Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Absolutely—it is this Government who are willing to look at the issues, make the tough decisions and take action to put tough policies in place. In relation to the balance of competences, we will be looking in detail at free movement. That work has not yet started but will start in the not-too-distant future. There are other things we are doing outside that work. I am working across the European Union with other member states to look at how we can ensure that we reduce the abuse of free movement—through sham marriage, for example—and we are also looking at the pull factors that encourage people to come to the UK, rather than other member states, such as access to benefits.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But how many people are in that group who made an application a long time ago and were told that their cases would be determined by July 2012 but have still not received a decision?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Lady knows, the whole question of the legacy case load was looked at recently by the chief inspector. He found some problems with the way the UK Border Agency has dealt with that. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady with the precise number of people in the category she describes. There are problems with how that was dealt with and we are working through them.