Home Secretary Theresa May is under attack for using her powers to censor a report by Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine.
The report; Inspection of Juxtaposed Controls, November 2012 – March 2013, examines the way in which UK immigration officers liaise with French and Belgian counterparts. In particular, it concerns the way in which they cooperate to prevent unauthorised people from entering the UK illegally.
The Home Secretary made a total of 15 redactions to the Chief Inspector’s report, something she is entitled to do under the UK Borders Act 2007 Section 50, providing that the edits are made on the grounds of national security.
Shadow immigration minister, Chris Bryant, has accused Mrs May of making the changes in an attempt to cover up her own failings, asking: “What possible reason can there be for redacting elements of a report by a highly-respected independent inspector?”
UKIP’s Nigel Farage, said: “It is extremely concerning that a report into the operations of our border security is being censored by the Home Office. We have to ask them, what on earth are they hiding?”
Defending the Home Secretary, immigration minister Mark Harper said: “If you look at the history of the reports that the Chief Inspector has produced, I think it would be fair to say that a number of them have previously been very critical for example of the UK Border Agency, in some cases very critical. In those cases, the Home Secretary has not used her powers to redact any of those reports”.
However, some commentators suggest that elements of this latest paper may be more personally embarrassing for the Home Secretary than previous reports because some of the Chief Inspector’s criticisms concern the operation of the UK Border Force, a body that was created by Mrs May in 2012. Writing in the Telegraph, David Barrett and Rosa Silverman point out that it has previously always been possible for Mrs May to blame the failures of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) on the previous Labour administration which created the agency in 2008.
The UKBA was terminated earlier this year for, according to Mrs May, being ‘not good enough’ and developing a secretive culture.
Mr Vine made several recommendations in his report, one of which was completely redacted by the Home Secretary. Among his other findings, the Chief Inspector suggests that UK Border Force officers should fingerprint those who are apprehended trying to enter the UK illegally so that they can later be identified if they try again using a different identity. He also made a suggestion about the closure of the ‘Lille loophole’. This refers to fears that immigrants can avoid border security and enter the UK illegally by travelling from Lille to the UK. The Home Secretary had this section completely redacted from the report.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, Mr Harper said that the Home Office was reviewing its procedures but dismissed taking fingerprints as impractical. He said: “It consumes a large amount of time for our officers to do that when they could be using that time to carry out other tasks to secure the border and it’s a balance and the decision that was taken in 2010 was to work very closely with our French colleagues [and] for them to process people trying to enter the United Kingdom illegally”.
