MPs support for under-fire Rudd
SENIOR ministers have rallied round beleaguered Home Secretary Amber Rudd after she admitted she should have known about official targets for removing illegal immigrants.
Labour and the SNP stepped up calls for her resignation following the leak of an internal Home Office memorandum suggesting she was informed of the targets, even though she had previously told MPs she was unaware of them.
But in a series of late night tweets on Friday, Ms Rudd said that although her office had been copied in to the document she did not see it herself.
She apologised for not being aware of the targets – including 12,800 “enforced returns” in 2017-18 – and said she would be making a Commons statement on Monday to address the “legitimate questions” which had been raised.
Her assertion that she did not see the memo – which was leaked to The Guardian – is crucial as, under the Ministerial Code, any minister who “knowingly” misleads Parliament is expected to resign. Home Secretary Amber Rudd
However, it leaves her exposed to criticism that she has lost her grip on her department at a time when she was already under fire over her handling of the Windrush scandal.
Downing Street said she had the “full confidence” of the Prime Minister.
However, Labour said she was only being kept on to protect Theresa May who – as home secretary under David Cameron – was the architect of the “hostile environment” strategy for illegal immigrants which, it says, has led to some who were entitled to be in the country being threatened with deportation.
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott told the BBC Radio 4 programme: “I am just surprised that she doesn’t seem to take the issue seriously enough to offer her resignation.
Ms Abbott said it was the decision to set a “broad numerical target” for removals which had contributed to a situation where Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain in the decades after the Second World War were being wrongly told to leave.
“It wasn’t saying, for instance, we have to have a target for deporting former criminals. The danger is that that very broad target put pressure on Home Office officials to bundle Jamaican grandmothers into detention centres,” she said.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove led the defence of Ms Rudd, saying she was “a highly talented and highly effective minister” and accused Labour of trying to “weaponise” the issue.