Oral evidence: Work of the Home Office, HC 1713
Oral evidence, 13 November 2018.
Witnesses
Charu Gorasia, Sir Philip Rutnam and Mark Thomson.
Chair
Welcome to this session of the Home Affairs Select Committee scrutiny of the Home Office. Welcome, Sir Philip. Welcome to your colleagues. Could I just ask you to each introduce yourselves and the sections of the Home Office that you work in?
Charu Gorasia
Hello. I am Charu Gorasia. I am the Director General for Capabilities and Resources at Home Office.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am Sir Philip Rutnam, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.
Mark Thomson
Thank you, Chair. I am Mark Thomson. I am Director General for Her Majesty’s Passport Office and I am also Director General for UK Visas and Immigration.
Chair
Thank you. You are welcome before us. We want to cover some of the Brexit preparations within the Home Office in some detail, but we would like to start with the current running and operations issues of the Home Office and particularly some of the recent challenges that the Home Office has had to deal with.
Tim Loughton
Sir Philip, on the recent report into the problems at the Home Office that led to the resignation of the previous Home Secretary—and has been sat on for some time—you sent an e-mail to staff saying, “Many of you will be disappointed by the decision to publish”. Why would they be disappointed?
Sir Philip Rutnam
That comment reflected the fact that the report, as I think you know, was commissioned by me as a confidential review of conduct by officials in relation to a particular sequence of events—not the entire sequence of events—following the emergence of the Windrush scandal, the Windrush issue, to which the Department had to respond. A particular sequence of events around the support provided to the then Home Secretary immediately before, during and after an appearance before this Select Committee. It was a confidential internal review to me, and I gave assurances to the staff who were involved in the inquiry, following agreement, that it would be kept confidential. You will understand that, albeit that only the executive summary was published, there would naturally be a feeling of some disappointment among staff that a document that was intended to be kept confidential was released. However, that said, I have to say that Ministers considered very carefully whether to publish any part of the report. They considered that very carefully. They took into account the feelings of staff, they took into account the assurances that had been given, but they also took into account the considerable public and parliamentary interest in those events, and they made a judgment, which I entirely respect, that the balance of interest was in favour of publishing the executive summary. It was a very reasoned and considered process that took all the relevant factors into account, as I think my e-mails to staff also reflected.
Tim Loughton
If you had had your way, not even the executive summary would have been published?
Sir Philip Rutnam
My job is not to make decisions on that matter. My job is to provide advice to Ministers.
Tim Loughton
Would your advice to Ministers have been, and was it, that this should not be published in any form whatsoever?
Sir Philip Rutnam
As you will also know, it is a longstanding convention in this Select Committee and other Select Committees that we do not discuss the advice we give to Ministers. It is a matter for Ministers to consider the—
Tim Loughton
How are we going to get to the bottom of this if you will not tell us what your opinion is? You say it is not your job to expose your opinion, and you are also not prepared to tell us what advice you gave to Ministers based on that opinion. How do we know whether you would ever, if given the opportunity yourself, have published the executive summary or the full report at all?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It was not a decision for me. It was a decision for Ministers. It is a slippery slope if one starts to get into the position of disclosing the advice one gives to Ministers. However, I think you will have inferred from what I have said that I attach a lot of weight to assurances given to staff. I attach a lot of weight to the confidentiality of personal information. It is a very important duty of mine to protect personal information, whether that is the information of the public or the information of my staff. That is a very important duty both legally and ethically and one that I take very seriously.
Tim Loughton
What is the prime responsibility and role of a permanent secretary, Sir Philip?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The prime responsibility is to provide the best possible support to Ministers in the conduct of the business of the Department. That extends to the advice given to Ministers in confidence. It extends to the implementation of the decisions they make. It extends to the management of the resources, financial, human and physical, that the Department has. It is a primary responsibility to do my very best to support Ministers in the Government of the day in designing and then executing the policies they choose to adopt.
Tim Loughton
To quote from the Government website, “Permanent secretaries are responsible for supporting their Secretary of State on the implementation of the Government’s priorities in their Department and for responding effectively to new challenges.” In everything you have said, in defending what may or may not be your opinion and may or may not have been your advice to existing Ministers, that this report commissioned by you—and as a promise also to this Committee—should not be published, not once did you refer to the interests of Ministers, but purely to those of your staff. Yet as a result of the actions of your staff, for whom you are the accounting officer—in your Department you are the chief executive—a Home Secretary lost her job. Where along this process did you exercise any responsibility to the Prime Minister in your Department, whom your prime responsibility is to, according to your definition and the definition from the Government website I have just given you?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The definition on the website and the definition I gave are very similar. My responsibility was to give the best possible advice to Ministers during and after the Windrush episode and indeed on all other matters, including on the conduct of the staff in my Department. I commissioned that review in order to be able to give that advice. Human resources issues, personnel issues, are typically confidential matters in every organisation, and we have duties of confidentiality in relation to the personal information of our staff, duties that are well understood by Ministers and that were taken into account in the decision made. I would say that I have considered and held at the centre of my actions my duty to Ministers throughout this entire proceeding.
Tim Loughton
Whose fault was it that the Home Secretary had to resign?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I do not wish to comment on the then-Home Secretary’s decision to resign. I do not think it is appropriate for me to comment.
Tim Loughton
Why not? It is what we are asking. That is partly why this whole inquiry was set up, and certainly it is at the heart of this Committee’s review at the moment as well.
Sir Philip Rutnam
That was a personal decision for her. It is a decision that she has chosen to give an account of. I do not think that I should be drawn into commenting on why the then Home Secretary or any other Minister has chosen to resign. That is a matter that they should properly account for. What I would draw your attention to, though, is the point that I made at the outset: the Alex Allan review, which you are discussing, considered a very particular sequence of events, beginning with the preparation for the Home Affairs Select Committee hearing that we will all recall, going through that hearing and then the events immediately after. It does not go to the very subject of the Home Secretary’s resignation. It does not go to the decisions that she made about that. It is not within the scope of that inquiry.
Tim Loughton
Do you agree with her account of events that led her to have to resign?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is for the then Home Secretary to account for her decision to resign. It is not my job to agree or disagree with it. It is my job to ensure that the conduct of officials in my Department meets the standards that are set for the Civil Service and—
Tim Loughton
Did it?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The review by Alex Allan is very helpful because it deals with the question of what happened factually during that sequence of events and it deals with the question of misconduct. Was the conduct of officials in the Department in accordance with the standards in the Civil Service Code? Sir Alex found that there were no grounds for misconduct. He found that there were no grounds—this was the key question I wanted him to advise me on—for disciplinary proceedings against any official. He did, however, criticise two senior officials in rather different terms for performance issues, which is a performance management issue, not a disciplinary issue.
