed changes Glasgow put to us would make them range between 48% to 75% above the national average and would have put them between 13% and 33% above the next most expensive local authority. So you can see the logic.

Q74 David Mowat: In a sense, the ultimatum they gave you was that, with the decrease of the throughput you were able to give them, unless you were able to agree to that price structure, they wanted the contract terminated. That was the scenario.

Damian Green: Indeed, and I can see it is a rational view. I assume they have taken a view of their costs and have decided that they can only do it at a level, which clearly from the taxpayers’ point of view was very difficult for us.

Q75 David Mowat: I am interested in why it was that Glasgow would require more cost, if you like, in order to provide, presumably, a similar level of service to other people, or were they providing a better service?

Damian Green: They were providing a perfectly good service. As I say, I have no criticism of the service provided by Glasgow City Council or the way they have behaved in this. It is a commercial transaction. They were providing acceptable services, as other private providers do in Glasgow and as public sector, voluntary sector and private providers do in the rest of the country. But it was clear that they could not do it at a price that we found acceptable and so we took the decision we did. Why they could not do it at that price is genuinely a question for Glasgow City Council and not us.

Q76 David Mowat: You said they were round about a third higher than other local authorities and yet they were the local authority that you were using the most historically.

Damian Green: Local authorities have to bid for the business. I think I am right in saying, because this was before my time, that they were the only local authority in Scotland to bid. Since for obvious reasons it is helpful to have asylum seekers dispersed around the country and clearly we don’t want to neglect any part of the country, obviously some need to be placed in Scotland, and Glasgow City Council was the only Scottish local authority to bid originally.

Q77 David Mowat: The £4 million saving you spoke about relates to the Ypeople contract. That is a unit price significantly different from what Glasgow was able to offer.

Damian Green: Yes.

Q78 Fiona O’ Donnell: What reasons did Glasgow City Council offer for their higher costs?

Phil Taylor: I don’t know because I was not directly involved in the negotiations, which were handled by the contract team, but the reasoning we were given was that they simply could not run the contract in the way they were running it for less. To do it at less cost would result in them subsidising the contract.

Q79 Fiona O’ Donnell: Was a breakdown of those costs offered by GCC?

Phil Taylor: I expect there probably was, but I have not seen it.

Q80 Fiona O’ Donnell: Who would have seen that?

Phil Taylor: That would have been the contract negotiating team.

Q81 Fiona O’ Donnell: That is helpful. Have there been issues with other providers in Scotland in relation to their contracts with UKBA?

Damian Green: There are not many providers, as I say. Glasgow was the only local authority that had ever bid to do this kind of housing role in Scotland, so we have no other comparators in the local authority sector.

Q82 Fiona O’ Donnell: But there are other providers in Scotland. Ypeople and Angel were already providing the service.

Damian Green: What differences are there between them other than cost?

Q83 Fiona O’ Donnell: I just wonder whether they had had issues with reimbursement by UKBA.

Phil Taylor: No. The interesting point I made to the Committee when we met in Glasgow was that during the renegotiation process about 60 providers across the UK put in bids to extend their contracts and none of them proposed to increase its price.

Q84 Fiona O’ Donnell: Again, that is very helpful. During our evidence session with Glasgow City Council they spoke about other costs to the council as a result of housing asylum seekers. Phil, you were clear in explaining to us that that was not part of the contract or the responsibility of UKBA. My question is probably one for the Minister. Is it correct that the pupil premium in England is additional money for pupils?

Damian Green: It is additional money for those pupils and obviously through them to the schools which have those pupils that qualify for the pupil premium.

Q85 Fiona O’ Donnell: Some of the pupils who qualify are children who are asylum seekers or are in a family that is seeking asylum. Does that mean additional money has gone to the Scottish Government? I understand it is then for the Scottish Government to decide how to spend it, but, as a result of the pupil premium, is additional money going to Scotland which may help local authorities to offset the cost of educating children in asylum seeking families?

Damian Green: If it is under the Barnett formula, which I assume it would be, it is for the Scottish Government to deploy, because historically those other services would have been helped by the Migration Impacts Fund which no longer exists. That happens directly with local authorities in England, but in Scotland the extra Migration Impacts Fund money goes to the Scottish Government. It is then for the Scottish Government to decide how to spend it. I am not trying to avoid the question, but genuinely I have no control over what the Scottish Government does. It is for them to decide whether to spend it on asylum seekers or not.

Q86 Fiona O’ Donnell: I was just questioning whether or not additional money had gone to the Scottish Government. I understand they can spend it on salt in bad weather, but I just want an assurance that children who are asylum seekers in Scotland are not losing out.

Damian Green: I am afraid that is a question for the Scottish Government; that is a devolved power.

Q87 Fiona O’ Donnell: The money went to the Scottish Government?

Damian Green: Yes, absolutely. The whole Migration Impacts Fund was worth £35 million per annum. Last year the Scottish Government got about £2.3 million and this year it will have about £1.3 million, but it is entirely up to them whether they spend it on asylum-seeking children or anything else.

