Watchdog reports show Britain’s shocking migration system failing

Home Secretary James Cleverly (pictured) was accused of trying to ‘bury bad news’ as he belatedly published an avalanche of critical reports by a sacked watchdog. The revelations emerged in 13 official reviews by David Neal, who was dismissed as independent chief inspector of borders and immigration on Mr Cleverly’s orders last week.

Mr Neal (pictured) said the findings were a ‘stark wake-up call’ for the Home Secretary and called for the UK Border Force to be ‘properly shaken up’. Civil servants should be stripped of their responsibility for border security and replaced with a ‘professional law enforcement agency’, he added. The reports revealed that border posts in the arrivals halls of major airports have been left unmanned, and a flagship humanitarian scheme set up to help Afghans fleeing the Taliban was opened to ‘individuals who had never been to Afghanistan’. The reports also highlighted problems with passport e-gates meant that ‘protection of the border is neither effective nor efficient’, border Force X-ray equipment failing to detect clandestine migrants hidden in lorries.

On top of this, the report said that British airports have a ‘lack of anti-smuggling capability’, raising the prospect of contraband and illegal goods getting in in airmail parcels, the Customs channel at East Midlands Airport was left unmanned for two days during an inspection by the watchdog and Immigration officers conducting raids had to rely on Google Maps. Mr Neal, sacked after sharing his concerns about Britain’s border with the Mail last month, said: ‘The compound effect of the poor border security evidenced in these reports should be a stark wake-up call for James Cleverly. Every time I inspected something in Border Force it was simply not very good. It needs to be properly shaken up. If we really want a secure border then we need a professional law enforcement agency protecting it, and not civil servants. It needs root-and-branch reform.’

The reports – totalling more than 900 pages and not published until 4pm yesterday – accused Home Office bureaucrats of lacking the confidence to leave their desks. ‘I sense that there is a reluctance for some officials to get out on the ground and speak to people,’ Mr Neal said in one document. ‘Part of that is a legacy of the pandemic, but the bigger part is a lack of self-confidence and a culture that prioritises office-bound policy over on-the-ground experience.’ The department also suffered from a ‘culture of defensiveness’, while officials tended to ‘put a positive gloss’ on failures, he said.

One report scrutinised UK government schemes to help Afghans left in danger after the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of the country and British forces’ withdrawal. ‘Inspectors were provided with examples of approved applications that involved individuals who have never been to Afghanistan or have lived outside Afghanistan for decades and were not affected by the UK withdrawal,’ the report said. Another report said: ‘The Home Office had allowed the asylum system to become a burning platform that required radical action and attracted significant ministerial and public scrutiny.’ On the PM’s asylum backlog clearing exercise, that led to a record number of claims being granted last year, Mr Neal’s report said: ‘I am concerned that the focus on clearing the legacy backlog ‘at all costs’ has led to perverse outcomes for claimants and staff.

‘The number of claims that have been withdrawn and counted as ‘outcomes’ has soared – 22 per cent of all decisions made since June 2022 were withdrawals, and, incredibly, only one underwent formal quality assurance. This is not acceptable. Routine quality assurance on interviews and decisions has also been sacrificed for increased productivity.’ Another of Mr Neal’s reports –into the handling of international courier parcels – said the ‘lack of anti-smuggling capability at airports should be a major concern for Border Force and ministers, and raises questions as to whether the border is secure from a goods perspective’. Immigration officers had to work without walkie-talkies, leading to ‘waving or signalling across often busy arrival halls’ which was ‘ineffective and at times unprofessional’, another report said.

‘At Stansted, inspectors noted that three … officers working at the monitoring station were sharing one radio and had to shout messages to each other within earshot of passengers, which could potentially compromise border security,’ it added. A failure to ensure criminal records checks on staff at hotels used for lone migrant children indicated a ‘lack of grip and poor leadership’, another report said. Inspectors described how a staff member at an unnamed hotel would ‘make a game’ of informing anxious children which of them had been placed with a local family. The report said this ‘game’ involved ‘asking them to guess who would be next, before revealing their name’. Inspectors considered this to be ‘insensitive in the extreme and undoubtedly upsetting to the children’. Another of Mr Neal’s reports showed immigration officers sent out on raids had to rely on Google Maps. There were ‘potential risks’ due to a ‘reliance on Google Maps for conducting reconnaissance’.

During one raid ‘the entrance to the target property had moved from the front to the rear of the property [but] Google Street View images still reported the entrance at the front of the property, potentially affecting the effectiveness of that visit’. The catalogue of border failures came after Mr Neal revealed in the Mail last week how Border Force failed to inspect hundreds of private jets which landed at London City Airport last year despite being assessed as ‘high risk’. He was dismissed from his role after going public with his concerns. Earlier this week Mr Neal told MPs he had been doing his ‘duty’ to expose the national security threat. To Mr Neal’s frustration, the reports which were finally published yesterday had been sat on by the Home Office for up to 11 months.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said they painted a picture of ‘border chaos’. ‘Ministers have sat on these devastating reports for months in a bid to hide their utter failure to protect our borders,’ she said. ‘They have tried to bury this bad news, but the public deserve the truth.’ Chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, Dame Diana Johnson, said the Home Office’s decision to publish 13 reports in one go was ‘wholly inadequate and raises serious questions about what the Home Office has been doing all this time’. A Home Office spokesman said they last month pledged to ‘publish all overdue reports as soon as possible’, and added: ‘We have delivered on that promise by publishing all 13 reports that were overdue. ‘The publication of these reports that scrutinise the activity of the Home Office and make recommendations for improvement is in and of itself a demonstration of transparency and acceptance of independent scrutiny.’

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: ‘These damning reports were held back for a scandalous amount of time. Home Office ministers are running scared of their own failings and ducking accountability.’ Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tougher border controls, said: ‘How disgraceful that information the public has every right to know has been kept from them. The Home Secretary should tell us why the reports were not published and what his department has done to address the issues Mr Neal has highlighted. ‘Mr Cleverly should have been thanking not sacking him.’ It was also revealed today that the Rwanda asylum deal is set to cost the taxpayer £500million by 2026.

Home Secretary James Cleverly will hand over an extra £120million to the east African nation once the first 300 migrants are relocated under the scheme, it emerged. And removing migrants to Rwanda aboard chartered jets will cost £11,000 a head, a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office showed. The Home Office has already paid Rwanda £220million – and is set to cough up another £50million every April between this year and 2026. It will bring the agreed payments to £370million, with the extra £120million on top. In addition, the Home Office is set to shell out more than £51million over five years if 300 migrants are removed. Under the new arrangement, if an asylum seeker decides to leave Rwanda after being sent there, Britain will pay the Rwandan government £10,000 a head to ‘facilitate their voluntary departure’.

Yesterday the Mail reported how the taxpayer will shell out £5.4billion on migrant hotels and other asylum support this year – a staggering total of £15million a day. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) said each migrant sent to Rwanda would cost the taxpayer £2million. ‘This shocking analysis shows the costs of the failed Rwanda farce are even higher than previously thought,’ she added.

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