Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Yvette Cooper and David Evennett

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman needs to understand that biometric checks increased every year under the Labour Government; his Government have undermined them and rolled them back. What is the point of Britain investing loads of money in biometric technology and passports, if we then switch off the system every time a European citizen goes through it? What on earth is the point of that investment, which our Government supported and were extending and rolling out, but which the hon. Gentleman’s party and his Government seem to have backed off from and ditched, undermining the border controls that are in place?

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. We are listening with great interest to her rewriting of history. Does she not agree that the Government of whom she was a member left the system in a real mess? This Government are trying to improve things and clear up the problem.

[Yvette Cooper]

If this is what the hon. Gentleman calls improving things—dearie me. We should be strengthening controls. Those controls had been strengthened, year on year, but in my view they should have gone further. We should be doing more to roll out e-Borders and extend biometrics. He does not seem to realise that his Home Secretary removed the biometric checks. She has been undermining many of the checks that should have been taking place.

Secondly, we need to know who authorised what, because serious allegations have now been made, both by the Home Secretary against a senior civil servant and by a senior civil servant against the Home Secretary. Her advisers seem to have briefed the newspapers that Brodie Clark was a rogue official. She told the House that he had taken responsibility and that she would make sure that “those responsible are punished”. He has said that her statements were wrong. The Home Secretary has a history of high-level spats, but this is considerably more serious than a political row over immigration and the future of cats; this is a dispute over the security of our borders. We need to know what advice she was given. What were the precise terms of the pilots that she signed off? What was communicated to the UK Border Agency about her decision? Was the memo—which I know she is aware of—from the Border Agency saying that it would cease routine biometric checks of EU citizens cleared by her, the Minister for Immigration or Home Office officials? Is it an accurate or inaccurate reflection of the instructions that were sent out from her office, or the description of the pilot in the submission that she received and signed off?