Q88 Chair: To be fair, in our discussions with Glasgow their policy, quite understandably, was that they did not want any of the costs of helping the British Government to accommodate asylum seekers to fall unduly upon their council taxpayers. Therefore, they wanted the entire costs they incurred to be met by the UKBA. That meant that all the costs involved in the contract were being passed on to UKBA, which was why the rate was high, whereas for other local authorities down south some of the cost for educational and social work services was being met by central government via another route in the way that perhaps the Scottish Government have not been providing in Scotland. Part of the difficulty is that the Angel and Ypeople bids will only contain with them the accommodation element of the contract, whereas the costs for education and social work will then fall on council taxpayers. Obviously, Glasgow, as a city in some financial difficulty, wants to avoid that situation if possible. I am wondering whether or not there is a way in which the UK Government can seek to assist Glasgow with these additional costs given that they are incurred directly in pursuit of UK Government policy in terms of accommodating and dispersing asylum seekers.

Damian Green: Obviously, they are not unique to Glasgow because there are concentrations of asylum seekers. If, as is probably true, children are more expensive, because of schooling and so on, there will be other areas of the country where, frankly, there are more. It is a constant negotiation between central and local government about the levels of support. I have seen this from both ends as an MP from Kent, which is one of the areas where there are a lot of them. I am sure there will continue to be discussions between both Glasgow and the Scottish Government and Glasgow and the UK Government about what is appropriate in those fields. But it has been the case that Glasgow’s first port of call needs to be the Scottish Government because for things like education and many other forms of support this is a devolved function and the Scottish Government have the ability to decide how to spend their money.

Q89 Chair: So, if we are asking for money, that’s a no, then?

Damian Green: I think I have expanded quite fully.

Q90 David Mowat: Chairman, what you have said is quite a serious point. If we are saying that the reason Glasgow charges 30% to 40% more than, say, Liverpool is that in some way English councils receive a degree of help from central government which councils in Scotland do not receive because the Scottish Government, although they have received it via the Barnett consequentials, have chosen to spend it elsewhere, it would seem that the Scottish Government are making a de facto decision to pull out of this business, which caused this whole problem in the first place.

Damian Green: They may not have taken a de facto decision; they may have taken a decision by accident.

Q91 David Mowat: But if a supplier says to a principal, "I’m going to put up my services by 40% or I don’t want the business," that could be construed as a de facto request not to do the business.

Damian Green: I suspect that as Minister I should not speculate on the motives of either Glasgow City Council or the Scottish Government, but the key point is the Barnett consequentials. That is how public spending flows through to Scotland.

Q92 Dr Whiteford: Can I ask for some clarification? My reading of the briefing we received in the papers from the National Audit Office is that this Department’s spending is not affected by Barnett. I refer to the final paragraph of the National Audit Office paper under No. 4, that in fact it’s not subject to the Barnett formula. I also recall, however, that when we took evidence in Glasgow it was pointed out to us that the Scottish Government had made some significant contributions towards asylum seeker provision in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. That seems to be somewhat lost in this afternoon’s debate.

Damian Green: The appropriate part of the Migration Impacts Fund was transferred through the Barnett formula to the Scottish Government, but I am concerned that I am being asked questions which are actually for the Scottish Government.

Mike Freer: I want to try to clarify that while the UK Border Agency may not have the Barnett formula impact, my understanding of how the social costs are funded, which is picking up on what Damian said, is that London and the rest of the UK local authorities get extra funding under an equalisation formula which reflects the social costs of their boroughs and populations. That is exactly the same way that the Barnett formula also impacts. I think the Minister is right that the Scottish Government have had the extra social costs factored into their grant, and if they have not passed it on it seems to rest at the door of the Scottish Government rather than that London has not passed the money forward to the city of Glasgow.

Q93 Lindsay Roy: There seems to be some dubiety about this. I think it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify whether or not it is the case that the money for asylum seekers to cover additional costs such as education is Barnettised.

Damian Green: The whole of the UKBA budget would not be Barnettised, if that is an appropriate verb, because, the UKBA, particularly in terms of the money it spends on support, is, inevitably, not consistent across England and Wales. Therefore, there isn’t a formula to apply because we spend the money specifically in those areas where asylum seekers tend to congregate: around Heathrow, so Hillingdon, and around Dover, therefore Kent, and other parts of the country like Croydon. Historically, however, over the past few years the Migration Impacts Fund was specifically designed for these sorts of pressures. That was subject to a Barnett formula distribution to Scotland, but, as we keep saying, the money was there and it was then for the Scottish Government to decide how to spend it. It is for the Scottish Government to decide whether or not they were spending it the right way.

Q94 Chair: I wonder whether I might pick up an answer given by Phil and address it to Mr Coats. When you were asked whether or not there was an explanation of why Glasgow’s bid was greater, you indicated that any breakdown would have gone to the central contracts section. Do you have any of that which would allow us to clarify why Glasgow’s bid was more expensive?

Matthew Coats: I do not have it to hand, but we can certainly look to provide the relevant information. I can do that via Phil and make sure the relevant discussions happen.