Tim Loughton
You have just told us part of the contents of the Alex Allan review, which you wanted to keep secret.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I have gone through it because plainly it has now been published. These questions—
Tim Loughton
Not the full extent. Only the executive summary. You have just given us information that goes beyond the executive summary.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I do not think I have. Sir Alex says that there are no grounds for misconduct, which is principal grounds for disciplinary proceedings, and he does criticise the conduct of two senior officials. In fact, that is plain in the executive summary as published. It has been plain because the executive summary, before it was published, was leaked. It has been in the public domain for some time.
Tim Loughton
Do you feel at all responsible for the actions of those two officials?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I have ultimate responsibility as the most senior official for the actions of all officials in the Department. That does not mean that I scrutinise in real time the actions of each and every one of them. That is not possible. I do have a responsibility for making sure that standards of conduct are upheld. Where they are not upheld, appropriate action is taken. I have responsibility—
Tim Loughton
You feel no personal responsibility for the way those two officials acted?
Sir Philip Rutnam
That is a different question. Of course I feel a personal responsibility for everything that happens in the Department. I feel a personal responsibility for the fact that we did not spot the Windrush events sooner. I feel a personal responsibility for the fact that there were failings in the advice that was given. Of course I feel personal responsibility for those things. It is not the same, though, as saying that I am responsible in the sense that I should have done something in real time to prevent it.
Tim Loughton
You do not think you could have done anything differently? We are not talking about some minor issue where there was a failing. We are talking about a very high-profile “scandal”, which was absolutely overshadowing all the operations of the Home Office and was the biggest political issue for some weeks. As the lead official, the chief executive, the boss with the responsibility both to the Secretary of State and Ministers and all of your staff, you would have been expected to take a rather closer interest than usual in everything that those senior officials closest to the issue did and, therefore, on whose advice the Home Secretary would rely greatly at that time. You do not think you did anything wrong that you might have done differently so that you would have taken a greater interest and that might have pointed out, “Hold on, there appears to be a looming dichotomy here between what my boss, the Secretary of State, is saying and what my officials appear to be advising”?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There is always more that can be done. Believe me, I recognise that and accept that. Did I do things through the Windrush scandal in order to ensure that the Home Secretary was supported? Of course I did. I attended numerous key meetings. I checked before the relevant Home Affairs Select Committee that the key senior official who was supporting her in that felt that everything was in good order. He did feel that everything was in good order. I did not know—indeed it only happened literally minutes before the Select Committee—that the Home Secretary wanted to know the answer to: were there targets for removals in Immigration Enforcement? Of course there is always more that can be done. Do I feel that I reasonably did all that could be expected? I do feel I did all that could reasonably be expected. As I said in my note to staff, there are many aspects of our response to Windrush—the establishment of the task force, the way that our staff have worked extremely hard to put things right—of which I am proud and remain proud.
Tim Loughton
You would not have done anything differently with regard to the way information was passed to the Home Secretary? You think you fulfilled your duties as such and there was not a problem?
Sir Philip Rutnam
With hindsight, of course there is always more—
Tim Loughton
Not with hindsight.
Sir Philip Rutnam
No. We are speaking with hindsight. Of course there is more that could have been, and of course, if I had been present at the Select Committee hearing alongside the Home Secretary, I would have sought to handle things differently. I was not, however, present at that Select Committee alongside the Home Secretary.
Tim Loughton
Did you brief those officials ahead of that Select Committee hearing?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I spoke to the relevant senior official who was attending the Select Committee with the Home Secretary to make sure that he felt that it was properly prepared, and he did feel it was properly prepared. I was personally involved in detail in briefing the Home Secretary before her appearance earlier in the week in the House. I think she made a statement on the Monday. The Select Committee was something that one of my most senior colleagues, who was the relevant expert, was leading on.
Tim Loughton
Final point. At any stage did you discuss the issue of the operation of possible targets in that briefing?
Sir Philip Rutnam
To my recollection, the question of whether or not there were targets for removals in Immigration Enforcement never came up. To my recollection. It did not come up until just before the Select Committee hearing. That is my recollection and I think it is reinforced by Alex Allan’s review.
Chair
You suggested you might have handled it differently if you had been at the Committee as well. Did you know that there were targets in place for immigration removals?
Sir Philip Rutnam
If you remember, there was also a minute leaked, unfortunately, that the then Home Secretary had sent the Prime Minister in January—I think it was the beginning of January that year—in which she had not used the word “target” but talked about, from recollection, something like an “ambition” or an “aim” of increasing the number of removals by 10%. I certainly was aware of that, and I think, with hindsight—again, speaking with hindsight—a more caveated answer on the question of targets might have been preferable. One of the sources of confusion in all of this is the question of what exactly is a target. To my mind, in a common-sense way, setting an aim of increasing the number of removals by 10% is pretty close to a target.
Chair
You knew as soon as the Home Secretary had given her evidence, because it was reported relatively quickly because of the conflict with the previous evidence that we had just heard, that the Home Secretary had given incorrect information to Parliament?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, because the then Home Secretary was adamant that that minute did not involve setting a target, that the process of setting an aim or an ambition of increasing the number of removals by 10% was a target. She was adamant on that point and remained so through the following days. I say that I might have handled things differently—we are all speaking here with hindsight—because, being aware of the nuances of this and how an aim of increasing a target by 10% might be seen, a more caveated answer might have been preferable. That was a minute that was then leaked, as I recall.
Chair
Did you know about the other targets specifically for removals?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, I did not.
Chair
You did not know that there were regional targets for removals?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It certainly was not in the forefront of my mind because it is quite a complex story and quite a complex business, the question of target setting for Immigration Enforcement. By that point in the year and towards the end of the previous year, the leadership of Immigration Enforcement had decided to move away from setting targets, which is one of the reasons this all ended up as a tangled and confused story and why they did not give a clear enough answer.
Chair
You knew all of that? You knew that there had been a process of changing the approach and not having targets?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No. I have to say it was not at the forefront of my mind. The question of the performance management regime for Immigration Enforcement in relation to this aspect of its business was not really in my mind. There are many, many other things. We are talking here about perhaps a quarter of the work of Immigration Enforcement even, and of course there are many, many other aspects of the work of the Home Office.
