Widdecombe slams border agency's 'wrong approach'

The UK Border Agency is putting targets ahead of effective border control, Ann Widdecombe told MPs on Thursday. Skip related content

Widdecombe, a former Home Office minister, accused the agency of taking "completely the wrong approach" to immigration cases during an adjournment debate in the Commons.

"In order to meet the multiplicity of targets that the government have set, it aims at the softest targets, when it should be aiming at those who have eluded it for years," she said.

The veteran Tory MP said she had seen three cases in as many weeks where people had been refused residency on unfair grounds and in an "inhumane" and "outrageous" manner.

She cited a case of an Indonesian woman who had been told she had demonstrated "no evidence of strong ties" to the United Kingdom despite being married to a British citizen for five years and having two British children.

The border agency spends a "disproportionate" amount of its time pursuing people who have complied with conditions, kept their addresses notified to the agency and have circumstances that other people would recognise as reasonable, Widdecombe told the Commons.

There is a "concentrated effort to up the performance measurements by going for soft targets," she added.

Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay said his experience matched that of Widdecombe's.

"Single young men are like the Scarlet Pimpernel in that they move around and are difficult to find," he said.

"But the agency picks up seven, eight or nine loving families in bed at six o'clock on a Sunday morning. That is what is happening, but not in my name, because it stinks."

But Home Office minister Alan Campbell rejected the suggestions that the agency pursued the easy cases in order to meet targets.

"There is no policy of going for soft touches," he insisted.

And he warned that prior to changes in the law made in 2003 many people "switched" their immigration applications to one based on marriage in order to avoid rigorous checks.

"We strongly believe that anyone who is coming to this country with the intention of settling on the basis of marriage should apply for spouse entry clearance in the proper fashion, from abroad," he said.