Q95 Chair: Did you not think of bringing it with you? You have had some notice of this hearing. I would have thought that bringing financial information relating to the matter under discussion might have been something one of your staff could have considered and advised you on. Minister, I think it is a reasonable point for us to make that we expect staff to be prepared for discussions like this. Arising from a previous point, my understanding is that when we met in Glasgow on 29 November, at that stage, the UKBA had not had any meeting with Ypeople, and that was three weeks after the letter had gone out. Is that correct?

Phil Taylor: I am not sure we had had a formal meeting, but we had certainly had conversations with them.

Q96 Chair: But it is hardly an indication of things being pursued seriously, is it, if there is no meeting at all for over three weeks from the letter coming out? In a sense it gets worse and worse. Finally, on this section, can I clarify whether or not it is the UKBA’s intention for the longer term to continue to have asylum seekers coming to Glasgow?

Damian Green: We know that not only do Ypeople not only want to take over this contract but to extend it. They have bid for that, so yes is the short answer.

Chair: There is an anxiety that the UKBA might decide to pull out altogether. Obviously, we wanted to clarify that.

Q97 Mr Reid: A letter from the National Audit Office says that, if the children of asylum seekers go to a school in England, then that school gets extra money under a formula. Does that extra money cause the Department for Education’s budget to increase, or would it simply be taken out of an existing budget which would not increase?

Damian Green: The school gets extra money for the asylum seeker.

Q98 Mr Reid: According to the letter from the National Audit Office, "Schools will receive additional funding for children of asylum seekers that fall into these categories at the same rate as any other pupil, ie £430 per pupil."

Fiona O’ Donnell: That is the pupil premium.

Damian Green: Yes.

Q99 Mr Reid: The question I am asking is: every time an asylum seeker with children gets placed in England, does that cause the budget of the Department for Education to increase, or would that money simply be taken out of a budget that is already fixed?

Damian Green: Because the pupil premium has not started yet those discussions are still being had. In the past it has been the case that the support for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children was divided between the Department for Education and the UK Border Agency. The Home Office-UKBA-took over all of that a couple of years ago largely for simplicity; it was just confusing to everybody to have two different central government departments with which they had to negotiate all the time.

Matthew Coats: That is exactly right. Except for the situation of the Migration Impacts Fund that the Minister described and because the pupil premium is not yet implemented, I believe the description that Mr Freer gave earlier of how the money is allocated is accurate.

Q100 Mr Reid: The point I am trying to get at is that there would only be a Barnett consequential if the budget of the Department for Education actually increased. That’s the point I am trying to get at. Every time an asylum seeker’s child is placed with a school in England is there a Barnett consequential, because there would be one only if the budget of the Department for Education automatically increased?

Damian Green: I will have to get back to you on that. The Barnett consequentials for the budget of the Department for Education are slightly outside my remit.

Q101 Mr Reid: I can accept that, but the point is that if there is no Barnett consequential then the Scottish Government don’t get any extra money.

Damian Green: Yes. That is why I make the point that that was what the Migration Impacts Fund was about.

Q102 Fiona O’ Donnell: Surely, that situation will change when the pupil premium comes in because the Minister has stated that this is additional money.

Damian Green: I said it was additional money for the pupils. Clearly, that pupil attracts extra money. How the pupil premium applies to asylum-seeking children and how the potential Barnett consequentials will work are matters to be dealt with.

Fiona O’ Donnell: That is why you need a devolution champion.

Q103 Fiona Bruce: I want to go back to some comments made by the Minister earlier about the reduction in the number of asylum seekers and understand the bigger picture in relation to UKBA funding overall. First, Mr Coats, what is the annual budget of the UKBA?

Matthew Coats: It is about £2.3 billion.

Q104 Fiona Bruce: You will need to help me with my maths here. I understand from your latest annual report that about £70 million of savings will be required. Is it right that that relates in a dedicated way to providing support to asylum seekers?

Matthew Coats: It is. I am just trying to think of the best way to amplify that. A very large component of our budget is the housing and subsistence costs of asylum seekers. As the number of asylum seekers needing support falls the requirement for that budget falls. In the last year or so we have seen a considerable reduction in that budget which had been in excess of £500 million to well below that now, and further savings are planned over the coming years. Some of those savings are related to keeping asylum intake low and therefore not needing to support as many people, and part of the savings are related to getting better value for money in the cost per asylum seeker through seeking efficiency in housing costs, etcetera. Yes, we have assumed that we will make further savings in that area, but that is set alongside making savings in almost every area of what we do. Broadly speaking, it is roughly a 20% saving across the board over the spending review period for our organisation as a whole.

Q105 Fiona Bruce: I think you have answered my question. If I am right, therefore, the percentage of your budget for supporting asylum seekers at about £70 million of over £500 million is something over 10%, whereas the Minister’s figures given to us were that a reduction in Glasgow of approaching 50% in the numbers of asylum seekers has occurred over the last year, if you extrapolate the last six months over the whole year. It is 25% in six months.

Damian Green: It would be quite heroic to think the numbers will keep going down on that.

Q106 Fiona Bruce: But it is clearly substantially more than the reduction in the overall UKBA budget for supporting asylum seekers.

