The Home Office wasted millions of pounds on unused hotel rooms, abandoned charter flights and immigrants’ legal fees in cases it lost, new figures have disclosed.
Annual reports for the department, and the now-defunct UK Border Agency
(UKBA), revealed more than £13 million was spent on paying the legal bills
of immigrants who won their cases in the courts - a 44 per cent rise
year-on-year.
Theresa May’s department spent £382,000 on hotel rooms that were never used
after being block booked for staff on duty during the London 2012 Olympics,
the document showed.
The UKBA also wasted £2.5 million on flights originally booked to remove
failed asylum seekers, after the foreigners were granted the right to appeal
- a 24 per cent increase on the previous year.
The agency was split
into two new bodies earlier this year with Mrs May describing the UKBA
as “closed, secretive and defensive”.
The new figures came as a senior peer urged ministers to root out corruption
in Britain’s border agencies.
Lord Marlesford, a Conservative peer, claimed the staff of UKBA had been of
“inadequate calibre” and “seriously and systematically corrupt”.
Opening a House of Lords debate on immigration controls, Lord Marlesford said: “In five years there have been 30 members of Home Office staff who have received heavy prison sentences - up to nine years in one case and several of three, four and five years for misconduct in public office and the great majority of these were from the Border Agency.”
He called for a plan to “root out corruption in an organisation in which these convictions may well be only the tip of the iceberg”.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach, a Home Office minister, the agency’s anti-corruption efforts were being “enhanced”, and added: “We have achieved a net migration cut of more than a third.”
Opening a House of Lords debate on immigration controls, Lord Marlesford said: “In five years there have been 30 members of Home Office staff who have received heavy prison sentences - up to nine years in one case and several of three, four and five years for misconduct in public office and the great majority of these were from the Border Agency.”
He called for a plan to “root out corruption in an organisation in which these convictions may well be only the tip of the iceberg”.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach, a Home Office minister, the agency’s anti-corruption efforts were being “enhanced”, and added: “We have achieved a net migration cut of more than a third.”
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