Home Affairs Committee issues first report on the work of the Home Office's Immigration Enforcement and UKVI directorates

Parliament's Home Affairs Committee published its latest report on the work of the Home Office's immigration departments on Friday.

It's the first time the Committee has reported since the UKBA was disbanded and broken-up into the new Immigration Enforcement Directorate and UK Visas and Immigration Directorate (UKVI).

The report covers the period from April to September 2013 and is available here.

A press release by the Committee highlighted the following:

Romanians and Bulgarians

• The Government did not commission an estimate of the number of Romanians and Bulgarians likely to come to the UK after 1 January 2014. We believe this decision to have been a mistake. The Committee has seen no evidence to suggest that there has been a discernible increase in migration from Romania and Bulgaria.

• The Chair of the Migration Advisory Authority told us that if he had been asked to produce such an estimate, then he would have been happy to do so because "that is the role of the Migration Advisory Committee". We have said that, for any future enlargements, the Migration Advisory Committee should be tasked by the Government to provide an estimate of the numbers arriving in our country. If the Government refuses to task the Migration Advisory Committee to commission estimates, we will write to ask them to do this.

Selling citizenship

• The Government are considering proposals to change the Tier 1 Investor route, following the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee, that could result in the UK selling settlement by auction, with little apparent ability to carry out due diligence on the individual, no expectation to learn English, and only require them to actually reside in the UK for 90 days a year. This process is riddled with difficulties and combined with the reduction in standards required of those gaining citizenship, will be a recipe for disaster.

Borders

• The verdict, by Judge Richard Bray, in the Baksim Bushati case described UK's defences to illegal immigration to be "leaking like a sieve" and Border Force as "powerless" and as "hopelessly undermanned". The establishment of full checks on entry and exit remains an issue. There is a real possibility that dangerous criminals may have been able to enter the UK without the knowledge of the authorities. The Home Office needs to publish its list of co-operation agreements with all other countries to enable convictions to be shared and take action to be taken to close the gaps in the checking process.

Migration Refusal Pool and Capita

• The Migration Refusal Pool remains a serious concern to the Committee. Capita have found over 34,000 cases where the person has left the UK. Apart from the fact that we have system where the Home Office cannot know where over 30,000 people are, we then pay a private company, Capita, to clarify that they have left. Capita appear to get paid for just finding out they aren't here, not actively having to do anything to remove them. The Committee cannot understand why this work could not have been undertaken by the Home Office directly.