Matthew Coats: I am not sure that it’s that stark a difference. The Minister was referring not to the cost of asylum seekers but the overall numbers of people accommodated within the asylum system, which has fallen dramatically over 2010. It has also fallen in Glasgow but not to exactly the same degree, and I am not sure it is possible to map on that 25% figure or a particular percentage in cost because there tends to be a bit of a lag in terms of the way the money comes back.

Q107 Fiona Bruce: The comfort I seek perhaps on behalf of those who have to provide this kind of support in Scotland is that much of the £70 million is contained in a reduction in numbers rather than efficiency savings.

Matthew Coats: That is correct.

Q108 Jim McGovern: Is there any valid explanation as to why the numbers are reducing?

Matthew Coats: I don’t know. It may well be a matter of opinion rather than fact. The Government have sought to make sure the asylum system operates as efficiently and effectively as possible, that it deals with cases quickly, that backlogs don’t grow up, that large numbers of people are not caught in limbo and that where they are due to be given refugee status they are given that quickly and where they are not they are removed quickly. One interpretation could well be of an asylum system that is working well, but there are other factors. Numbers are going up in different parts of Europe. I think it’s a matter of interpretation.

Damian Green: The factual case is that in several other European countries that are major receivers of asylum claims the numbers have gone up whereas they have been coming down in the UK. Undoubtedly, some of it is because our borders are better and more secure than they were a few years ago. The other reason is that we are doing our best to get through the huge backlog as fast as possible. There was a notorious backlog of 450,000 cases discovered in the middle years of the last decade. At the same time we are improving our systems so that we can take decisions and process people through faster so that they get from end to end of the process faster. Obviously, the more you can do that, the fewer people you have hanging around for years. In the past we have had people hanging around in this country for years not knowing their asylum status, which is not much good for them and it’s no good for the taxpayer either.

One of the purposes of setting up an Asylum Improvement Project was precisely to make the system faster, and one of the knock-on effects of that may well be a reduction in the number of asylum seekers who need accommodation at any one time. Clearly, I would not say that just because the line has done that for six months it will keep doing that, because one thing that is outside the control of the British Government is what happens in other parts of the world. It is perfectly clear that one of the reasons for the asylum system falling apart in the last decade was the massive increase of claims from the Balkans because there were wars there. We don’t control what happens overseas. What we can control is our own systems and our own systems are getting better.

Q109 Chair: Perhaps we could draw this section to a close. Having spoken to the council and other people, my understanding is that they are now aiming for the date of 4 April as the transition date. My understanding is that everybody says, if everything goes well, that will be the date. Is that also your understanding?

Damian Green: Yes.

Q110 Chair: Let us turn now to other matters related to the Department because while we have you here we thought we would raise some other issues. We are quite keen to pick up not only this but also work relating to the UKBA and we were using as our text the report of the Home Affairs Committee on the work of the UKBA. There are a number of things in there which I would like to raise with you. If you do not have the information immediately, not necessarily anticipating this, it would be reasonable for you to provide it to us later on. The first point I want to pick up relates to foreign national prisoners inasmuch as it applies to Scotland. If you don’t have it now, could you let us have an indication of how many of the backlog relate to Scotland? How many foreign national prisoners have been deported from Scotland in the financial year 2009-10? How many are in jail at the moment with a deportation or removal instruction against them? Are there any issues relating to deportation in your relationship with the courts in Scotland that are different from those in England?

Damian Green: I have some of those figures to hand. There is a total of 270 foreign national prisoners. Of those, 23 are time served, if you like; they are there because we have not been able to remove them yet. There are another 64 who are time served in Dungavel. Do you want that in the context of how many there are across the UK?

Chair: Yes; that would be helpful.

Damian Green: In the Prison Estate across the whole of the UK there are 708 time-served foreign national prisoners and another 903 in UKBA detention centres.

Q111 Chair: Is there anything relating to the prisoners in Scotland that is in any way different from the position in England and Wales? Is there anything that we as the Scottish Affairs Committee should be aware of or concerned about that is particularly Scottish?

Damian Green: I do not think so in terms of the prisons. The one big issue we have had is the different treatment of judicial review by the courts. It has been more difficult to remove people who have come to the end of the process, who are all rights exhausted and really have to go back home, in Scotland than in England because of the different judicial systems. In that context we have been talking to the Scottish legal authorities. Lord Gill’s report recognised the pressures that the immigration and asylum judicial review cases placed on the courts in Scotland and adopted some recommendations from the UKBA. Some of these require primary legislation in the Scottish Parliament. I am not holding my breath between now and May, but as far as I am concerned that is the biggest single difference between Scotland and England. I think that would be a very fruitful area for this Committee to investigate.

Q112 Chair: To finish on the question of foreign national prisoners, it would be helpful if you could let us have a note of the figures and any other information, in particular whether or not there is a discrepancy between Scotland and England about where, say, prisoners have come from or anything similar that you think may be of interest to us.

On the question of judicial review, again, many of us who have dealt with a large number of asylum cases are aware of the difficulties and the abuses to which judicial review is sometimes subject. Again, it would be helpful if you could let us have a note indicating both the issues and the progress that has been made so far, and is still to be made, in order that we are in position to take this up.