Chair
The reason I found this slightly puzzling is it would seem to me that you do not take responsibility for policy decisions—those are for Ministers—but you do have responsibility for delivery within the Home Office, and delivery within the Home Office does depend on the performance management regime: what targets are set, what targets are not set, what your delivery plan is over time, in which areas you think it is appropriate to set targets for staff, in which areas it is appropriate to set bonuses for staff. I just find it really, really puzzling that you, as Permanent Secretary, or your senior staff, would not have an overview of the targets and the monitoring of targets that were being set within the institution.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I understand the concern. However, I repeat, we are talking here about some detail in the performance management arrangements for one part, not the whole, of Immigration Enforcement. It does many other things besides, including detention, including criminal and financial investigations, a whole range of things. We are only talking about one part of it. Also, if you recall, in the structure of the Home Office it is a very large organisation with very, very large operational partners, not least in policing. There are many, many, many different aspects to which the question of, “What is the performance management regime that is appropriate?” could arise. I would not claim to have—you may be concerned by this—an encyclopaedic knowledge of what is the performance management regime across each and every one of all of those activities. My primary job is to make sure that we have the right strategic goals, the right management information, the right monitoring of that, Changing the arrangements for operational targets in Immigration Enforcement during the course of 2017-18, which is what had happened in 2016-17, was an issue that was dealt with by the Immigration Enforcement board, which was chaired by the relevant Director General. It did not come to the Department’s Executive Committee. The oversight of Immigration Enforcement, alongside the oversight of other functions in the borders, immigration and citizenship space, lay not directly with me. I was not line-managing the relevant Director General. It was the second Permanent Secretary.
Chair
We have raised with you, I think repeatedly, concerns about the nature of management oversight within the Home Office in a series of different areas, so I think that this may be an issue that we will come back to.
Douglas Ross
Sir Philip, what authority did you have to say this would be a confidential review?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I have the authority to commission the review. I did so in concert with the Cabinet Office, which has overall responsibility for the Civil Service, and—
Douglas Ross
Let us try again. What authority did you have to say it would be a confidential review?
Sir Philip Rutnam
If I commission a review into the management and conduct, in particular, of my officials, that is by definition a confidential process because it involves personal information. I have the authority that goes with commissioning the review.
Douglas Ross
The publication is not your decision. Whether that is published in full or in part is not your decision.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It was a decision that—
Douglas Ross
It is not your decision.
Sir Philip Rutnam
No. It was a decision that we put to Ministers, clearly.
Douglas Ross
Yes, but you said in response to Mr Loughton about the publication of the report, “My job is not to make decisions on that matter. It wasn’t a decision for me”, quote unquote. Yet on 8 May, when you wrote to the Home Secretary, you said it was a confidential review, so you had already made that decision. You had put the backs of the Ministers and the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary up against the wall. They had no option because you had already decided it was going to be confidential, with no authority.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Establishing the review was something that I did as Permanent Secretary in concert with the Cabinet Office, which, as I say, has overall responsibility for the Civil Service and is well used to handling matters not precisely of this nature but broadly of this nature. The framework within which one looks at the conduct of individuals in the organisation is a pretty well-established framework whether in terms of employment law or the duty of care to employees.
Douglas Ross
Did you leave all options open to Ministers to decide the publication of the report? Yes or no?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It cannot have been all options open because—
Douglas Ross
No, because you said the only option was it was confidential, so you did not want to publish.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It cannot have been leaving all options open, plainly. Was there discussion at the time about the need to conduct such a review? Yes. Was there discussion at the time about how such a review should be conducted? Yes.
Douglas Ross
Not that you will have options at the end of this, given that it was evidence in a public committee, to publicise that report in full because there is a public interest surrounding this report. You gave the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary no option, if they had wished to, to publish the report in full.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Mr Ross, I took all those decision in good faith and in consultation with partners in the Cabinet Office, other key senior officials including the then Cabinet Secretary. All those decisions were taken in good faith. If you are implying that with hindsight—again, with the benefit of hindsight—we might have approached this review differently, I would accept that.
Douglas Ross
You would have made it public?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I think we are dealing here with a tension between two principles, which I have—
Douglas Ross
No, Sir Philip. I will tell you what the tension is: when members of this Committee ask you a question and you do not answer it. It is very clear that you are trying to use a lot of words in all your answers to filibuster this session out for some reason. I hope now you are uncomfortable with the situation you have left us as elected Members in, that basically we have a report where there is a significant public interest, that we have not seen that full report. I think, based on what you wrote at the time, you have left Ministers with no option to publish that public report. It is damning on you, as the head civil servant in the Home Office, for initiating the review in that way. Frankly, the public have less and less faith in the Home Office if this is the way you are going to operate.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I regret those comments. The review was conducted in good faith as an attempt to establish the facts in relation to what had happened and in particular to give advice as to whether there were any grounds for disciplinary action. The Civil Service, as you are I imagine well aware, reports to Ministers. We are accountable to Ministers. Ministers are accountable to Parliament. I am clear that I have discharged my duty to Ministers in the way in which this review has been conducted and the way in which it has been reported to them, and indeed in the action taken following it. The tension that I was seeking to identify was between the duty of accountability that the Civil Service has constitutionally to Ministers and the duty of transparency to Committees such as this, which I think you are highlighting. To be honest, I do not have a way of resolving that. I do say—
Douglas Ross
You accept you failed on the transparency issue?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, I would say that—
Douglas Ross
No?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No. The review was a good review, done in good faith and a very important exercise to establish what happened and how I should hold individuals in the Department to account for it. That is a proper way of proceeding. The Civil Service operates within pretty standard rules in terms of protecting our staff, in terms of protecting their confidential information, and exercising a duty of care towards them. That is what has been at the forefront of my mind in the whole handling of this.
Douglas Ross
The review was about the conduct of your staff before, during and after a Home Affairs Select Committee. Do you think it is fair that members of the Home Affairs Select Committee have no idea what the review established about what happened during our Committee meeting?
Sir Philip Rutnam
You have of course seen the executive summary. The executive summary was shared in confidence with the Select Committee.
Chair
Which we respected.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It was shared in confidence with the Select Committee, and you then asked—
Douglas Ross
As the Chair said, we respected it, so I think you should acknowledge that. Correct?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It was leaked. I have to say I do not know how it was leaked.
Tim Loughton
Everything is leaked from the Home Office, so do not blame us.
Chair
I hope that you will withdraw that because this Committee kept that executive summary in confidence for very, very many months despite considerable pressure on each of us as individuals with people asking for it. We took the decision to keep it in confidence, as we had given the assurances, and we also asked you repeatedly for the full report.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am very grateful for that reassurance and of course I accept that. Thank you. Given your reassurance to me, for which I am very grateful, I am not implying that the Committee or any member of it leaked it. However—
Douglas Ross
You were before you got that reassurance—
Sir Philip Rutnam
No. You asked me directly if I could confirm that you had respected the confidence or words to that effect. You have confirmed that, for which I am very grateful.
