UK minister resigns over visa scandal

UK: The Conservatives scored a significant political victory yesterday when immigration minister Ms Beverley Hughes resigned…

UK: The Conservatives scored a significant political victory yesterday when immigration minister Ms Beverley Hughes resigned after admitting she had been alerted to a suspected east European visa scam more than a year ago.

Having earlier insisted the beleaguered minister would not quit, Ms Hughes' departure left Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair and the Home Secretary Mr David Blunkett struggling to contain claims by Conservative leader, Mr Michael Howard, that Britain's immigration system is "in chaos". A badly weakened Mr Blunkett described the resignation of his immigration minister as his "worst personal day", while adding it was a mark of her honesty that she had determined to go. But that left him battling on a second, personal front to restore credibility in his ministry amid continuing questions about his judgment and control of his department, and following a strong indication that, in addition to street crime and asylum, Mr Blair will now take "a close interest" in this third aspect of Home Office policy.

In a personal statement to MPs, Ms Hughes insisted she did not "intentionally mislead anyone" about her knowledge of concerns in British consular offices about immigration abuses in Romania and Bulgaria.

The scandal came to light on Monday when the Conservative shadow home secretary, Mr David Davis, revealed that the British consul in Bucharest had been suspended after alerting him to the fact that Romanian and Bulgarian migrants were being allowed into the country in possession of fraudulent documentation and despite British officials having been warned about the situation. In an e-mail to Mr Davis, the suspended official, Mr James Cameron, had described a previous running row over the easing of immigration checks on new EU accession states as just "the tip of the iceberg".

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Mr Cameron said: "Both countries were until March 1st overwhelmed with badly prepared and bogus applications. When entry clearance officers write to [immigration officials at] Sheffield and state clearly that the application is being supported with forged and counterfeit documents, the letters are ignored and the applications are still being issued." Questioned on BBC's Newsnight programme on Monday night, Ms Hughes said the first she had known about the alleged racket was when the matter had been raised by Mr Davis. Yesterday, however, she was forced to admit she had in fact been made aware of concerns about the abuse of the visa system a year ago.

Ironically, Ms Hughes was finally undone by another former Home Office minister, now Labour deputy chief whip, Mr Bob Ainsworth, who wrote to her detailing the said concerns last March following an official visit to the British embassies in Bucharest and Sofia. In his letter to Ms Hughes, Mr Ainsworth said officials had told him solicitors were providing visa applicants with "pro-forma business plans". In a reply dated March 17th, 2003, the minister said she would raise these "important issues" with the immigration directorate.

It remained unclear last night precisely when, following her appearance on Newsnight, Mr Ainsworth reminded Ms Hughes about his original memo.

But yesterday Ms Hughes told the Commons: "I may have given a misleading impression in my interviews on Monday night about whether anything of the concerns expressed about the operation of clearance controls from Bulgaria and Romania had crossed my desk at any stage in the last two years." She continued: "On Tuesday, in order to prepare for the next phase of the Sutton inquiry, I asked for all the relevant files and paperwork . . . During this process, it was discovered that Mr Ainsworth had, in fact, written to me a year ago drawing my attention to pro-forma business plans submitted by UK solicitors in Romanian and Bulgarian cases . . . I also now realise that this is what Mr Ainsworth was referring to when he mentioned this correspondence to me briefly in the (Commons) lobby recently." Realising that what she had said on Newsnight "was not, in fact, fully consistent with that correspondence" Ms Hughes explained to Mr Blair and Mr Blunkett that she could not continue.