One of the other issues that I want to pick up with you is legacy cases. Again, we recognise that the numbers of legacy cases are quite substantially being brought down, but, as you will appreciate, you can eliminate all the legacy cases simply by granting them permission to stay. Obviously, that is something that would concern us. Certainly something I have noticed in my constituency is that some of the applications that seem to have been granted ought, in my view, not to have been.

Can you give us some information later on, if you don’t have it to hand, to indicate the progress and disposal of legacy cases in Scotland: the percentage removed, those who are allowed to remain and those that are cleared off the books? The statistics that went to the Home Affairs Committee identified only those for Scotland. My understanding is that from July to September 2010 only 2% of the resolved cases were actual removals; 42% were given permission to settle. It rather looks as if carte blanche is being given. Therefore, it would be helpful if you could let us have the figures for Scotland to see whether or not there is any difference between the two and any explanations for any difference.

Damian Green: I don’t have the details of the Scottish figures; we will send them to you. Obviously there isn’t any kind of amnesty operating. There is the practical point that one of the things that gives people a right to remain is the establishment of family life in this country and, therefore, as we get to the end of this very long project of clearing up this appalling backlog we are often dealing with people who may have been in this country for 10 or 12 years. Therefore, it is not surprising that more of them have established family life here. That is just a practical reality.

The other reality is that many of them have disappeared off the radar. A lot of them are ex-students and nobody knows what has happened to them. The overwhelming likelihood is that they have gone home. Therefore, we will have to accept that, of the 450,000 cases, many tens of thousands of them disappeared off the radar of the British State in 2005 and may never be seen again. What we are doing is putting in something we call a controlled archive so that every six months we check that these people appear not to be in this country. There comes a point when it is a waste of time checking; we will just assume they have gone because they are not impinging on the State in any way. The best guess is that they have gone away. That is why the removal figures are very low. It is a combination of those two things, and it is intuitively sensible that the number of people you have lost touch with and the number of people who have established a right to be here will be greater the longer you leave them here.

One of the purposes of the Asylum Improvement Project I have set up is precisely to avoid developing this kind of huge backlog again because the net result, when you get to the end of the backlog, is that you have situations like this. Obviously, I will let you have the detailed figures for Scotland.

Q113 Chair: I understand much of that, as you’ll appreciate, but I also understand that the rules to which you are working have now been changed. In the past, those who had stayed here for 10 to 12 years were assumed to have unbreakable family ties, whereas now it is reduced to about six to eight years, which allows many more people to stay, who would not under the previous rules have been allowed automatically or semi-automatically to stay.

Damian Green: The rules have not changed. For some years there has been a 14year rule by which one is deemed to have established rights to stay. But, if people are living here, then over time they will have children and things like that. If they have established children here, once they go to the courts they are much more likely to establish family rights.

Q114 Chair: When I spoke to the Glasgow UKBA I raised precisely this point about clearing the backlog. I was told that it was the easiest ones. Those who were likely to be given permission to stay had already to a great extent been cleared. Of those who are still here, presumably, by definition, they would less likely to have been given automatic permission to stay. I would be perplexed if we ended up then with an enormously high percentage of those previously deemed to be inappropriate remainers then being waved through.

Damian Green: The rules are not changing. The decision was taken years before my time in office that, rather than delve into the archive, look round and select cases that you could solve easily, that would waste so much time. You start, as it were, at the top of the pile and work down. It is my understanding that at every stage nobody has quite known what is in the next folder you open because they are just going through them to get through it as fast as possible, and even then it has taken four years.

Q115 Chair: I want to touch on questions of bogus colleges and related issues. Is this a particular issue in Scotland? Again, if you don’t have information to hand maybe you could let us have something about this. I know that the converse of unduly tight restrictions that penalise some of our universities is also an issue that Mr Roy wants to raise.

Damian Green: I am not conscious that there is a particular Scottish issue with bogus colleges. It is an issue all over the UK.

Q116 Lindsay Roy: On the issue related to universities, the principal of the university of St Andrews has written to me indicating that at a time when budgets are very tight there are issues on student and university funding. An embargo has been put on the number of non-EU students who can go to St Andrews university thereby affecting its financial base. They are obviously quite concerned about it. I think they will write to you about it personally.

Damian Green: We are coming towards the end of a consultation period about our proposals for students and universities like St Andrews should not be adversely affected in any way at all. Having discovered that 41% of those people who come to Britain on student visas are doing sub-degree courses, our image of top universities like Southampton, which are bringing in some of the brightest and best from around the world and educating them, is fine; nobody has any problems with that. There is a very large subsection of people where the educational quality needs to be investigated. At the bottom end there are bogus colleges, and we need to discover whether people use this route to evade immigration rules essentially. That 41% is many tens of thousands of people.

Q117 Lindsay Roy: We understand that, but there is a real concern that their income stream will be diminished considerably.

Damian Green: We are in the middle of consultation and they will have contributed. We have also held three specific consultation forums in Scotland, one of them with Scottish universities specifically. Clearly, there will be nuances with a different education system that we need to understand at UKBA level. One is aware that whenever one changes anything people are fearful of what will happen to them, but St Andrews should not be fearful.

