The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has expressed serious concern about the Home Office’s consistent delays in publishing reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) within the required deadlines.
In a letter sent on March 3, Dame Karen Bradley, chair of the Committee, wrote directly to the Home Secretary, noting that three inspection reports due in 2025 had not yet been published. The first was submitted to the Department in May, and the subsequent two were submitted in October. According to long-standing practice, such reports should be published within eight weeks of receipt.
The Committee unequivocally described this delay as unacceptable and demanded that the Home Office urgently publish the reports. Furthermore, it emphasized that this was not an isolated incident: previous Independent Chief Inspectors had raised the same issue.
The letter expressed particular concern about a structural limitation facing ICIBI: unlike most other oversight bodies, the inspectorate does not have the right to independently publish its reports and is entirely dependent on the Ministry of the Interior for this matter. The committee warned that the Ministry should not abuse this power by delaying the publication of information that the public has a right to know.
The letter also noted that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood had not yet met with the new Independent Chief Inspector John Tackett, and the Committee urged her to arrange such a meeting as soon as possible.
On March 25, the Home Secretary responded to the letter, acknowledging the importance of timely publication but clarifying that the reports are published only after the necessary internal review processes have been completed. She confirmed that all three unpublished reports, along with the ministry’s official responses, are still under review and will be published in due course. She also noted that Tackett had met with junior ministers on several occasions and expressed her intention to meet with him in person in the near future.
However, the accumulated backlog only worsened. By mid-April, six completed inspection reports were awaiting publication. They cover a wide range of immigration issues: the Home Office’s handling of migrants without legal right to remain in the country, administrative checks, visa violation cases, asylum claims, country of origin information for Afghanistan and Colombia, and cases of entry refusals and cancellations of entry clearances to the UK.
In an interview with The House magazine, Tackett acknowledged the delays but refrained from openly criticizing the current system, noting that it has both supporters and detractors. He confirmed that he had not met with the Home Secretary in his first six months on the job, but downplayed the issue, saying he considered the current time more opportune for a meeting—now that he had a better understanding of the system.
Tackett also described his constructive working relationship with junior ministers Mike Tapp and Alex Norris, marking a conscious departure from the approach of some of his predecessors. He said he is focused on building cooperation with the Home Office, prioritizing engagement over confrontation. He also announced plans to shift to shorter, more timely reports, shortening the lengthy inspection cycles that previously stretched out over six to seven months.
New source: https://www.ein.org.uk/
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