Net migration in 2022 was 745,000; More people have come to the UK this year than in the last 20 years of the 20th century combined
In recent years, the Home Office has been monitoring a record number of people entering the UK legally and illegally. The department that manages our borders is clearly struggling to cope; To understand why, The Telegraph spoke to a number of insiders who described an organization full of chaos, dysfunction and wide-awakeness.
An Onward poll published in The Telegraph suggests nine in 10 voters in England and Wales would like to see more restrictions on migration, but a former Home Office special adviser told The Telegraph there was a disconnect between Whitehall and the country. “Migration is a systemic scandal in British politics. Millions of people have been allowed into the country through waste routes with minimal government effort to stop them,” they said.
“The Home Office and No 10 have failed to take into account the realities of the economic and social costs of migration. Without a mainstream party that agrees with the public on border control issues, there is a vacuum for extremism and radical politics, as we have seen on the continent with Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders,” they added.
Legal migration
In 2022, net migration was 745,000; More people came to Britain that year than in the last 20 years of the 20th century combined. These figures are causing Rishi Sunak a huge political headache. In every Tory manifesto since 2005, the party has promised to reduce the number of migrants, but their numbers continue to rise.
Boris Johnson's points system, visa liberalization and refugee schemes for those fleeing Hong Kong and Ukraine. has significantly increased the number of people coming to the UK after Brexit.
One former Tory staffer blamed the increase on a number of Tory prime ministers who have «liberal instincts» on migration, including Mr Sunak.
“The Home Office is the only defense against pressure from all other government departments to increase the number of migrants. When the prime minister's heart is not in control, it is very easy to give in to the demands of your cabinet, almost all of which are lobbying for more visas due to pressure from businesses who want cheap labour,” the adviser said.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch, a think tank dedicated to monitoring migration, agrees. «The blame lies with successive governments led by weak or ill-informed prime ministers, and with decisions to liberalize the immigration system,» he said.
“An example is the free points system. The authorities are too comfortable blaming civil servants for their own failures. While the way the Home Office is controlled and now failing is also part of the problem, the main reason we have gigantic levels of immigration is because Conservative ministers believed the policy was right and necessary for the economy. They were wrong and we warned them of what would happen.»
To reduce the number of visas, the government last month announced a package of measures that they claim will reduce net migration by 300,000 people. Among the measures introduced was an increase in the wage threshold for workers to £38,700, but ministers soon decided to delay this change without setting a date for its introduction.
Home Office insiders describe a “vetocracy” over legal migration, with any Cabinet minister able to veto plans to cut visas. Only the Prime Minister has the power to override these vetoes, and only after lengthy meetings with Robert Jenrick, who is now firmly ready to resign, did Mr Sunak agree to carry out reforms.
So the Home Office may have little power to control legal migration other than stopping visa abusers — for example those coming to the UK on student visas with the intention of working — and lobbying other departments to reduce their numbers. The Home Office has a remit to prevent illegal migration and has been mired in a series of crises.
Illegal migration
In 2018, there were 299 Channel crossings by small boats. By 2022, their number was 45,744. Over the past six years, more than 100,000 people have entered the UK illegally, many of them housed in hotels using taxpayers' money.
“The hotel explosions could have been prevented,” one said. insider. “If the department had sufficient operational and commercial experience, rather than being staffed by generalists [non-specialists], there might be much more capacity to house migrants in places like low-cost housing or abandoned military installations.”
Dozens of people were brought ashore in Dover on a Border Force vessel on Saturday in the first report of migrants crossing the English Channel this year. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA
The insider also said civil servants were too «cautious and appear to have failed to exercise caution». Realize that you need to think outside the box when the return rate is so low» when it comes to making agreements with countries on returning immigration offenders.
To solve the problem of housing migrants in hotels, officials planned to use the Bibby Stockholm barge, which can accommodate up to 500 people. However, last summer, traces of bacteria were found in the water supply and the 39 migrants on board the ship were temporarily disembarked as a precaution. Then in December, a migrant on board committed suicide.
“[Sir Matthew] Rycroft [Home Office Permanent Secretary] does not hold staff to account for their poor performance. For example, those responsible for the Bibby-Stockholm disaster were not punished or fired,” said one former insider.
Another adviser added: “It is not surprising that the areas where results were strongest were, unsurprisingly, where senior civil servants could build their teams by attracting capable people and promoting others.”
Despite the challenges, the Home Office notes that the number of Channel crossings fell by 36 per cent last year and more than 26,000 attempted Channel crossings were prevented in 2023. However, after a quiet start to the year, the first cross-Channel migrants arrived in 2024. Dover on Saturday morning.
Guide
The Home Office has had five home secretaries since 2020 (one of whom served for less than a week), but Sir Matthew, considered by some to be a «career diplomat», has been permanent secretary for the last three years.
Sir Matthew, knighted in 2023, has a long career in Whitehall, during which he served as private secretary to Tony Blair, EU Foreign Office director, ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations. In an interview with Civil Service World magazine in March last year, Mr Raircoft said he still saw himself as «a diplomat who is currently in the Home Office». The attitude has drawn criticism from insiders.
One former special adviser, or «Spud» in Westminster parlance, said the mandarin told senior colleagues he did not consider himself a «manager» but instead a «manager» . leader.»
