The UK Border Agency is being split and renamed – again

This week, for the second time in just over a year, the UK Border Agency is being split in two and renamed. The first split came after Theresa May’s Bordersgate debacle, when a ministerial experiment with loosening border controls meant checks were abandoned so comprehensively that we still don’t know how many illegal immigrants entered the UK. The result? UKBA was split in two. Now, After another 12 months of worsening performance we have another split. Splits, poor performances and more splits, the UKBA has been like a tired boy band under this government.

It’s worth noting just how much worse things at UKBA and the UK Border Force have got with David Cameron, Theresa May and this Tory-led Government. The number of people refused entry to the UK has dropped by 50%, the number of people absconding through Heathrow passport control has trebled, while the number caught has halved. The backlog in finding failed asylum seekers has gone up, the number of illegal immigrants deported has gone down, the number of foreign prisoners removed has gone down, the number of businesses fined for employing illegal workers has gone down, 150,000 reports of potential bogus students have not been followed up, finger print checks on illegal migrants caught at Calais have been stopped, basic security checks on missing asylum seekers dropped, and the e-borders technology to count people in and out at the borders has been delayed. This is an appalling set of vital statistics.

Yet illegal immigration is deeply damaging. It’s not fair on the people brought here illegally, often promised a life which does not exist. People are sold a dream only to exist in destitution. For legitimate migrants who have followed all the rules illegal migration is unfair. And for UK citizens, illegal immigration is what angers them most – the idea that people are abusing the system.

That’s why the rules need to be enforced and the Home Office must ensure fair rules for everyone. But splitting (again) of UKBA won’t address the fundamental problems Theresa May is overseeing. Mark Sedwell, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, let the cat out of the bag last week when he revealed the Home Secretary’s changes don’t mean much. “Most of us will still be doing the same job in the same place with the same colleagues for the same boss,” Mr Sedwell said.

The Home Secretary has cut UKBA’s budget by 34% since the election, so it is little wonder it is struggling to keep up. After the first UKBA split, queues at the borders went up and the Border Force presided over some of the longest queues our airports have seen, with people waiting more than two hours to get their passports checked. Things got worse at the Border Agency, too. The Home Affairs Select Committee has revealed a 20% increase in the backlog of asylum cases in three months, a 53% increase in number of asylum cases waiting more than six months compared with the previous year and an increase in delays for tier 1 and tier 4 in-country visa applications compared with the previous three months. In the words of the Committee, “the agency must explain to Parliament what has gone wrong throughout 2012”. The constants through all these problems have been the Home Secretary’s poor decision-making and big cuts.

Labour has set out a number of practical proposals to improve the UK’s efforts to tackle illegal immigration and enforce the rules. The Government isn’t just failing on illegal immigration, it has also become less effective at managing the legitimate migration that the country needs. We’ve said double the fines for not paying the minimum wage, outlaw the practises of overcrowded and dodgy housing to undercut UK workers, give more UKBA officers the power of arrest to catch illegal immigrants, toughen the checks on Student Visitor Visas while boosting the full university visas we need, and maintain tough controls through the Points-Based System. Immigration isn’t simple, but it is important Governments get the basics right. All we get from Theresa May and the Tories is hot air.

 Chris Bryant is the Shadow Immigration Minister