End this asylum shambles now

After Ed Miliband acknowledged Labour’s past mistakes, and Nick Clegg advocated a “bond” system last Friday, the Prime Minister says migrant families will have to wait up to five years before they become eligible for council housing.

In this timely diversion for all three men from the economy, Mr Cameron risks ignoring the fact that councils already have power to allocate housing to local residents over foreign nationals.

And it is this issue of implementation which goes to the heart of today’s devastating Parliamentary report into an incompetent and inept UK Border Agency which is still unfit for purpose – a charge first levelled by John Reid, the then Home Secretary, as long ago as May 2006.

Today’s conclusions could not be more alarming. The misleading of Parliamentary inquiries for six years; a backlog of asylum cases comparable to the population of Iceland; applicants being granted leave to remain here because of bureaucratic blunders rather than the legitimacy of their case and 100,000 unopened letters.

It gets worse. The boss of the UKBA in the critical period from 2008-11, when these many failings spiralled out of control, was Lin Homer. She then landed a top job at the Department for Transport under Mr Cameron’s Government before becoming chief executive of HM Revenue & Customs in the ultimate reward for failure.

No wonder the Home Affairs Select Committee concluded that it had “little confidence” in Ms Homer’s “ability to run any government department” and that Parliament should have a stronger role in the appointment of top civil servants.

MPs are right. It is, 
frankly, insulting to taxpayers that paid public servants, like Ms Homer and under-fire NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson, cannot be held accountable when their policy and management failings are on such a monumental scale, and it is surely no coincidence that there have also been a spate of reports in recent weeks about HMRC’s mismanagement.

Rather than using language simply intended to reach out to those Tory voters who have defected to Ukip ahead of the local elections, Mr Cameron must use today’s speech to acknowledge the importance of immigration to the UK economy – and how he intends to resolve UKBA’s difficulties.

After all, the Prime Minister has had nearly three years to get to grips with this issue and it 
does not appear that the coalition is doing so with sufficient haste and competence. In short, action must follow his words.