Amber Rudd faces parliament again on Monday. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
Amber Rudd’s position as home secretary looked increasingly precarious on Sunday night after the Guardian published in full for the first time a letter that showed she had personally set a target for an increase in the enforced deportation of immigrants.
The publication of the letter came as the home secretary prepared to face Parliament again on Monday, this time to explain why she appeared to mislead the home affairs select committee last week by denying any knowledge of targets.
After her former junior minister confirmed that she had “ambitions” to increase the numbers being deported, the Guardian published in full Rudd’s four-page letter to Theresa May in which she sets an “ambitious but deliverable” target to increase deportations by 10%.
The contents of the letter, some of which were first reported by the Guardian as the pressure mounted on Rudd and May over the Windrush scandal, became even more relevant on Friday when she responded to another leaked memo by saying she was unaware of “specific removal targets”.
Rudd has claimed she did not set, see or approve any targets for removals. But Home Office sources said it was “shamefaced nonsense” to claim the department had not been set specific targets in this area, or that these have not been regularly discussed at the highest levels.
Over the past week, she has been forced to apologise, express regret or clarify her position five times over what she knew about the Windrush affair and the subsequent row about deportations.
Timeline
Amber Rudd’s apologies
The home secretary has issued five apologies in the last week – four of them over her department’s handling of the Windrush crisis and immigration targets.
- 23 April 2018
Rudd delivered an unprecedented apology to parliament and acknowledged that her department had “lost sight of individuals” and become “too concerned with policy”.
- 25 April 2018
Rudd apologised for failing to grasp the scale of the problem. She told the home affairs select committee: “I bitterly, deeply regret that I didn’t see it as more than individual cases gone wrong that needed addressing. I didn’t see it as a systemic issue until very recently.”
- 26 April 2018
On Thursday morning, Rudd was forced to admit officials did have targets for removals, having previously denied their existence.
“The immigration arm of the Home Office has been using local targets for internal performance management. These were not published targets against which performance was assessed, but if they were used inappropriately then I am clear that this will have to change.”
- 26 April 2018
On Thursday afternoon, Rudd was forced to issue a hasty clarification after appearing to leave the door open to the UK staying in a customs union with the EU.
“I should have been clearer – of course when we leave the EU we will be leaving the customs union.”
- 27 April 2018
In a series of late-night tweets, Rudd apologised for not being aware of documents, leaked to the Guardian, which set out immigration removal targets.
‘I wasn’t aware of specific removal targets. I accept I should have been and I’m sorry that I wasn’t. I didn’t see the leaked document, although it was copied to my office as many documents are.”
Home Office sources have told the Guardian that Immigration Enforcement has been working all year to reach the target of 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18.
They have been bracing themselves to acknowledge to ministers that the agency has failed to do so. To meet the goal, it needed to deport 250 people a week, but it has only been able to remove about 225 a week.
“At the Home Office we work in a target culture,” said a source on Sunday. “The civil service is completely target-based. That’s all we do. It is shamefaced nonsense for Amber Rudd to say otherwise.”
In an interview on The Andrew Marr Show that appeared to deepen her woes, the former home office minister Brandon Lewis confirmed on Sunday that he had discussed attempts to increase the number of government deportations with Rudd while a minister in her department.
The Conservative party chairman told Marr he had talked to Rudd about “ambitions” to increase the number of people deported from Britain but they had not discussed specific targets.
Lewis’s claims appeared to contradict Rudd’s evidence to the home affairs select committee last Wednesday, when she was asked baldly when targets for removals were set. Rudd told the committee: “We do not have targets for removals.”
Lewis said that while he had worked with her “on a weekly basis” about their efforts to increase the numbers of illegal immigrants being removed, they had never discussed “particular numbers” in the way that was suggested at the home affairs committee on Wednesday.
“Yes, I did talk to the home secretary about that and the overall work that we were doing and the overall ambition to see an increase in numbers, but not on the detailed numbers and targets,” he said.
Diane Abbott MP, the shadow home secretary, said the “Tories’ shameful attempts to cover up their mess” must end.
“Theresa May has sent minister after minister out to protect her cruel legacy, misleading parliament and the public in the process. This chaos has gone on for far too long. It’s time for Rudd to go and for the government to rethink its whole approach,” she said.
The latest furore was sparked on Friday when the Guardian published details from a separate confidential memo that was sent to Rudd in June last year.
Prepared by Hugh Ind, the director general of Immigration Enforcement in the Home Office, it picked up on the new policy outlined by Rudd in her letter to Theresa May.
The document stated that his agency had “set a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017/18 … this will move us along the path towards the 10% increased performance on enforced returns which we promised the home secretary earlier this year”.
While Rudd has denied seeing the six-page briefing note, it was also sent to at least eight of the Home Office’s most senior officials, including the senior director of national and international operations in Immigration Enforcement and the director general of the Passport Office.
Downing Street has said Rudd continues to enjoy the “full confidence” of May and she has received public support from both senior ministers and Tory backbenchers.
The home secretary insisted on Friday night that she had not seen the leaked memo revealed by the Guardian on Friday “although it was copied to my office, as many documents are”.
She repeated her claim that she “wasn’t aware of specific removal targets”, adding: “I accept I should have been and I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”
She promised to make a fresh statement to MPs on Monday about the affair, and concluded: “As home secretary I will work to ensure that our immigration policy is fair and humane.”
More than 200 MPs have written to May urging her to enshrine in law the promises made to those affected – including a commitment to resolve their immigration status as quickly as possible.
The letter, co-ordinated by Labour backbencher David Lammy, was signed by MPs from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens as well as one Conservative, Anne-Marie Morris.
A Home Office spokesman said the commitments could all be carried through under existing immigration laws.
“Detailed policy guidance and amendments to existing secondary legislation, where necessary, will be brought forward as soon as possible – and in some areas, we will want to consult with the communities affected first to ensure it best meets their needs,” the spokesman said.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Reported by : The Guardian / Date : 29 Apr. 2018
Link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/29/amber-rudd-faces-new-pressure-over-immigration-targets
