Don't ask migrants how long they're staying: Border guards are told that quizzing arrivals from the EU is a 'breach of Brussels rules'

Border guards have been banned from asking EU nationals how long they intend to stay in the UK or even what they plan to do here.
The Brussels move, confirmed by the Home Office, prompted incredulity among MPs, who called for Britain to regain control of its borders.
EU officials claim asking new arrivals even basic questions would breach free movement rules. The diktat's existence, revealed last night in a report by MPs, means the Home Office is powerless to count net migration to Britain accurately.

A Brussels diktat that bans border guards from asking EU nationals how long they intend to stay in the UK has prompted incredulity among MPs

Instead, ministers must continue to rely on a voluntary survey – the one that, as the Mail revealed earlier this month, underestimated the number of new arrivals from Eastern
Europe by 350,000.
The EU rule is another blow for the £500million e-borders programme unveiled in 2003 to check the details of passengers arriving and leaving the UK and to screen them for security purposes.
The scheme has been dogged by IT problems and is still not working fully.
MPs on the Public Administration Committee had said that e-borders – when complete – should be used by the Government to produce accurate figures on net migration.
But yesterday the Home Office said this would not be possible because visitors from the EU cannot be asked how long they plan to stay.
Only those who intend to live here for more than a year are officially classed as immigrants. As a result, the e-borders data would not be complete. In a letter to MPs, the Home Office said asking EU migrants detailed questions 'would be subject to challenge as disproportionate'.

Tory MP Dominic Raab said: 'It's bad enough that EU law has stripped Britain of proper border controls'

It continued: 'It should be noted that EU free movement legislation supported by historical European Court judgments prevent Border Force Officers from routinely asking additional questions... beyond those necessary to establish nationality and identity.'
Last night Tory MP Dominic Raab said: 'It's bad enough that EU law has stripped Britain of proper border controls.
'But it adds insult to injury that, having invested heavily in a system that would enable the authorities to keep track of who is coming and going, Brussels has now banned us from using it.'
The fiasco leaves Britain reliant on the International Passenger Survey, which is based on voluntary interviews with migrants and was described by MPs as 'not fit for purpose'.
Earlier this month, the Daily Mail revealed that the IPS had failed to count 350,000 Eastern European immigrants because inspectors were at the wrong airports, with only a handful at places such as Luton and Stansted, where hundreds of thousands of migrants were arriving.

The EU rule is another blow for the £500million e-borders programme unveiled in 2003 to check the details of passengers arriving and leaving the UK

In addition, immigrants on many ferry routes were rarely or never checked and tens of thousands of children were missed.
Failures meant that between 2001 and 2011, net migration – the population change after both immigration and emigration are counted – was underestimated by 346,000, equivalent to a city the size of Bradford.
Nearly a quarter of a million went uncounted between 2005 and 2008.
The Home Office said improvements had been made to the IPS, adding: 'We do not agree with the conclusion that the International Passenger Survey is inadequate for measuring, managing and understanding levels of migration.'

Officials said the Office for National Statistics had made a number of improvements and the estimates 'are at the national level as reliable and accurate as is possible to achieve under current survey design and levels of funding'.
A Home Office spokesperson said: 'The Home Office agrees with both the ONS and UK Statistics Authority that the International Passenger Survey is the best measure of net migration. Data from the Border Systems Programme is supplied to the ONS to help improve estimates of net migration.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said the public have been 'badly let down'

The spokesman added: 'Under this government all passengers are now subject to checks, the majority before they even arrive in the UK in addition to at the border.
'While EU freedom of movement legislation prevents Border Force from routinely asking EU citizens questions in support of migration statistics, Border Force officers do routinely examine passengers seeking entry to the UK.
'Passengers can be detained for further questioning, including those from within the EU, if the officer suspects the individual is presenting a false identity or nationality or they have reason to suspect the individual is involved in crime, terrorism or immigration offences.'
But Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said: 'I am deeply concerned by the Home Office's response.
'The e-borders programme has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds, taken more than a decade and now we know that a key original objective will never be achieved. The public have been badly let down.'

DM