Immigration

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Wilson of Dinton

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord very nicely gives us a taste of his Question on Monday, which will be asked in a different context—that of borders. This Statement is not quite about preparations for Brexit or the sheer number of applications; it is about a specific cohort of people for whom guidance was incorrectly written. But I take the noble Lord’s point that we need the capacity and the capability to process visas which come into UKBI. Of course, we keep our capacity needs under review, but I do not deny in any way that it is a busy system. We expect that the EU citizens’ application service, which has already gone out to private beta trial, will be rolled out further. We have not experienced any problems with that so far, but the noble Lord was absolutely right to point out that preparedness, particularly towards March, will be absolutely crucial.

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, as a former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office—25 years ago—I listened to the Statement with huge dismay and disquiet. When I took over there, I asked myself how we could be sure that officials were exercising power responsibly, fairly and in accordance with the law—because the Home Office has powers over the lives of individuals which are formidable and can destroy people. It is a heavy responsibility. The answer that I came to then was that we had rules, guidance and committees, of course, yet we actually relied on the culture and values, where people were legally literate—often more literate than their own legal advisers—and punctilious in their wish to be consistent, but also fair and with a dash of humanity. I thought it was a culture which served the country well, and one dreaded things going wrong.

Listening today, I asked myself: what has happened to bring this about? It sounds to me like a symptom of something more serious underneath, and I want to echo the question. I worry that the burden of work is enormous, and beyond the competence and capacity of the people responsible for delivering it. Is the Minister aware of any lack of resource? Is she satisfied that the Home Office has the resources to do the work? I have an abiding concern that across government generally, particularly with Brexit, more and more complex work is being piled on a service which has been cut back radically and has lost a lot of experience. Is the Minister happy with the situation in which she finds herself?