Chair
I think you are suggesting that it was leaked the day before it was published.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It was leaked also the day before it was published.
Chair
Was it leaked before that?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I think there was a story, as I recall, in the newspapers earlier in the summer. I cannot recall exactly when.
Chair
I think it would be unwise for you to be making suggestions about members of the Committee when we have the rest of the Committee session still to get through.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I withdraw any imputation. Thank you, Chair. I withdraw any imputation of that or any inference of that. I am grateful for the reassurance that you have provided. That is very helpful. Your question, Mr Ross—sorry, I have lost the train of thought.
Douglas Ross
My question was, as members of the Home Affairs Select Committee who were involved in the review in terms of the review being about before, during that Select Committee and after, do you think it is fair that we, as members of that Committee, have no understanding or idea what the Alex Allan review established or the facts surrounding the support given during that evidence session?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Thank you for reminding me. You have the executive summary. The executive summary is, I can assure you and Sir Alex no doubt could assure you, a fair summary of the whole report, but of course it does not include more detail as to individual officials than those who are named in the executive summary. The question of whether or not to share the full report with the Committee or indeed whether or not to publish the full report was considered by Ministers very carefully, and they concluded, in light of the range of factors that I talked about earlier, not to do so.
Douglas Ross
That is right. You are reiterating the point you made earlier, but my question is very specific to members of this Committee who were involved in this process. Do you think it is right that we have no idea what Sir Alex Allan looked at in terms of the support given during the Committee and his findings? For example, did he discuss with Glyn Williams about notes being passed by other advisers to Glyn Williams that he did not share with the Committee and he did not share with the then-Home Secretary?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Do I think it is fair? I think that relates fundamentally to the question of the accountability of the Civil Service. We are accountable to Ministers, and Ministers are accountable to Parliament. Ministers, I can assure you, have considered very carefully the question of whether more information should be disclosed to the Committee, and they have decided not to share the full report.
Douglas Ross
Did the report look at advice given to Glyn Williams from people sat behind him in notes passed to him that he read but did not share with the Committee and the then-Home Secretary?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Now, Mr Ross, you are trying to take me into the rest of the report, of course, and—
Douglas Ross
You can understand why I might be interested in that, given that I have asked on the public record Glyn Williams’s question to himself, and he was awaiting the interview with the Alex Allan review, so there was an interest then that you are surely aware of because you will have researched what this Committee has asked about in the past. It is in the public domain already. You can confirm or deny if the review did look at that.
Sir Philip Rutnam
There are obviously many such questions that could be asked, and—
Douglas Ross
This is one.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Given that a decision has been taken, very carefully considered, not to share the full report, I—
Douglas Ross
You said it was about members who had not been named in the executive summary. Glyn Williams is named in the executive summary. This is a question that does not impact on anyone else. It impacts on advice given to a senior member of your team, which he received from someone sat behind him. He confirmed on the record that it did relate to targets, and either that note said the targets do exist or they do not exist. Therefore, he should have passed that information to the Committee and the then-Home Secretary at the time. Yet we, as members of this Committee who saw that note being passed, are no clearer as to how that was established and how that happened.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I recognise the concern, but it does impact on the question of whether or not the document beyond the executive summary should be disclosed, and Ministers have taken a decision on that.
Douglas Ross
You are saying it is impossible now for members of this Committee to find out what your officials were told during that meeting and they did not share with elected Members of this Parliament?
Sir Philip Rutnam
In relation to the specific request you are making, of course I can take that away and I can see whether we are able to share more information with you, but I want to reiterate that a very careful and thoughtful process has been gone through in relation to further disclosure.
Douglas Ross
I am grateful for that. I will be following that up. What lessons have you learned from this? What has changed?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There are many lessons. As I alluded—
Douglas Ross
What has changed?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The process for supporting Ministers and senior officials appearing before Select Committees has changed.
Douglas Ross
In what way?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There was a failing in that hearing in relation to providing appropriate presence in the pre-hearing that the Select Committee had: Lucy Moreton of the Immigration Services Union. We did not have the right person in the room to take a note of the points that Lucy Moreton was raising and to make sure that the Home Secretary was briefed on that. That is not acceptable. That process has been changed. So long as I have anything to do with it, that will not happen again.
Douglas Ross
You have just highlighted an individual. You have not named the person, but you have highlighted that there was an individual who did that, and at this public meeting you have just highlighted that that individual did not act as well as they could have done.
Sir Philip Rutnam
There is a reference to the fact that the—
Douglas Ross
The Home Secretary was informed of the questions about targets, but it went to her SpAd rather than to someone in the Home Office. There was someone doing exactly what you are saying should be done, so you have just criticised the person that did that.
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, Mr Ross. The executive summary as published says, “During the session before hers, an official sitting in—”
Douglas Ross
“An official sitting in on that hearing spotted the questioning about removals targets and e-mailed the team with the Home Secretary.”
Sir Philip Rutnam
“The import of this was missed due to misunderstandings.”
Douglas Ross
Yes, but all you have told us is the only change is someone is going to sit through the meeting and alert the Home Secretary or someone about what has been asked. That happened.
Sir Philip Rutnam
“The import of this was missed due to misunderstandings.” It clearly did not work as it should have done.
Douglas Ross
The person was here and they did what you are saying will now happen.
Sir Philip Rutnam
The person who was here was not here for that purpose.
Douglas Ross
They did what you want them to do.
Sir Philip Rutnam
You asked what had changed. The process for making sure that things that were raised in what I described as the pre-hearing were identified and reported to the Home Secretary and appropriate briefing prepared. That process did not work as it should have done. We have changed that process.
Douglas Ross
I know we have taken up a lot of time, so I will have one last question because I would like to discuss that further. This has clearly been an absolute mess by your Department and I do not think there is any way to defend it. I take it since that very unfortunate hearing that for any further information you have provided this Committee, there have been no further failures by your Department. Everything we have received about the Alex Allan review is competent and we are able to use it perfectly legitimately. Yes or no? We need to move on, so just—
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am never going to claim that we achieve a standard of perfection. Have we changed our procedures? Yes, we have. Is there always room for further improvement? Yes, there is.
Douglas Ross
I am just checking that there are no further problems with the information the Home Office has provided this Committee about the Alex Allan review, and we are free to publish anything we have, or have there been further issues?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There is at least one document that we have shared with the Committee. In order to publish it, we are in a discussion—I discussed this with your Chair—about the need for some redactions, but that is a process that is continuing, and I think we are waiting to hear from the Committee on that.
Douglas Ross
Why would you share it with the Committee? Sorry. My question is: if you share a document that you need some redactions in, why not do the same with the full report.