Q118 Dr Whiteford: I echo Lindsay’s concern. I represent part of the north-east of Scotland. Right across the country there are world-class universities. The principal of Aberdeen university has made representations to me about his problems not just in terms of loss of revenue from foreign students but the whole issue of getting visas for academic staff. Bona fide world leaders in their field are not able to live and work here because of changes to the rules that allow people to come here. That has been expressed to me. It is not just simply about students coming; it is about academic staff.

A similar concern has been raised with me about the oil and gas industry. Again, it is a globalised industry and one in which Aberdeenshire is a world centre of excellence, but it is one where there is a lot of coming and going. A lot of people work overseas and come to Aberdeen to work from all over the world, including countries outside the EU like Norway and the USA. It has been said to me that it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain visas. People have real concerns that they will not be able to move people within companies in the way they have up to now and they have real worries about that.

Damian Green: I make two points. As to academic staff and employment in the oil companies, over the past few months we introduced an interim limit for work visas which applies also to academic staff. It lasts from June, when we introduced it, to April, when the permanent system will come in. Inevitably, there were worries, stresses and strains in the early months. My impression is that people have now worked out what the system is and know what the rules are from April. That was after a lot of consultation with business and universities as businesses as well. The CBI and other business groups have welcomed where we have landed for the permanent cap.

As to the point you make about inter-company transfers particularly in the oil industry, again we consulted hard. We have rules coming in that, if you bring in someone for under 12 months, you can stick with the current arrangements where the minimum salary is £24,000. If you bring someone in for more than 12 months, the minimum salary will be £40,000 a year. Many industries we have consulted on this have said that’s fine and they use inter-company transfers to bring in people with particular specialist skills, or senior managers and so on. My guess is that that would apply quite hard to the oil and gas industry. As you say, the people who come to do that are highly skilled and therefore highly paid. I would hope that legitimate inter-company transfers of specialists and senior managers will be able to proceed under the new system.

Q119 Lindsay Roy: There is also an issue about threshold salaries in different parts of the country. I dealt with you directly on a case where there was an expectation that there would be a certain level of salary that perhaps is not appropriate in a more rural part of Scotland given comparisons with salaries elsewhere. If we take a south-east England model and use that as a threshold, perhaps it is over-exaggerated compared with the level of salary elsewhere.

Damian Green: We have not taken a south-east of England model, otherwise you could take the City of London and probably get a radically different set of thresholds. The thresholds have to be national, otherwise the bureaucracy would become mind-boggling. I think we can hit the right levels. The business groups themselves have welcomed what we announced.

Q120 Fiona Bruce: Thank you very much for agreeing to take some additional questions. I realise that you probably won’t be able to answer these today but I would like to highlight them and ask you to come back to us. They all relate to human trafficking in particular in relation to Scotland. In July, the Home Secretary said that tackling human trafficking was a coalition priority and the Government were currently considering how to improve their response to that sort of crime.

My first question is: could you ask your devolution champion, who I know is busily working away on such issues in the interests of Scotland, to review how the two Governments can work together on this issue? So many of the areas that need to be worked on are shared.

This is my second question. To give you some examples, there is a modest-sized refuge in Glasgow called the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance, or TARA. It has quite a lot of experience in dealing with this. It says it has evidence that shows an increase in human trafficking and has quite a lot of experience in dealing with this, particularly an increase in sex trafficking in the big cities: Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. They would like an initiative so that known brothels, sauna parlours and lap-dancing establishments can be ascertained with reasonably trained officers with a view to looking for trafficked women. That really straddles local policing, which of course is devolved, but it is very much something that asylum seekers are at risk of falling into. That is the second of my specific questions.

The third question is-

Chair: Do you want to take them one at a time?

Damian Green: Yes.

Chair: It might be easier to do that.

Fiona Bruce: I’m sorry. I would be delighted. I didn’t want to spring this on you, Minister.

Damian Green: I just want to give it some context, if you like. Following what the Home Secretary said last summer, we will be announcing a new trafficking strategy as part of the organised crime strategy that will be announced sometime over the next few months; we will be doing it in the spring. Trafficking will obviously be one of the priorities of the new National Crime Agency that will be set up over the next couple of years. We will adapt the current trafficking strategy, which does some very good things particularly in terms of looking after the victims, but I want to move it upstream to have much greater operation in the source countries from which people are sent. We think that is where we can be most effective in prevention rather than cure. Obviously, a lot still has to be done in this country. You are quite right that a lot of it falls in specific local areas and on local police forces, so there will still be a devolution element of it in Scotland.

Q121 Fiona Bruce: I am obliged. My third point has been raised by your former colleague Anthony Steen, who heads the Human Trafficking Foundation. He would like me to highlight the situation in the Scottish fishing industry. He says that in Scottish coastal waters there are cases of foreign fishermen in forced labour who are confined to boats. This is regularly cropping up, is a highly hidden issue and requires thorough investigation. I would like to highlight that to you, if I may.

Damian Green: It is interesting because lots of demands were made 18 months ago that, in a sense, we should make it easier for people to bring non-EU labour into the Scottish fishing industry. The previous Government listened to that and set a quota of 1,500 over a limited period of time between 1 March and 31 May last year in which people could apply to come. Of those 1,500 visas, there were only 63 applications. The Committee can draw its own conclusions. There are people round this table with much greater expertise than me, but it seems to me that, therefore, the demand to bring people in from outside for the fishing industry was considerably less than the attendant noise would suggest. Those are just the facts.

