Border Controls

HC Deb 07 February 1991 vol 185 cc399-400

4. Mr. Knox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about border control between Britain and other European Community countries.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

We are continuing to take part in discussions with, our Community partners about free movement of people in the light of the single European market. We have made it clear that our participation in those discussions does not in any way weaken our resolve to retain necessary frontier checks.

Mr. Knox

Why do not the Government agree to withdraw all border checks between Britain and the other Community countries? Does my hon. Friend really think that such checks fulfil any useful function?

Mr. Lloyd

We have streamlined entry for EC citizens, who pass with the minimum of delay, having demonstrated by the production of a passport or an identity card that they are EC nationals. We must certainly require continuing checks to combat terrorism, drug trafficking, other crimes and immigration by third–country nationals. We intend to keep those controls.

Rev. Martin Smyth

I welcome the Minister's positive answer, but will he support the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in resisting attempts by the Government of the Republic to remove military checkpoints, which are for the protection of people in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Lloyd

If that is the view of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I endorse it with enthusiasm.

Mr. Lawrence

Will my hon. Friend confirm that now that so many other EC countries are being threatened by massive immigration from northern Africa, they are moving towards the position that the British Government have adopted on the need for border controls?

Mr. Lloyd

My hon. and learned Friend is right. There is great pressure from migration from all parts of the world into western Europe and all western European and north American countries have similar problems.

Mr. Randall

Is the Minister aware that border controls, as well as terrorism, drugs and police co–operation, are considered by the Trevi group of Ministers? Is he also aware that for a long time there has been deep concern that the Trevi group is not accountable to the House? The Labour party welcomes as a step in the right direction the Government's response to the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on the accountability of the Trevi group, but it is disappointed that the Home Secretary did not make a statement to the House after the Trevi meeting that he attended on 22 January. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are committed in practice to making the Trevi group fully accountable to the House?

Mr. Lloyd

It is the Home Secretary who is accountable to the House, not any international grouping. That is a constitutional impossibility. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did what his predecessors have always done: he gave a written answer to a question that was put to him to enable him to report on the outcome of the Trevi meeting. I am sure that if my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had substantial issues to report, he would come to the House to do so in person.