§ Mr. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list those regional centres at which people are interviewed in relation to immigration cases; and if he will give figures (a) for the number of people interviewed at each centre in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available, (b) for the number of people awaiting interviews at each centre and the average waiting time for such interviews and (c) for the number of immigration officials conducting interviews at each of these centres.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThe immigration offices at which interviews have been conducted for purposes other than on entry control are given in the following table below. Centralised records of the number of interviews have been maintained since 23 May 1983 and the table shows the number of interviews held at each office from that date to 3 February 1984, and the numbers of cases then outstanding.
12WInformation about the average waiting time at each port is not readily available, but if a person is willing to travel to a centre with more capacity for conducting interviews than the port nearest his home address the average waiting period is 8–10 weeks. The number of immigration officers engaged in these interviewing duties varies depending on the demands of normal port work, and precise figures are not therefore available.
Port Number Interviewed Interviews Outstanding Harwich 6 2 Stansted 75 29 Norwich 9 10 Felixstowe 340 142 Aberdeen 10 9 Belfast 14 5 Edinburgh 48 6 Glasgow 50 20 Ullapool 1 — Manchester 244 137 Liverpool 73 23 Preston 4 — Isle of Man 1 — Dover West 13 — Ramsgate 11 1 Folkestone 8 2 Gravesend 63 33 London 324 141 Sheerness 532 151 Southend 3 3 Birmingham 237 35 East Midlands Airport 90 54 Terminal 1, Heathrow 43 33 Harmondsworth—Entry Clearance Unit 49 22 Harmondsworth—Intelligence & Investigation Unit 165 200 Luton 103 31 Gatwick 37 12 Newhaven 49 42 Cardiff 79 26 Bristol 59 17 Avonmouth 18 1 Plymouth 22 7 Falmouth 2 2 Southampton 65 19 Portsmouth 4 — Hull 190 50 Leeds/Bradford Airport 97 46 North Shields 40 14 Middlesbrough 28 7 Newport 1 — Swansea 2 — Scunthorpe 3 — Goole 6 — Immingham 1 — South Shields 3 — Newcastle 14 — 3,236 1,332
§ Mr. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department at what date the Felixstowe centre was first 13W used for interviews in relation to immigration cases; and what proportion of the total number of people interviewed since that date it has dealt with.
§ Mr. WaddingtonImmigration officers from Felixstowe have been involved in interviewing in relation to immigration cases, other than for the purpose of on-entry control, since 1980. Centralised records have been maintained since 23 May 1983. Between that date and 3 February 1984 the number of cases dealt with at Felixstowe was 340. The total number of such cases at all immigration offices throughout the United Kingdom in the same period was 3,236.