Home Sec: Head Of Border Force Acted Alone - Sky News

The chief inspector of immigration is to investigate the claims at Mrs May's request

6:50pm UK, Monday November 07, 2011

The number of suspected terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants who entered the UK when officials relaxed border controls this summer without permission will never be known, Home Secretary Theresa May has said.

The head of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) Brodie Clark has been suspended after staff were told not to bother checking fingerprints and other personal details against a Home Office database of terror suspects and illegal immigrants.

Mrs May told MPs those responsible would be punished as she announced a series of inquiries into the scandal.

She said while ministers had started a pilot project "targeting intelligence-led checks on higher-risk" passengers, Mr Clark "authorised the wider relaxation of border controls without ministerial sanction" this summer.

"As a result of these unauthorised actions, we will never know how many people entered the country who should have been prevented from doing so after being flagged by the warnings index," she said.

Her statement followed claims that hundreds of thousands of people entered the UK without being properly assessed.

Brodie Clark, head of the UK border force, has been suspended

A union has blamed staff cuts for the alleged decision to abandon some security measures during the peak summer months - and claimed the decision was agreed by ministers.

But Mrs May denies this was the case, while a Downing Street spokesman insisted Prime Minister David Cameron was not informed of the decision to relax the checks.

The spokesman added: "He is obviously very concerned about these issues. There is clearly now an investigation under way, looking into precisely what happened."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the public were "understandably appalled and shocked" by what has apparently been happening at the UKBA.

She told Mrs May: "The first, and crucial, step must be to ascertain the implications of the lapses in security and passport checks.

"In particular, we need to know whether anyone posing a threat to Britain's national security was allowed to enter the UK..."

Ms Cooper said the Prime Minister and Mrs May needed to "get a grip" on illegal immigration and border security.

"Theresa May needs to answer urgently whether the cuts to 5,000 staff from the Borders Agency is increasing pressure on officials to cut corners on border security and illegal immigration."

She added: "The news of this investigation into lapses in passport control comes on the heels of the damning Select Committee report that the Home Office is writing off 100,000 asylum cases and high profile lapses such as the banned sheikh Raed Salah's entry into the UK."

Ms Cooper accused the Government of making the UK's borders less secure by cutting staff.

UKBA officials were reportedly told they did not need to check fingerprints and personal details of passengers against an official list of terror suspects and illegal immigrants.

Guards were also allegedly told not to bother checking the biometric chips on the passports of people from outside the European Union to ensure they were genuine.

Home Secretary Theresa May has been told to 'get a grip' by Labour

Sue Smith of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said: "The travelling public understandably want to have a fast and efficient service, and yet we are also under a reduced workforce.

"I think senior managers have seen this as a way to provide the public with what they want."

Ms Smith said the CPS had been told the Government had authorised relaxing the rules.

"As far as our staff were concerned, this was all done with ministerial authority, and that's the information we have received," she said.

The Home Office has said it agreed biometric passports could be checked "upon the discretion" of an official instead of automatically.

Sky News understands this was supposed to apply to groups such as school trips, allowing them to be checked as a group rather than individually.

Mr Clark is alleged to have gone much further in implementing this change in the rules, and applied it to non-EU travellers.