Smash hit

Blunkett, who became home secretary after the 2001 election, came up with what appeared to be a sensible solution. He decided to get tough on bogus asylum seekers and other “illegals” who created the awkward headlines — but at the same time he aimed to introduce a properly “managed” scheme for economic migrants.

On the surface it appeared to be a neat answer to competing pressures: Tony Blair in No 10 wanted shot of the political embarrassment of asylum seekers, but Gordon Brown in No 11 was happy to have a flow of cheap labour and new skills to keep his economy humming.

In a white paper called Secure Borders, Safe Haven published in February 2002, Blunkett set out both the clampdown on asylum and the encouragement of “managed migration”. Two months later Hughes, an old friend, took charge of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND). All they had to do now was translate policy into action. But it was far more difficult than they had imagined.

Asylum claims appeared to spiral out of control. In February 2003, amid a blitz of headlines, Blair was forced to intervene personally. He promised to halve the number of asylum claims by September and Blunkett was ordered to submit weekly reports to No 10 detailing his progress.

It is not known what Blunkett and Hughes agreed between themselves after Blair’s intervention but asylum claims, which had peaked in October 2002 at about 9,000 a month, began to plummet. Each week thereafter Blunkett triumphantly sent figures to Blair showing a sharp downward trend in asylum claims until the target was met in September.

The Tories and other critics now suggest that the whole process was an elaborate charade cooked up by Blunkett and Hughes. The Tories say that the government simply diverted, inadvertently or otherwise, would-be asylum applicants to so-called “managed migration” schemes where their applications went largely unchecked.

Certainly there is good evidence to show that many applications lodged under Blunkett’s management migration schemes were being processed with minimal scrutiny.

In October 2002 James Cameron, consul at the British embassy in Bucharest, Romania, wrote to an immigration officer at Heathrow complaining about the ease with which people were passing through managed migration schemes. Applicants who claimed they were running businesses “rarely know what is in their business plan, cannot speak English and have absolutely no knowledge or experience in the type of skills needed”.

He cited examples of a man who said he was roof tiler but who had only one leg, an electrician who had lost his fingers and a number of “builders” who knew nothing about bricks and mortar. Yet immigration officials in Britain were letting these applicants through. There was no proper managing of managed migration.

Ministers were warned, too, that lawyers were aiding dubious applicants in return for cash. The scale of the problem was still evident last week when an undercover reporter approached visa advisers in London and Bucharest.

“You provide us with the documents we need and for £1,400 we will draw up a polished business plan and send it to the Home Office,” said Cristina Roman, a Romanian at LBC UK, a London firm offering visa advice. “In less than two weeks we think the visa ban (imposed last week) will be lifted because it’s just politics and will blow over.”

In Bucharest, Silvia Cosma of the Expert Advantage Group said: “Once you are in England it’s easy enough to switch profession from the one we put on your business plan.

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