Reid brings back embarkation controls

Tuesday, 25 July 2006 12:00 AM

Embarkation controls will be re-introduced on Britain's borders as part of a major overhaul of the immigration system announced by the home secretary today.

John Reid said the electronic exit checks would begin with the most high-risk groups and would cover everyone coming in and out of the country by 2014.

By 2008, everyone seeking a visa from an at-risk country - those visitors most likely to overstay their visit - would have to have their fingerprints put on a database.

Mr Reid said the aim was to ensure immigration officials knew which illegal immigrants had failed to leave the country when ordered to. He also announced a doubling of the money available to the immigration authorities to track down those who remained.

New enforcement measures included a crackdown on firms who employed illegal workers, while the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) would be reformed, and more of its staff would be put on the front line, to ensure it was more effective.

The plans were intended to create a "fair, effective, transparent and trusted" immigration and asylum system, the home secretary said, but his Conservative counterpart warned that none of the measures were being introduced fast enough.

David Davis said plans to have an e-border scheme in place by 2014 "is too late and relies on a computer database" - suggesting the government did not have the best record in implementing big IT projects on time and to budget.

"Why can we not have a manual embarkation control immediately?" he asked.

"His proposal will not be in place to cope with the next EU enlargement, and the large numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians who will come here. Including, in the words of his own minister, 45,000 'undesirables'."

The embarkation controls, which were partially lifted by the Conservatives in 1994 but fully abandoned by Labour in 1997, are part of a wide-reaching overhaul of the Home Office's functions announced over the past week.

Major changes to the criminal justice system and probation were unveiled, but the immigration service was considered most in need of change, following the head of the IND's admission that he did not have the "faintest idea" how many illegal immigrants remained in the UK.

Former home secretary Charles Clarke was sacked in May after revealing that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been released without being considered for deportation, and today's proposals include measures to stop this happening again.

Mr Reid also unveiled plans to speed up the removal of failed asylum seekers, saying the backlog of cases would be cleared within five years and setting a new target of dealing with 75 per cent of cases within six months by 2009, and 95 per cent by 2011.

More generally, he said the government was looking at ways to simplify immigration procedures across the board, and a new advisory committee would be set up to establish what levels of managed migration would be needed for the economy.

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• immigration