Speeches by Norris.

“The hon. Lady may or may not have had the chance to see from the transcript or, indeed, the video that I was on the subsequent panel for that session. That is not the view of the UK Government; the point being made was that we have significant levels of immigration enforcement for the common travel area. There have bee…”

“My hon. Friend raises an important issue. On HGVs, there is degree of ease because the majority of HGV drivers are European nationals and are not subject to the same degree of checks, so that makes things flows more easily. That does not help if they are in the queue, but it helps to ensure that they do not cause the q…”

“One of our challenges as a Home Office—colleagues have not mentioned this yet, but they doubtless will—is getting the right information to the right places at the right time. Traditionally, we have been really cautious about that because of the anxiety that it would create harm. My belief now is that, in the age that w…”

“No, I have not. We expect our teams to interact with other agencies on the ground to use the suite of powers they have collectively in the best interests of an operational goal. That is obviously not something you would expect Ministers to direct. As I have said, fundamentally our interest is an intelligence-led respon…”

“Ms Ribeiro-Addy, you know about the Online Safety Act arrangements in which we operate and Ofcom’s locus in that. As a Government, of course, we have a stake in it, but there is a careful balance when we are talking about free speech. Those platforms have to be used responsibly and there are sanctions, which are for th…”

“No, that isn’t the position, and certainly not the position of the Government. First, Eddy and his teams do excellent work. They are brilliant men and women who go into very difficult contexts. We are incredibly grateful for the work that they do. Not all of it is at ports and airports, although that is clearly a point…”

“First of all, I would not agree with that characterisation. I would point to what I said in my previous answer: the nature of enforcing and protecting a border looks different in different contexts and therefore has different challenges and different vulnerabilities. At one of our borders, one of the great challenges i…”

“That is not something we have proposed.”

“Mr Swann, you are right. This was a topic in of our Home Affairs Committee session a couple of weeks ago on accommodation. Mears has an incredibly important part to play because they are at the postcode and street level. They have a lot of agency in terms of what happens. However, I want you, Executive colleagues and t…”

“It is very much in line with what we have said. We know that, and it is really important that we do not merely focus on organised immigration crime. These are poly-criminals in many cases, but the vulnerability also exists for other things, be it drugs, guns or counterfeit products and the like, as well as the traffick…”

“It is a hugely important question. It is not simply a case of resourcing, although resourcing is very important. We talk about our border in the singular, but our border is by its nature multiple. With regard to this session, we are talking about a common travel area where there are not regular immigration controls at …”

“Yes. That never reaches an end state, not least because the threat changes. As I say, the No. 1 thing, if I could change something in the room today, would be the data piece. I have to say that that is not specific to the Republic of Ireland; it is also true for France, Germany, Belgium and, in fact, the entirety of th…”

“It is a significant concern to me. Protecting our borders is a primary concern for the Government. Any abuse of that is unacceptable. You made a really important point in the previous session that what we see from organised immigration criminals—highly sophisticated, highly cynical individuals—is that they will seek to…”

“To build on that point, we recognise that this is a growing trend across the UK. On the last panel, we heard Assistant Chief Constable Beck say that he is seeing trends around hate and racism increasing on his beat. That is the same thing that my chief constable would say to me, and chief constables would say across th…”

“Yes. We are making a 20% uplift in our enforcement capacity. You will have heard from Mr Montgomery’s evidence that the end state for this over the course of this Parliament will mean that we have doubled the amount of money we have put into immigration enforcement. That is skewed, in percentage terms, to Northern Irel…”

“The border is the responsibility of the UK Government. Within that, it is the responsibility of the Home Office. Within that, it is the responsibility of the Home Secretary, and within that, it is my responsibility as Minister for Border Security and Asylum.”

“As I say, they are right to say that the responsibility and accountability for decisions taken are mine. We want our providers to have operational-level, and certainly individual property-level conversations, whether they are with local or devolved Governments—“There’s an issue with your tenants in this property. Get o…”

“Mr Murray, it would not be one of these sessions if you and I did not arm wrestle over KPIs. I do not know the answer to the question. I do not have that information with me. The quantum of the contract, as we have discussed previously, is the £4 billion figure. We have taken a billion out of this type of activity, whi…”

“Dame Karen, if you are worried for my job security, I always work out that I have the one job that no one is trying to steal from me—not least for this very reason. I assure the Committee that we are having that engagement on a very, very frequent basis. I think that full suspension is deeply unlikely, but the end stat…”

“What you are seeing in lieu of those are interim arrangements at booths, which are not the intended end state and are much slower. In whatever way we can, we will support our partners to get their system running as they wish it to. It is a good thing that they are doing what they are doing—neighbours putting in very go…”