§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the present unit cost of examining non-asylum passengers arriving at ports. [92786]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienThe Public Service Agreement contains a commitment to establish a baseline and target for this measure in 1999.
The management information systems in place do not currently enable us to separately identify the costs of dealing with non-asylum passengers, and we are currently considering how best to develop a comprehensive efficiency measure for the port operation.
The Home Office Business Plan includes a target of reducing the unit cost of Immigration port checks to £5.43. This covers both asylum and non-asylum passengers. The Immigration Service expects to meet this target for this financial year.