Q122 Mr Reid: It was 1,500 in the fishing industry.

Damian Green: There was a specific concession for three months which would grant leave for up to 18 months to enable the industry to adjust to the new system. After that concession was made there were only 63 applications.

Q123 Mr Reid: Perhaps you can clarify the circumstances in which fishermen from outside the EU would need a work permit. First, what is the limit offshore where you would have to be fishing in order not to need a UK work permit?

Damian Green: There is an onshore and offshore limit. Phil, you are more expert in this than I am. Is it 12 miles?

Phil Taylor: It is 12 miles. Regulation of crew is governed by international agreements, not general immigration rules. There is a provision, which we know is being abused, to allow crew changes to happen for international-going vessels in the UK. Therefore, a ship comes into Southampton; the crew has been on board for three months; they take shore leave, get a plane and go home; the new crew flies in, takes the ship and away it goes. This was picked up by the fishing industry. Additional numbers of fishermen were being brought in under that provision. Although the vessels were sailing beyond the 12mile limit, which is the international convention, they were coming straight back to the UK port and never leaving the UK. That was an issue. In some cases, particularly on the west coast, they were not leaving the 12-mile limit and were not entitled to that concession, which is what we were trying to regularise here.

Q124 Mr Reid: As to the 12-mile limit, how do you deal with the likes of the Firth of Clyde? Are the 12 miles measured from headland to headland?

Phil Taylor: Fortunately, under the Maritime and Coastguard Agency every fishing vessel has a satellite tracker. I am trying to remember. A Scottish Government Department has a tracking record of all the fishing vessels, so we know which ones regularly fish beyond the 12mile limit and which ones fish within it.

Q125 Mr Reid: Is the 12-mile limit measured from headland to headland?

Phil Taylor: I believe there is an international determination as to where our 12-mile limit is but I wouldn’t profess to be an expert.

Q126 Mr Reid: I am sure the fishermen’s argument would be that because of all the islands they can be an awful long way out before you get to 12 miles.

Phil Taylor: The point we were making is that we spent about 18 months discussing with the Scottish fishing industry and the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland industry and Government about their concerns. We brought in a provision to try to address it and the take-up was miniscule. The intelligence we have is that the vast majority of those fishermen have not had their contracts extended. The difficulty is that if you come in on one of those contracts you are governed by international maritime law and, as long as the contract that you contracted to work for is being met, it’s not governed by UK employment law. But the concession required that the national minimum wage would be a minimum standard and also that proper shore-based safe accommodation would be a minimum standard.

Q127 Mr Reid: Under the concession they would be allowed to fish within the 12-mile limit.

Phil Taylor: Those who are already here, or who had been here fishing, would be allowed to continue for up to 18 months to allow the industry to make alternative arrangements.

Q128 Mr Reid: But there can be no new applications.

Phil Taylor: There can be no new first-time applications.

Q129 Mr Reid: Am I right that under the international rules they are allowed to fish outside the 12-mile limit?

Phil Taylor: Technically, yes, they are allowed to fish. That’s the result of the scheme.

Q130 Mr Reid: The issue is: when the boat comes back to port what are the rules that would then govern the non-EU fishermen?

Phil Taylor: They are regarded as crew of the vessel. They can be given shore leave; so they can go ashore provided they leave with the vessel when it next sails.

Q131 Mr Reid: In theory, they could be on the vessel for a long time, come back into port and take shore leave as long as they don’t actually fish within the 12-mile limit. Would that be a correct interpretation?

Phil Taylor: Yes, as long as the vessel operates wholly or substantially beyond the 12mile limit.

Q132 Mr Reid: What is "wholly or substantially"?

Phil Taylor: We are looking at 75%. There is a big line between the inshore fishing fleet and the deep-sea fleet. It is not as if you have 60% of them all in the boundary. A big chunk of them go deep sea and a bit chunk of them stay inshore.

Q133 Mr Reid: So, for deep sea, most of the time they are fishing outside the 12-mile limit.

Phil Taylor: Then non-EU fishermen can be brought in.

Q134 Mr Reid: I remember that at one point there was some understanding that they had to sleep on board the vessel, but are you saying that is not the case? They can go ashore.

Phil Taylor: That is not the case, no.

Q135 Fiona Bruce: My final question relates to what happens to victims of trafficking after their circumstances have been ascertained. Again, according to the Human Trafficking Foundation, if they are deported most of them are re-trafficked. My particular question is: in relation to victims in Scotland what are their long-term prospects if they are given the right to remain? In particular, could I ask about child victims and raise the issue of guardianship? I know earlier this week a question was raised in the House about the problem of child victims perhaps being inhibited from giving evidence because they are not given an independent guardian.

Damian Green: I will write to the Committee in more detail. The specific issue of guardianship has been a proposal for a long time. Clearly, child victims are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable and do get a huge amount of support and friendship. Whether one wants to allocate guardians to everyone is, I think, a more debatable point, but I am very conscious of the need for protection in that area in particular, as there is of all victims of trafficking.

