David Hanson MP, Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister, responding to the head of the UK Border Force telling MPs the E-Borders scheme has been “terminated” in its current form, said:

“David Cameron’s Government just can’t get a grip on immigration and Ministers have now scrapped a system designed to count people in and out of the country.

“It’s clear that this government would rather spend money on ill-judged ad vans with ‘go home’ messages than taking the basic steps necessary to ensure people can be counted in and out, despite reiterating this promise as recently as January.

 “Despite spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on the E-Borders programme over the past four years Theresa May has quietly dropped it. It’s indefensible that Ministers have wasted four years in legal battles, hiding details and refusing to answer questions about how secure our borders are. They are also refusing to say what threat is posed by the 20 million people a year who are travelling from or to the UK who aren’t having their details checked in advance.

 “The ability both to count people in and count them out is vital if we are to secure the borders of the UK and to have controlled immigration and yet we are further away from that than we have been for a decade.

 “The government now needs to come clean on when and how it intends to replace the current system.“