Sheila Gilmore
Main Page: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)Department Debates - View all Sheila Gilmore's debates with the Home Office
(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
11. What estimate she has made of the future number of staff employed by the UK Border Agency.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
Our priority remains to secure the border and to control migration while we help to reduce the public deficit. We expect to have reduced by about 5,200 posts from the start of the review period to around 18,000 by March 2015. We are on track to meet our staff reduction target.
Sheila Gilmore
Will the Minister tell us how many of those 5,200 staff are being cut from the front line of the border force?
Damian Green
The hon. Lady will know that later this afternoon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement covering the issues that she is interested in. The reductions in staffing are not affecting the front line because we are improving the front line by, for instance, having airline liaison officers overseas. Over the past few years, that has prevented 60,000 people whom we did not want to travel from travelling in the first place. The use of facial recognition technology and e-gates also makes our borders more secure.