Leaked deportation memo casts doubt on Rudd’s future 

Amber Rudd, home secretary, on Friday promised to answer “legitimate questions” about her department’s handling of targets and illegal immigration, as she struggled to retain her job following publication of a damaging leaked memo.

Ms Rudd wrote on Twitter that she would be making a statement to the House of Commons on Monday about questions relating to the memo, addressed to her office, which gave details of the department’s performance against immigration removal targets. Ms Rudd has been in serious political trouble since she wrongly claimed at a hearing of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that such targets did not exist.

However, Ms Rudd insisted she had not seen the six-page memo, excerpts of which were published by the Guardian, even though it was addressed to her office. The memo informed Ms Rudd of progress towards a target of 12,800 “enforced returns” for the 2017-18 financial year and said the department had exceeded its target for “assisted returns”.

Enforced returns are deportations under guard against a person’s will; assisted returns involve people who leave voluntarily after losing the right to live in the UK.

“I wasn't aware of specific removal targets,” Ms Rudd wrote. “I accept I should have been and I'm sorry that I wasn't. I didn't see the leaked document, although it was copied to my office as many documents are.”

Both Ms Rudd and Glyn Williams, a senior Home Office official, denied the existence of any targets at a hearing of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Ms Rudd was forced on Thursday morning to make a statement to the Commons admitting that the Home Office’s immigration arm had used “local targets” for removals for “internal performance management”.

She failed to read crucial documents which meant she wasn't aware of the removal targets that have led to people's lives being ruined

The memo’s publication prompted some MPs from her own Conservative party — who have so far been supportive of Ms Rudd during a week of bruising revelations — to raise questions about whether she should stay in post.

While one Tory said it would be wrong for Ms Rudd to resign, another said Ms Rudd “should go”, although he expected her to remain because of her close relationship with Theresa May, the prime minister.

Another Tory MP said the episode did not necessarily raise questions about whether she should resign for misleading the committee. “It’s more a question of whether she’s on top of her brief,” the MP said.

Diane Abbott, shadow home secretary, repeated her calls for Ms Rudd to resign. “She failed to read crucial documents which meant she wasn't aware of the removal targets that have led to people's lives being ruined,” Ms Abbott said.

Yvette Cooper, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, asked Ms Rudd about the existence of targets at a hearing about the treatment of the Windrush Generation of Commonwealth migrants. Although those who arrived in the UK before 1973 have automatic leave to remain, many have faced harassment, including threats of deportation, if they have insufficient documentation to prove their right to remain in the country.

Ms Cooper suggested at the hearing that pressure to meet targets had encouraged officials to take steps such as detaining Paulette Wilson, 61, from the West Midlands, ahead of her planned deportation.

Ms Rudd’s response was to insist that Lucy Moreton, general secretary of the ISU, the union for immigration workers, was wrong to say there were targets. She also denied that the “hostile environment” policy of making life hard for illegal immigrants was to blame for the harassment that Ms Wilson and others has suffered.

Ms Moreton said on Friday that, although she had not seen the leaked memo, it reflected her knowledge of the deportation targets.

“Whilst Ms Rudd may not have known the precise figures at the time of the select committee, the fact that she didn’t claim to know about their existence was a bit of a surprise,” she said.

On Twitter, Ms Rudd made the latest of a series of promises to improve the immigration system in the wake of the Windrush Generation affair. “As Home Secretary I will work to ensure that our immigration policy is fair and humane,” she wrote.