Sir Philip Rutnam
The full report, were it redacted, would, I have to say, either be close to meaningless because the report is about conduct, in particular conduct of individuals. If you take my point about the information about individuals, certainly individuals below the level of seniority covered in the executive summary, that is personal information, then the report would be very heavily redacted.
Douglas Ross
Have you mucked up again with information you have given this Committee, if we now need to redact, apparently, information? Have you failed this Committee again?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We share information with the Committee frequently in—
Douglas Ross
You meant to share the information that you are now asking to be redacted?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We share information with the Committee frequently, and sometimes that is done in confidence. As we have discussed earlier, that is a confidence that is respected.
Douglas Ross
Did you mean to share that information with the Committee that you are now asking to be redacted?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I think, Mr Ross—
Douglas Ross
No, Sir Philip. Yes or no? The information that you are now asking to be redacted: when you sent it to the Committee, were you aware of what had been sent, and why are you now asking for that to be redacted, if you were aware?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I think, Mr Ross, you were referring to the fact that a clerical error was very unfortunately made. I think this is where you are going in your line of questioning.
Douglas Ross
It has taken a while to get there, hasn’t it?
Sir Philip Rutnam
A clerical error was made by a colleague in the Department in one document sent to the Committee, which I regret. I have suggested that, while obviously it is a matter for the Committee to decide whether or not to publish the document, some redactions would be appropriate, again in order to protect personal information.
Chair
Just on the wider review, I think, Sir Philip, it would be worth you considering that our interest is not in the names of junior officials in the wider Alex Allan review, but our interest is in what structures and what oversight might have been in place or might have not been in place. I think some of the things we have taken from these different reviews and these issues are not just about what individuals have done but are in fact about the overarching performance of the Home Office and the oversight or lack thereof. We have quite a lot of issues that we want to cover with you, and we do want to come back to some of the wider issues, the important issues around immigration casework and around the Windrush scandal that led to some of these departmental issues in the first place. Can I just first cover with you some of the issues around the Home Office preparations for Brexit? Can you tell me how many people are currently working on no-deal preparation within the Home Office?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Our work is not divided between deal and no deal. We have a large number of people working on Brexit. Most of them are working either on implementation—and we can talk about that—that is relevant to deal or no deal in varying ways or on planning. Again, the planning capacity is mostly about how we plan whether for implementation of a deal or for no deal, if one were not to happen. We have not established across the Department separate no-deal teams from deal teams because what we need to be able to do is to prepare appropriately for all the scenarios we face.
Chair
How many people are working on Brexit preparation?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We have over 4,000 people now working on Brexit, from memory. I am going to ask Ms Gorasia perhaps to add a bit more detail to that.
Charu Gorasia
Yes, we have 4,100 that we have identified who are working on Brexit preparations for the Home Office.
Chair
What is the range of those jobs and what are most of those people working on?
Charu Gorasia
I have a detailed breakdown here. We have Border Force colleagues who are working on Brexit issues. We have UK—
Chair
How many of them?
Charu Gorasia
One thousand and ninety-five. We have UKVI staff working on EU supplement scheme, caseworking and resolution centre. We have—
Chair
How many of them?
Charu Gorasia
Two thousand, two hundred and thirteen. We have Immigration Enforcement, 141, and other, which includes corporate support, digital and so on, 651. These are numbers as we know them now. We keep our resourcing under review constantly. Depending on which scenario we go towards and as people tell us they need more or less capacity, we will change and flex these numbers.
Chair
That is approximately over a third of the UKVI staff and, what, 20% of the Border Force?
Charu Gorasia
I do not have the exact head count to be able to tell you the proportions.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Less than that of Border Force. I think Border Force head count at the moment is 8,190. It will be whatever it is, a seventh of the Border Force.
Chair
About a third of the UKVI?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Again a bit less, but Mr Thomson could pick up on that.
Chair
You have 6,100 as your last head count in UKVI in the annual report.
Mark Thomson
Yes. Perhaps if I go into the numbers on the EU settlement scheme preparation in a bit more detail, if that would be helpful. The ambition is to have 1,500 caseworkers in place for the operation of the EU settlement scheme. We will also have 300 colleagues in what will be called the resolution centre, for anyone to call us if they have any questions or concerns or want more detail on the scheme. As we sit here today I have 1,215 caseworkers already in place.
Chair
Say that again. One thousand?
Mark Thomson
One thousand, two hundred and fifteen. I have a further 109 who have been security-cleared, who are just about to start to undertake training, and we have another 166 individuals who are waiting to go through security clearance. Chair, if I could go into the resolution centre numbers, would that be helpful to you?
Chair
That would be helpful.
Mark Thomson
I mentioned that we want 300 in place in time. At the moment we have 151. These are colleagues who are getting ready in handling training and practising handling calls from customers. There are a further 47 security-cleared.
Chair
Are these for basically cases where there are queries or where things have gone wrong?
Mark Thomson
Yes. It could be anything. We are making sure we have a facility in place for anyone who has any questions about the settlement scheme, easy that it should be to complete. They can give us a call.
Chair
On the Border Force, what are those staff working on?
Charu Gorasia
We have 900 staff for operations, and non-operational, 195. The 4,100 figure I quoted is our requirement. As of today, we have recruited 2,662 of those, 1,438 are either in the pipeline or we have launched campaigns.
Chair
Can you just clarify that? This is additional Border Force staff, or is this basically just replacing turnover of existing Border Force staff?
Charu Gorasia
These are additional Border Force staff. The 900 is the number Paul Lincoln has mentioned it the Committee before.
Chair
You currently have 8,100?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Eight thousand, one hundred and ninety I think was the figure that Paul used for Border Force.
Chair
That is right. The additional staff on top of that that you plan to recruit is how many?
Charu Gorasia
The 8,190 includes the 475 that have already been recruited. There are 620 more for us to recruit.
Sir Philip Rutnam
We aim to be at about 8,700 or 8,600 Border Force complement next year. Obviously I would like it to be in the end of March next year. Some of that recruitment though is likely to slip into the summer.
Chair
I do not understand the figures that you were referring to then when you were talking about 2,600 or something like that. Did I misunderstand?
Charu Gorasia
Shall I try that again, Chair? The question was, how many people does Home Office need for EU exit preparations? Our requirement is 4,100—these are additional staff—of which 2,662 have already been recruited.
Chair
Just pause for a second. When I asked you the first question about how many staff you had working on Brexit, you said 4,000 were working on Brexit. How does that 4,000 that were currently working on Brexit compare to the 4,100 that you need for preparations? Are they the same? Are they different?
Charu Gorasia
They are not all currently working on Brexit. We require 4,100 in total to work on Brexit.
Chair
How many people are currently working on Brexit?
