I won't quit over border bungles, May tells MPs

Theresa May: Admitted authorising a watering down of checks on Britons
10 April 2012
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Theresa May today rejected calls for her to quit as she faced fresh accusations of a "major blunder" over border security.

The Home Secretary said she would not resign despite being told by MPs that the public would think better of politicians who took "full responsibility" for serious errors.
Mrs May today admitted that border chiefs were allowed since 2007 to loosen checks on "health and safety" grounds when immigration queues were too long. She has told Parliament that she only authorised the easing of checks on people coming from the EU.

But today Mrs May gave evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on the disclosure that checks on people arriving from outside the EU had been secretly loosened.

Following claims that weekly reports detailing the easing of security checks had been sent to the Home Office, MPs suggested she should also have known about these "unauthorised" changes.
The head of the UK Border Force Brodie Clark and two other officials have been suspended.

Labour MP David Winnick said that hundreds of potentially dangerous people could have been wrongly allowed entry in a "major blunder" and asked Mrs May whether she would accept "full responsibility" and resign. The Home Secretary replied "no", adding that she would take responsibility for decisions that she had taken.
She said that an operational memo drawn up by the UK Border Agency, allowing staff to loosen checks with the approval of senior managers, related to a long standing "health and safety" policy. This allowed checks to be relaxed when there were concerns about the welfare of passengers when immigration queues were too long.

The Government's terrorism watchdog today warned that potentially dangerous foreign citizens will continue to be wrongly allowed into Britain because of flaws in the country's border controls.
David Anderson QC said the lack of "foolproof, fully automated" passport checks and "teething problems" with the "e-borders" system meant there was "always a risk" that people who were meant to be banned would be allowed into Britain. He said the "e-borders" system was exposed when radical Palestinian Raed Saleh was allowed into the country in June.

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