Home secretary sacks borders watchdog via Zoom
after clash
James Cleverly gets top civil servant to fire David
Neal after clashing over series of critical reports
Rajeev Syal
Home affairs editor
Tue 20 Feb
2024 21.57 GMT
Rishi Sunak
has been accused of “total Tory chaos” over immigration policies, after
Britain’s borders watchdog was sacked in a hastily arranged Zoom call.
David Neal,
the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, was told by a top
civil servant on Tuesday that James Cleverly was terminating his job with
immediate effect.
Neal, who
had been in the role for nearly three years and was due to step down next
month, had recently expressed his concern that there would be no one in the
watchdog role for several months as ministers tried to force through Sunak’s
controversial Rwanda policy.
Downing
Street blocked his reappointment, an unusual move for the post in which his
predecessors all served two full three-year terms in the post.
The Home
Office said Neal, a former police officer and soldier who commanded the 1st
Military Police Brigade from 2016 until 2019, had “breached the terms of
appointment”.
The shadow
home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “This is total Tory chaos on borders and
immigration. A series of Conservative home secretaries have sought to bury
uncomfortable truths revealed by the chief inspector about our broken borders,
and shockingly they are still sitting on 15 unpublished reports – stretching
back to April last year. The home secretary must now publish those reports in
full.
“The
Conservatives have lost control of our borders, are seeking to hide the truth,
and are putting border security at risk.”
Diana
Johnson, the chair of the home affairs select committee, said the government
had treated the role of chief inspector of borders and immigration “like an
inconvenience” rather than a vital part of developing policy.
“We are now
left with yet another vacant post, with reports unpublished and not responded
to, all the while the asylum and immigration system lurches from crisis to
crisis. The behaviour of the Home Office seems unlikely to attract many
high-quality candidates as they seek to fill this crucial role,” she said.
Neal has
been accused of breaking the terms of his appointment in comments published by
the Daily Mail on Tuesday claiming that lax checks on private jets were a
security and immigration threat to the UK.
Border
Force officers are supposed to check 100% of general aviation flights which
they have classified as “high risk”. But inspectors found last year that just
21% were inspected by immigration officers at London City airport, Neal
claimed.
Earlier on
Tuesday, the immigration minister Tom Pursglove told the Commons the Home
Office “categorically rejects” Neal’s claims.
“It’s
deeply disturbing that information which has no basis in fact was leaked by the
independent chief inspector to a national newspaper before the Home Office had
the chance to respond,” the minister told MPs. “We are urgently investigating
this breach of confidential information in full in the normal way.”
Friends of
Neal have said he had raised on several occasions the government’s failure to
publish 15 reports that uncovered problems within the borders and immigration
system dating back to last April.
These
included inquiries that could be politically explosive, including into
unaccompanied children being housed in hotels and illegal working enforcement.
Civil servants have also been accused of delaying investigations into the
government’s plans to process asylum claims in Rwanda.
Other
unpublished reports, which were supposed to be released as long ago as last
June, include examinations of ePassport gate inspections; Border Force parcel
operations; the Border Force’s firearms procedures; illegal working
enforcement; asylum accommodation; immigration enforcement; and the processing
of migrants arriving by small boats.
Neal and
his predecessors as chief inspector, John Vine and David Bolt, received legal
advice saying they should be allowed to publish their own reports in line with
other independent inspectorates. However, the publication date of each report
remains within the gift of the home secretary, despite repeated criticisms of
the delays from MPs on the home affairs select committee.
While in
the army, Neal was responsible for the assurance and inspection of the UK’s
detention facilities around the world, including in Afghanistan and on Royal
Navy ships. He graduated in 1994 from the Sandhurst military academy, and was
seen on TV screens over Christmas captaining Bangor on University Challenge.
Another of
Neal’s unpublished findings was disclosed on Monday. Neal told the Times that
an inquiry into caseworker visas found that the Home Office had issued 275
visas to a care home that did not exist and 1,234 to a company that stated it
had only four staff when given a licence to operate.
A Home
Office spokesperson said: “We have terminated the appointment of David Neal,
the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, after he breached
the terms of appointment and lost the confidence of the home secretary.”
The
recruitment process to replace him was “in progress”, they added.
In a
comment piece in September for the Guardian after a critical report into Brook
House detention centre, Neal wrote: “The Home Office’s responses to my reports
have been characterised by defensiveness and excuses rather than a commitment
to improvement and positive change, and I’ve encountered significant pushback
from senior leaders within immigration enforcement.”
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