Charu Gorasia
Two thousand, six hundred and sixty-two that have all been recruited.
Chair
All of those figures then—we have just been talking, let us say, at cross-purposes on this. My question is, how many people are working on Brexit preparation at the moment?
Charu Gorasia
Two thousand, six hundred and sixty-two.
Chair
Two thousand, six hundred and sixty-two.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Sorry. We misunderstood your question as about the requirement—how many there are as opposed to how many are required. Apologies for the misunderstanding.
Chair
Compared to what is required, we have a pretty stonking great gap, then. Where is the biggest gap there? Is that on Border Force? Is that on UKVI? Where is that gap made up from?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The biggest proportionate gap is in Border Force. We should talk about that, but I think it might be helpful first of all just to hear about where UKVI is and how it is feeling its gap, because it also needs to recruit more staff, and coming forward—
Chair
I think we have just heard that because you talked about having 1,500 caseworkers in place.
Mark Thomson
Indeed, Chair. Could I clarify one point that I think is quite important? The 1,500 will not all be new staff. We had at one point 700 colleagues working on what is called the Euro Service. That is fundamentally where applicants would apply for residence documentation. We had a very high demand for this service in previous years, which has now gone down again. We are utilising the colleagues that we recruited to handle that surge in applications to now point to handling the EU settlement scheme, which is, if I may say, a good thing, because we have experienced caseworkers used to doing cases pointed to the new scheme. The 1,500 is not all new, 700 of those colleagues were already in operation in UKVI.
Chair
Can we just then clarify? You need 4,100 people to work on Brexit. Your previous head count in the last annual report was 30,600 in the Home Office. Is this 4,100 on top of that head count, or does that 4,100 include a lot of people who are currently working in the Home Office?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Some of the 4,100 is in that head count because we have redeployed some staff, but there is significant growth as well. If I could give an example of Border Force head count, Border Force head count at the end of March 2018 was, from memory, 7,600. We are expecting Border Force head count a year on—it may take until, say, the summer—to be 8,700. That is an increase in the total size of Border Force. There is also an increase in the total size of UKVI but some redeployment. I am sorry, I do not have in my head the mix between redeployment and growth as proposed for Brexit.
Chair
The reason this is important is I am trying to understand how much you need additional capacity within the Home Office in order to deal with Brexit and how much you are reallocating existing resources. Surely you have a clear picture. That feels like a basic thing to have a clear picture of the scale of additional capacity needed and the scale of redeployment.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is best to take that area by area. I wonder if Mark could answer that in relation to UKVI and then we will talk about—
Chair
I was quite interested in the whole figure because it seems for the Home Office you have to deploy people and move people around within the Home Office as a whole.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Yes, I understand that. If we take it area by area and then we look at the whole, we might be able to come to the answer to your question. I do not have an answer in my head. That is why I want to do it area by area.
Chair
Give it a try.
Mark Thomson
Should I start with UKVI again, Chair?
Chair
Yes. If I am honest, I think you have already told us those figures. Do you want to tell us the Border Force figures?
Mark Thomson
Chair, I have not given you any detail on HMPO, I am afraid.
Chair
Have you not? That is different. Sorry. Go on.
Mark Thomson
In a normal circumstance I would not be recruiting another 300 people to handle the extra passport demand. That is the only missing figure that we have for both UKVI and HMPO.
Chair
On the rest of the Home Office?
Sir Philip Rutnam
In Border Force the great bulk of the resource we are talking about, the 1,095 that Ms Gorasia described, is new. The great bulk of it. There will be some resource in policy areas that will be redeployed. There is also some backfilling in the readiness task force, but we are doing a great deal of recruitment into Border Force and most of that is new. The reason I was wanting Mr Thomson to speak was I am afraid I did not catch—perhaps he gave the answer to this earlier—the breakdown within UKVI between redeployment and new staff.
Mark Thomson
Shall I clarify that, Chair? Eighteen hundred is the total commitment in UKVI to operate the EU settlement scheme, 700 of those colleagues were already working in UKVI on the Euro scheme.
Chair
We have 4,100 on preparations. Do you need additional staff if there is no deal?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Again, it varies area by area. In relation to the EU settlement scheme, that does not really vary according to whether it is deal or no deal. If it is the border, you can imagine we have developed a pretty comprehensive no-deal plan and we would expect to seek to redeploy staff out of other areas in the organisation, in particular Immigration Enforcement, in order to further strengthen the border, so redeployment. In other areas of the Department what I would principally expect to do is to again redeploy staff at short notice out of other areas of work in order to deliver on our no-deal plans.
Chair
When do you have to start doing that redeployment?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Pretty soon. We are already in the course of training people to bolster our command and control arrangements for dealing with an event such as this. That is a form of redeployment. Switching off other projects and activities in order to move into the execution of a no-deal plan: we are not at that point but we will reach it soon.
Chair
When is soon? What is the date at which you, as a responsible civil servant, are just going to have to start moving people, whatever the wider issues are?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Again, it varies by function, but if I am not doing this before Christmas I would be concerned. It is not a simple, binary thing in terms of switching activities, but we are already significantly increasing the level of activity around no deal and we will continue to do that. I would be expecting to make more redeployment decisions in December. If it is clear that the outcome is no deal, this will be an enormously intensive activity for the Department from Christmas onwards.
Chair
What are the things that you will stop doing? You talked of some projects that you will have to stop doing. Have you stopped any already?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Not as such, no. For example, in relation to the training activity, we are looking to do that by people essentially moving their training activity into building our command and control capacity.
Chair
What does “command and control capacity” mean? What do you mean by that?
Sir Philip Rutnam
If we had to staff a 24-seven operations centre, we already have one for dealing with counter-terrorism and national security incidents, but we do not have such a facility for dealing with civil contingencies. That is the kind of capability that we would put in place.
Chair
That is to deal with what kinds of civil contingencies?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Disruption at the border, for example. The potential need for intensified co-operation with the police. The need no doubt would also exist for a great deal of collaboration with the centre of Government, with the Cobra machinery and the Cabinet Office. We have not formally stopped doing other activities that I can recall but we are intensifying our activity on no deal, week on week, and there will come a point soon at which we will need formally to switch resource.
Chair
You are basically talking about in the next couple of weeks, whenever that is?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I talked about Christmas and December. It is a little bit further than a couple of weeks.
Chair
The command and control: you basically would set up a system kind of equivalent to the command and control systems when there is a serious terrorist incident? It is that kind of command and control?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Broadly, but I would not use exactly that analogy because obviously the task would be different. We already have command and control capabilities in the Department. Border Force has one for running its activities. There is one, as I have said, in relation to counter-terrorist incidents and national security. This would be in order to make sure that we could in particular liaise with the police and with other civil authorities.
