In trying to protect May’s Human Shield, Brandon Lewis has sealed Amber Rudd’s fate – Abbott

Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, said:

“Brandon Lewis’s attempt to save the Home Secretary’s career by hiding behind semantics is insulting for the people who have been affected by the Tories’ heartless policies.

“Beneath the spin, he let the truth slip and sealed her fate. Amber Rudd knew of the targets she pretended didn’t exist.

“The Home Office was fully aware that lives were being ruined as a result of their ‘hostile environment’ but pressed ahead anyway. It’s time for Rudd to go.

”Ends

Notes to Editors

The Andrew Marr Show, 29 April 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b20kyl/the-andrew-marr-show-29042018

Andrew Marr: “But you were talking to her about what’s going on?

Brandon Lewis: “Absolutely, we were talking about the general work we were doing to increase the focus we had, and to increase the number of returns of illegal immigrants.

”XXXXXX

AM: “Going back to the original memo, they said progress had been made on a path towards the 10% increased performance on forced returns, which we promised the Home Secretary earlier this year. That is a target promised to the Home Secretary?

”BL: “Absolutely.

”Amber Rudd was asked about general targets in the Home Affairs Select Committee, before being asked about regional targets. She could not have been answering a question about the “localised, regional internal” KPIs, as Brandon Lewis claimed, because she told the committee she had not watched the previous evidence. 

Home affairs select committee, 25 April 2017

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/home-affairs-committee/windrush-children/oral/82003.html

Q85            Chair: Targets for removals. When were they set?

Amber Rudd: We do not have targets for removals.

Q86            Chair: But you did?

Amber Rudd: What are you referring to?

Q87            Chair: We have just heard in the previous evidence that in the Home Office there are regional targets for net removals.

Amber Rudd: I did not hear the testimony. I am not sure what shape that might be in. If you are asking me if there are numbers of people we expect to be removed, that is not how we operate.

Brandon Lewis has come under fire for claiming no one with a right to be in the UK legally was detained

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6167672/tory-chairman-gran-windrush-detention/

He made this claim despite in November being written to by Labour’s Emma Reynolds about the case of a Jamaican grandmother who was sent to Yarl’s Wood and threatened with deportation despite having lived in the UK for 50 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/29/family-of-woman-facing-deportation-after-50-years-in-uk-demand-apology

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