The adviser continued: “His experience in diplomacy has led him to see himself less as an operational officer and more as a representative of public service values such as inclusion. He sees the Home Office as a stepping stone to his diplomatic career, aiming to become Britain's ambassador to Washington or Beijing. His heart isn't really in this job.»
The Home Office, unlike the Foreign Office, is largely operations-based, be it arranging visas, opening hotels for migrants, policing the English Channel. or clearing the backlog of asylum applications.
In 2018, 299 small boat crossings of the English Channel were recorded. By 2022 the number had reached 45,744. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
“The ‘good-nice laissez-faire’ approach is not working in the worst-performing department in Whitehall. You have to run things tirelessly, like the chief operating officer of a big company,” said another former Spad.
In November, an exchange at the Home Affairs Select Committee between Sir Matthew and Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP, went viral after the Mandarin failed to answer the MP's questions about the number of deportations of illegal immigrants. Mr Anderson called the lack of response «stunning» and committee chairman Dame Diana Johnson, a Labor MP, asked in surprise: «Do we have any figures?»
As well as being the Home Office's most senior official, Sir Matthew is a champion of diversity in the civil service across race, faith and belief, acting as a representative of civil servants in Whitehall. In this role, he helped write departmental plans on race issues and held meetings with government officials from various departments to discuss issues related to transgenderism, religion and gender-critical beliefs.
“The Permanent Secretary's time is invaluable. Every day he has to make hundreds of life-altering decisions regarding not only migration, but also policing. He should not waste a minute discussing diversity or any other pet project of the civil service,” said a Home Office insider.
Sir Matthew raised eyebrows in 2021 when he told officials they should accept the government during a recorded call. policy «on some issues» but on others they must be «stewards and think of their own role in terms of leading a civil service organization which obviously takes into account the views of ministers but is not obliged to follow them slavishly on every particular issue.»
Awakening Initiatives
Sir Matthew's approach has led to accusations from critics that the department has adopted «woke» initiatives. Over the past few months, The Telegraph has reported that Border Force officers can wear rainbow epaulettes on their uniforms, and non-binary Home Office staff are given both male and female security passes so they can change the gender they identify from day to day. and a senior official told colleagues she had to work «10 times harder» than her white colleagues during a lecture on race.
Andrea Jenkins, Conservative MP, said: “The problem with the Home Office's staffing culture is that it is both a political problem and a waste of resources. When it comes to public servants spending time and money on diversity and inclusion, public servants have an opportunity cost: they must focus entirely on policing our borders.»
The headquarters of the Home Office, a glass building clad in metal bars and brutalist blockwork, is located on Marsham Street in Westminster. One former insider set the stage upon entry: “There are posters everywhere about Windrush, race and LGBT issues. Government employees wear lanyards covered in rainbow flags and other political motifs. The toilets are gender neutral and quite awkward to use.”
However, recent data shows that few government employees actually use toilets. Cabinet Office statistics published on 11 January show the Home Office has one of the lowest employment rates of any Whitehall department, with an average of just 31 per cent of civil servants reporting to work in person.
“ Force civil servants it was difficult to attend meetings in person, even if they were in the office, online work was so normalized,” said a former adviser to the minister.
To keep the ministry's 35,000 civil servants under control, there is a team of fewer than a dozen ministers and their special advisers. Much of the responsibility for UK immigration policy lies with this small group of Conservatives.
“You are always on the defensive and putting out fires. It is almost impossible to solve systemic problems in the department,” said one of the Spads.
And the department will have to deal with many problems.
Yes, the minister’s tactics
Several former Spads were shocked by the quality of work of some department officials. One said: “Some civil servants had very little command of the English language, others were deaf when it came to public communications. They clearly haven't left the M25 and haven't understood the concerns of the majority of people in the country.»
On December 6, Jenrick resigned and blamed Sunak for not going far enough in his legislation to force through the Rwanda migration resettlement scheme. In his resignation letter, he called on the government to do more, stressing that it «has a responsibility to put our vital national interests above highly controversial interpretations of international law.»
Robert Jenrick accused Mr Sunak of not going far enough in his legislation to get the Rwanda Bill passed. Photo: TOLGA AKMEN
Two days before his resignation, a report in The Times quoted «senior Home Office civil servants» as telling the paper that government legislation was a «political stunt». The report claimed that government lawyers were «very, very reluctant» to work on legislation that would exclude the European Convention on Human Rights, due to fears they might breach the Civil Service Code, which they say prevents officials from violating international law. right. /p>
A Home Office insider said their colleagues had given international law an «almost legendary status» and used it as a «pretext to derail the government's migration plans».
Several former Spads told The Telegraph they believed government officials will use «Yes, Minister» style tactics to delay and confuse the situation. “They endlessly drafted and rewrote proposals and documents, it was death by paperwork,” one said.
Mr Sunak will introduce his Rwanda Bill next week in the House of Commons, where the party's right-wing Conservative MPs plan to introduce amendments to tighten the legislation. While the prime minister fights for his version of the bill, he and his party face a bigger challenge: a general election. For Mr Sunak to win, he will need his new home secretary and the Home Office to perform miracles to reverse years of broken promises on migration.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The full-time minister is fully focused on keeping UK and national citizens safe rather than worrying about anonymous press briefings. Last year he helped lead Home Office efforts to reduce small boat crossings, speed up asylum decisions and implement plans to reduce net migration.
“Sir Matthew is holding civil servants accountable to supporting ministers and implementation of their decisions. this is how government works effectively.”
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