Chair
This sounds immensely serious and it sounds like you have an awful lot of work to do. I am still struggling just in terms of where the staff are going to come from in order to do this. You talked about reducing Immigration Enforcement. How many people do you think you can take out of Immigration Enforcement?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Potentially low hundreds. These are uniformed staff who have immigration powers and are immigration-trained. We would need to work through a number of procedures in order to redeploy them in this way, and it depends on the scale of the task, but potentially a significant number. Mr Thomson has in fact been helping to co-ordinate and intensify our no-deal planning so he might want to add a bit at this point.
Mark Thomson
The other area, Chair, where significant resources could be freed up would be in our enablers department.
Chair
What is that?
Mark Thomson
That is a lot of Charu’s people. This would be IT colleagues, HR colleagues and those who run support functions for the Home Office.
Chair
Is that a bit of a problem if you get rid of them? Doesn’t IT stop functioning?
Mark Thomson
Perhaps, Chair, but this is more around if you had significant change deployment programmes at the time of no deal coming into operation. If the border is going to be intensively busy, it would be foolish to deploy things like that at that time. It is reappointing colleagues from that space.
Chair
The staff who currently fix the IT when it goes wrong might have to go to the border?
Mark Thomson
No. One of the things that is crucially important is identifying the very systems you mention, Chair, to make sure that they do not fall over at the time that they are most required. We definitely would not be moving those people. It is those who might be working on strategy development and things like that, which are important topics in themselves but perhaps not pressing in the short term.
Chair
What are they actually going to have to do? Are they going to have to just go to the border and do the extra checks, having been previously writing strategies?
Mark Thomson
No.
Charu Gorasia
Chair, if I may, these are staff in my area who have project management skills, for example. We may wish to release them to support Border Force, so Border Force can release its some other staff to backfill other roles. Those are the sorts of things we are considering. We are thinking about, are there minimum viable products that we must deliver? For example, I have a team that works on continuous improvement projects. I will have a team that is looking at implementation of new or improving some of our IT and our processes. It is those sorts of people and capacity that we could release.
Chair
I notice you did not say at all about whether there were any staffing issues that you would need in terms of dealing with security or policing co-operation issues.
Sir Philip Rutnam
That too, yes. This goes to the question of how we are preparing for no deal. We have already increased the resource in the team that deals with international co-operation around alternative instruments, if we are cannot continue to rely on the EU instruments. We have increased the team there and increased the resourcing also, in consultation with partners and the National Crime Agency and National Police Chiefs’ Council, in law enforcement. There is a significant amount of activity there. That is continuing because of the lead time. It would need to grow further but not by necessarily very much because the activity is already under way.
Chair
Do you have clarity yet about what the reduction in security information you will have will be at the border as a result, for example, of losing SIS2 or other European databases?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I know that this issue came up at another of your hearings recently. I can confirm that if we were in a no-deal situation, then we foresee that there would be a reduction in the information that is available at the border. That is because while we would expect to use alternative instruments, we would not expect those to be able to provide the same amount of information as quickly as the existing EU instruments, certainly not to begin with. A comparison between SIS2, for example, and the Interpol alternatives: the Interpol alternatives are very good, but they will take time. In particular, we need to make sure that it is not just the UK that is using them but also our EU partners are using them. They are not exactly the same instruments in terms of how they work. The Interpol systems are somewhat different from the European instruments. There are some real issues there. We are very alive to them. As we have discussed with you before, if we are in this situation we will do everything possible to fill the gap in terms of information, but I cannot say that the information will be the same. It will not be, certainly to begin with.
Chair
Do you have information about how many times a day or how many times a week or a month the Border Force uses SIS2 information?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I do not have that information to share with the Committee because it is sensitive operational information. I am sorry but I am not able to go any further into the detail of what effects the alternative instruments would have. There would be an effect but I cannot go into the detail.
Chair
We know that, on average, police, Border Force and immigration officials access SIS2 more than 1.4 million times a day. Why can’t you tell us what proportion of that 1.4 million is from the Border Force?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The advice I have had is that I cannot go any further in giving you operational information because, as you will understand, while there are effects on information—
Chair
1.4 million. We know the total.
Sir Philip Rutnam
—we do not want to give any criminals or other adversaries any advantage.
Chair
I do not think they will have an advantage if they know that. Roughly, the police use that 1.4 million a third of the time, the Border Force a third of the times, and Immigration Enforcement officials a third of the times. I do not see how that remotely provides criminals with useful information that will somehow make it easier for them to get through the border.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am looking in my notes because I already believe—I have already made my point about the contents of the systems and the operational reasons for not going any further, but I think there is also European obligation not to go any further. I can check that if you like; I am afraid I cannot find it in my notes immediately.
Chair
I am finding this utterly baffling. We are simply trying to work out what is the scale of the reduction in security information as a result of having no deal, and we are asking in very broad terms, very broad questions. We know that 1.4 million times a day the police, Border Force and immigration officials access SIS2, so we have an upper bound to the information that we have been giving. We are just asking for a little bit further information so we can understand the scale of the impact on the Border Force.
Sir Philip Rutnam
At the moment I am afraid I am unable to provide that to you.
Chair
I think this is baffling. The problem is that given there appears to be no good explanation for this, what it looks as though you are doing is simply hiding behind this information in order not to provide Parliament with proper information about what the scale of the impact is as a result of no deal.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I understand the concern, and that is not the reason. The reason is that the best advice I have is that we should not share more information about—
Chair
Whose advice?
Sir Philip Rutnam
From Border Force and from the colleagues in the Department who are responsible for these instruments and the obligations under which we operate.
Chair
You confirm that there is a reduction in security as a result?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There would be a reduction in the information available at the border. I can confirm that. There is one important point to make about that, which is that it would be a reduction in the information available both to the UK and to our European partners, which goes to the point that, even in a no-deal scenario, we would have a strong mutual interest in trying to minimise that reduction and trying to fill it as quickly as possible.
Chair
I am sure that is the case. We are very clear and agreed on that. Is it also the case that if you switch to Interpol information, you lose the discrete markers, which means that somebody needs to be monitored, for example?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There is a system for discrete markers in SIS2. I think there is also a system for discrete markers in the Interpol systems.
Chair
That is different from what the police told us last week.
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is not widely used. There is a system—
Chair
That means that presumably the markers are not on it.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I believe there is a system. Interpol has some 18 databases, which are supported over the I-24/7 system, and I believe that they do allow for discrete markers but they are not widely used.