Fiona Bruce: That is very good of you. Perhaps you could do that, as I said at the start, in the context of this complication of reserved and devolved powers addressing this issue.

Q136 Fiona O’ Donnell: I want to go back to education and universities. With the rise in tuition fees south of the Border, Scottish universities already face very difficult challenges. I am sure that Lindsay welcomes your reassurance that a university like St Andrews will not be affected. I also have a university in my constituency, Queen Margaret. Its principal, Petra Wend, has written to me again expressing concerns. We are not talking about bogus colleges. We are talking about fine educational institutions in Scotland that will need that income from nonEU students more than ever. Can we take this as a reassurance that following the consultation-I know the consultation is under way-they will not be adversely affected?

Damian Green: We have said in the consultation document that our overall approach is based on minimising non-compliance and the number of people who exploit student visas to come here to work, to bring their dependants here or just to stay here. We discovered that 20% of those who came on student visas in 2004 were still in this country in 2009. This is not anyone’s popular idea, if you like, of the student who comes here to a university, undertakes a course for three or four years in Scotland and then goes home. A lot of that is not happening. We have said that we will raise the level of the courses students can study. If you want to bring in people under degree level you must be a highly trusted sponsor. We need to make sure that students go home after their course and limit the associated entitlements, like work or bringing in dependants. We want to simplify the procedures for low-risk applications so that respectable institutions can fish for students around the world, and we will require stricter accreditation procedures for sub-degree level colleges in the private sector where a lot of the problems emerge. Those are the principles of the consultation and, therefore, a respectable university behaving respectably should not suffer.

Q137 Fiona O’ Donnell: As to the figure of 20%, I am sure you are aware that in Scotland we encourage graduates to stay on under the Fresh Talent initiative. Does that figure of 20% include those students in Scotland who stay on as part of that initiative?

Damian Green: They are UK figures. The first cohort for which we can do it, just because the figures were not there before, is 2004. I cannot remember when Fresh Talent started; it was a bit after that. I think it was after that.

Q138 Fiona O’ Donnell: It would only be a year after.

Damian Green: Therefore, factually it probably doesn’t include them.

Q139 Fiona O’ Donnell: 2005.

Damian Green: Yes.

Q140 Chair: In all of this, what we are looking for is the Scottish dimension of it. There are a couple of other issues relating to illegal working in Scotland and sham marriages that I will not pick up now. If there are particular issues there that would be relevant to us, we would be grateful if you would pick them up. One final point relates to the Family Returns project that operates in Scotland and has cost the UKBA and Scottish Government about £750,000. It was the alternative to detention for families. As I understand it, some 45 families have gone through it at a cost of £750,000 and precisely no families have gone home voluntarily. Now, this does not seem to be value for money. I understand from the UKBA that in the west of Scotland some families have been removed once they have come out of the scheme, but the whole concept of closing Dungavel and jail facilities for children was that it would be a voluntary alternative, which clearly is not working. First, is that correct, and, secondly, what is being done now?

Damian Green: It is correct that nobody who was specifically in that project at the time has gone back, though, as you say, others have come forward. One of the side effects has been a much greater awareness of the fact that you can get assisted voluntary returns, which in a sense we would prefer. It is easier for families and cheaper for the taxpayer, because compulsory removal is just more expensive than voluntary removal. This was a project run, as it happens, by Glasgow City Council. We have learned lessons from it because, as you say, we have now moved to a national scheme. We are searching for alternatives to detention. This is one of a number of pilots that we have been operating. This was the first one. Yes, it’s impossible to say. We don’t know what the solution is because nobody has gone back.

Q141 Chair: This has been a failure, hasn’t it? By any stretch of the imagination, a voluntary return scheme that has no voluntary returns would not seem to be a great success.

Damian Green: It is obviously disappointing. One has to be realistic about this. What I can say is that we have learnt lessons. There are some things where you can encourage people, and it has been a useful project. We have now devised this new system that we will be operating which focuses much more on various areas that I sense the Committee will not want to hear about in detail at this moment, but genuinely it was a brave attempt. We have seen some things that work and some things that don’t work, and we will draw from that going ahead.

Q142 Chair: None of it has worked. When I was a councillor on Strathclyde, I remember that the social work department described it as a valuable learning experience any time they made a disastrous mess of something. This has been a complete failure. As I understand it, you as Minister have not signed off on any family at all being removed since May 2010. In circumstances where no family has been removed from Scotland, that sends a pretty clear message that if you do not accept voluntary return or you spin it out then nothing happens.

Damian Green: Which is precisely the message we do not want. One of the reasons I am being careful with my language is that a report on the project has been commissioned from Barnardo’s, which is due to report in March. Therefore, out of good order, I should not prejudge until I have read that report.

Chair: I think that has drawn things to a close. I thank you, Minister, for being open and helpful as ever. We have enjoyed our session with you. In relation to the UK Border Agency staff in Glasgow, I and most of my colleagues have always found them open and helpful. They have not always given us the sort of results that we might have wanted to see from whatever direction we were coming, and occasionally some have been a wee bit grumpy, but that is to be expected in the circumstances. Thank you very much for your attendance here today.