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Wednesday 9 November 2011 |
Civil servant challenges home secretary's account May defends pilot scheme, but says Clark went too far
By Alan Travis - Home Affaris Editor
The stinging resignation statement issued by Brodie Clark, the top civil servant in the border checks row, claims that he felt unable to wait for internal inquiries because the home secretary had already made his position untenable.
Theresa May's repeated claims that he was to blame for the reduction in passport checks at Britain's borders were wrong, and her decision to go to the Commons home affairs select committee yesterday, where she made clear she herself had no intention of resigning, had made his position untenable, said Clark.
"Those statements were wrong and were made without the benefit of hearing my response to formal allegations. With the home secretary announcing and repeating her view that I am at fault, I cannot see how any process conducted by the Home Office, or under its auspices, can be fair and balanced," said his statement, issued by civil servants' union the First Division Association (FDA).
He said May had accused him of improperly taking "additional measures" beyond those agreed with ministers in July for a four-month trial of risk-based passport checks: "I did not. Those measures have been in place since 2008/09."
Brodie said he had been pressing for the trial to go ahead since December 2010, and was pleased when May finally agreed to the pilot scheme: "The evidence to support [such schemes] is substantial and the early findings are encouraging. I would do nothing to jeopardise them," he said. "I firmly believe that a more fully risk-based way of operating will offer far greater protection to the United Kingdom."
The UK Borders Agency's chief executive, Rob Whiteman, said: "Brodie Clark admitted to me on November 2 that on a number of occasions this year he authorised his staff to go further than ministerial instruction. I therefore suspended him from his duties. In my opinion it was right for officials to have recommended the pilot so that we focus attention on higher risks to our border, but it is unacceptable that one of my senior officials went further than was approved."
Jonathan Baume of the FDA told the BBC: "This is a very gruelling experience for someone to be in the public glare. What he [Clark] is angry about is the fact that issues were raised, he was quite willing to answer those internally. But instead he was suspended and the home secretary has spent two days basically traducing him and damning him." Clark's resignation enables him to appear next Tuesday before the committee, and he said yesterday that he had been advised to say nothing more until then. Not waiting for the outcome of the three internal Home Office inquiries means his resignation decision is likely to cost him financially.
The FDA said he had been treated with contempt by May: "It's astonishing that the home secretary [declared] him guilty before he had a chance of responding," said FDA national officer Paul Whiteman.
Labour's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: "This fiasco gets worse for the home secretary. Now her version of events has been contradicted by her most senior official at the UK border force. First she decided to reduce border checks, then lost control of her so-called 'pilot'. Now she has lost the loyalty of one of her most senior civil servants."
But May told MPs yesterday that she would not go. She said the limited pilot scheme to which she had agreed did not need cabinet approval and had not put border security at risk. The intelligence-led checks had boosted interceptions of illegal migrants by 10%, she said. But Clark had gone further and relaxed border checks on travellers from outside Europe.