Chair
The police gave us loads of information in our previous evidence session. They gave us a lot of information about the difficulties with switching to the Interpol database: the fact that not everyone is on it, the fact that for an arrest you still need to get a warrant, and the fact that you lose the discrete markers. It would just be really helpful to have similar clear information from you and from the Home Office about what this means at the borders, as well as what it means for the police.
Sir Philip Rutnam
We are not disagreeing with any of the assessment that you have had from the police. What I am declining to do, because I am not in a position to do that, is to give you information on how many of those 1.4 million hits come up in relation to Border Force and border security.
Chair
Does this mean what you are actually doing is hiding the reduction in security that there will be as a result of no deal?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, I do not accept that. The advice I have had is that it is not in the interests of the country’s security to—
Chair
You are not giving us the information, so you are withholding information to the public. You are withholding information on what the security downgrade will be as a result of no deal, and you are withholding information to Parliament that may have to make decisions around no deal on what the scale of the security downgrade at the borders will be.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am not in a position to tell you how many of the hits that occur on SIS2 occur at the UK border. That is not information I can share with you.
Chair
Can you confirm that if there is no deal there will be a reduction in security at the border and a reduction in Immigration Enforcement?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There will be a reduction in the information available at the border. There would also be a reduction in the information that is available to law enforcement partners inside the UK. Lynne Owens talked about this at the hearing you referred to. I think she talked about the reduction. She was speaking about this in the round as significant, and I would accept her assessment. Yes, there will be a reduction, in no deal, in the information that is available to law enforcement and to border security.
Chair
A reduction in public safety as a result of that. That is what the police have said.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Information is the lifeblood of border security and law enforcement. It is a vital resource. Any reduction is to be deeply regretted. There would be an effect. However, to reassure you and to reassure the public, we, in the context of our no-deal planning, are doing everything we can to try to mitigate this effect, both through the exploitation and development of alternatives and by looking at how operationally—for example, at the border—we could mitigate the effect of losing information by deploying more staff, adopting different approaches to checks, and so on.
Chair
You will do that by reducing Immigration Enforcement as well, because you will be redeploying staff away from Immigration Enforcement?
Sir Philip Rutnam
If we find that we have to focus in no deal on supporting activities at the border, then the best option in terms of deploying more uniformed staff at the border is for a short period to deploy staff from Immigration Enforcement, which I have to say—
Chair
We should expect less Immigration Enforcement during that period?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I have to say this is what happens during other periods of high demand at the border. It is what happens, for example, during this summer in relation to summer pressures. This would be on a larger scale, but it is an approach that the Department regularly uses flexibly to deploy staff according to the highest pressure.
Chair
I understand that. I am not expecting you magically to solve all of the problems of no-deal Brexit. I am just asking you to be straight with us about what the consequences are. Clearly, there are going to be huge challenges and it would be difficult for the Home Office to address all of them. We are simply asking you to be straight with us about what the scale of the challenges are and what you are going to have to do, rather than pretend that everything is going to be okay because you are going to work really hard.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I understand that. In that scenario there would need to be a reduction in the work in Immigration Enforcement. Which work exactly would need to stop I cannot tell you at the moment. It might not be the work that is commonly regarded as Immigration Enforcement, which is what are known as our ICE teams, which are mobile resources that are deployed typically to do inspections and local enforcement. There might be some reduction in that. There may be some reduction in some other areas in Immigration Enforcement. As I described earlier, it does a wide range of things. I do not have that level of detail.
Stephen Doughty
On the no-deal contingency planning, a moment ago you were talking about some contingencies, preparations and operations in command and control and so on. Have you been in direct contact with the army about support that it can provide?
Sir Philip Rutnam
No, I have not been in direct contact with the army. We do have discussions with the Ministry of Defence. I have—
Stephen Doughty
Have your officials been discussing this?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Yes, of course we talk to the Ministry of Defence. However, to be clear, it is not part of our contingency planning to deploy the armed forces.
Stephen Doughty
Is there training ongoing?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is not part of our contingency planning to deploy the armed forces.
Stephen Doughty
Is there training ongoing?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I cannot speak to what training is or is not ongoing in the armed forces, but I can say—
Stephen Doughty
No. Training between your Department and the armed forces. Is there training ongoing? It is a pretty simple question. Yes or no?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We regularly do activities to train together, but it is not necessarily—and it is not, in fact—about Brexit. As you can imagine, we face a number of other threats.
Stephen Doughty
No. I have witnessed the training myself between your Border Force specialists and the army, and it includes obviously preparation for counter-terrorism incidents but also training for disruption at ports and borders. It would strike me as very strange if you were not conducting training with them now to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. Is that training going on or not?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is not part of our no-deal planning that we would deploy the armed forces, for example, at the border. Our no-deal planning at the border includes the resources we have already been talking about, the growth in Border Force. It includes deployment potentially of staff out of Immigration Enforcement. It includes the surge capacity that exists and is held by HMRC on behalf of the whole of Government, which again has been deployed at the border, and a number of other contingencies, but we are not planning on the basis of deploying the armed forces at the border.
Stephen Doughty
That strikes me as very strange, though, Sir Philip, because you prepare and train for the deployment of the armed forces at the border for other circumstances, and that goes on on a regular basis because I have seen it myself. You are telling me that you have not prepared to employ them in what could be an extremely testing and difficult situation, and when the CDS and one of the Ministers at the MoD themselves has said that the army is preparing to be available to use in those situations.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I can only tell you what is in our plans. Our no-deal plans for the border do not focus or feature deployment of the armed forces. We have a number of other civil resources that we would seek to deploy.
Stephen Doughty
Redeployment of police, HMRC staff: have you considered any of those? Are those in your plans?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I did mention HMRC. HMRC has what is known as the surge capacity, and that is something that has been used at the border before, and we would certainly seek to use HMRC resource at the border.
Stephen Doughty
Police?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We would not seek to use police resource for border functions. There is of course a counter-terrorist police presence at the border, which would continue, but we would not seek to use police resources for border functions—functions of Border Force—not least because the police would face a number of pressures of their own, including at or near to the border if there were major queues, for example.
Stephen Doughty
In the public order situations developing at major ports or the Eurostar terminal, whatever else, you would surely have to look at the deployment of police.
Sir Philip Rutnam
That is a different question. Public order is the responsibility of the police, and I think you are seeing the Policing Minister tomorrow in fact, and, as I understand it, you are expecting to talk to him about the potential role that the police might play in a no-deal Brexit. It is not the function of Border Force per se to do public order work.
Stephen Doughty
You must be having liaisons with the police to discuss the possibilities of working together in those scenarios.
Sir Philip Rutnam
We are discussing very closely with the police indeed. That is something that Mr Hurd can no doubt discuss with you tomorrow.