I agree with my hon. Friend, and let me say two things. On the cigarette point, despite the fact that the last report found that we were not hitting the target for cigarette seizures, cigarette seizures were still up by 7%, so Border Force was improving its performance; it just was not improving it fast enough to hit our very ambitious targets. In answer to my hon. Friend’s general point, what he said provides me with a good opportunity to say that I am glad to be able to report that that huge asylum backlog was largely sorted out before I became Immigration Minister by my excellent ministerial colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), so I had a much better inheritance than the one that he inherited from the Labour party.
Border Force
Proceeding contribution from
Mark Harper
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 4 September 2013.
It occurred during Urgent question on Border Force.
About this proceeding contribution
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567 c326 Session
2013-14Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamberLibrarians' tools
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2022-04-16 12:16:31 +0100
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