Conservatives accuse Home Secretary of blunder and cover up

CONSERVATIVES yesterday accused British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of “blunder, panic and cover-up” over the granting of clearance for up to 5,000illegal immigrants to work as security guards.

In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Ms Smith confirmed she was told in July, within weeks of taking up her post, that many non-European nationals may have been granted licences by the Security Industry Authority without checks that they had the right to work in Britain. But she denied a cover-up, saying she did not inform MPs because the scale of the problem was not clear. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown — whose car was at one point guarded by an illegal worker — was not initially told of the problem, she revealed.

Ms Smith was forced to appear before MPs after the publication yesterday of leaked memos showing she agreed with advice from Home Office officials in August that news of the problem should be kept secret. In the event, it was revealed in press reports last weekend.

To jeers from the Conservative benches, Ms Smith told the House of Commons. “My approach was that the responsible thing to do was to establish the scale of the problem and take action, rather than put incomplete information into the public domain.” But shadow home secretary David Davis said: “Faced with one of her first tests, why wasn’t the Home Secretary frank and candid?

“The response of the Home Office has been blunder, panic and cover-up,” he said.

Concerns were first raised in April by the Border and Immigration Agency, after it found 44 “illegals” working for a security company, including 12 who were guarding locations for the Metropolitan Police, said the Home Secretary.