Downing Street Says » Beverley Hughes Resignation

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) informed journalists that the Immigration Minister, Beverley Hughes, had resigned from the Government this morning. Subject to the agreement of the Speaker, she would make a Statement to the House at around lunchtime today.

The PMOS distributed to journalists copies of an exchange of correspondence between Bob Ainsworth, currently the Deputy Chief Whip and a former Home Office Minister, and Ms Hughes, between March and April 2003. In interviews Ms Hughes had given on Monday evening to Channel 4 and Newsnight before the story had broken, she had given the impression that nothing relating to concerns about Romania had crossed her desk. Subsequent to the story breaking, Bob Ainsworth had contacted her and had said that, according to his recollection, he had written to her when he had been a Home Office Minister raising some issues in relation to Romania following a visit there. Clearly Ms Hughes had not recalled the letter when giving her interviews, or indeed the fact that she had responded to it.

The PMOS said it was important for people to recognise that an Immigration Minister had a huge workload. Romania was only one country amongst many about which there were asylum and immigration issues which the Home Office had to deal with. Once the correspondence had been drawn to Ms Hughes’s attention, there had been an acceleration of the paper audit process which had been taking place in the Home Office in any event as a result of the Sutton Inquiry which David Blunkett had set up. The PMOS said he had no intention of getting into an hour-by-hour chronology of events other than to say that once all the documentation had been assembled and the full implications of those papers and her comments earlier in the week had been considered, it had become clear that she had given a misleading impression – albeit unwittingly. He took the opportunity to point out that what Bob Ainsworth had said in his letter about Romania was of a completely different order to the as-yet-unproven allegations that had been made subsequently and which the Sutton Inquiry would consider. Nevertheless, Ms Hughes recognised that she had created a misleading impression in her interviews and that she would have to face up to that, as she had indeed done today. Ms Hughes was someone who, as a Minister, had conducted herself with tremendous integrity and had achieved much at the Home Office during her tenure. The manner in which she had faced up to this issue was a reflection of her character and indicative of that integrity.

The PMOS informed journalists that the Prime Minister had had a meeting yesterday afternoon with Beverley Hughes and David Blunkett. The meeting had take place in the House because of the running vote on the Higher Education Bill and been scheduled in any event to discuss asylum and immigration issues. Ms Hughes had said that the full implications of all the different documentation had become clear and she had offered to resign. It had been agreed that they would all reflect on this matter and meet again in the morning. Ms Hughes had met the Prime Minister in Downing Street this morning at about 8.15am and the Prime Minister had accepted her resignation. Asked if anyone had attempted to talk Ms Hughes out of tendering her resignation, the PMOS said that people had reflected on the issue overnight and the Prime Minister had accepted her resignation this morning.

Asked when Beverley Hughes had been contacted by Bob Ainsworth advising her of their correspondence last year, the PMOS said that she had been contacted subsequent to the issue emerging earlier this week. He had no intention of getting into an hour-by-hour chronology of events. The Minister had reflected on her correspondence with Mr Ainsworth and what she had said on Monday evening and believed that the honourable thing to do was to resign, as she had done, rather than leave it to the Sutton Inquiry to look at the papers which had come to light and wait for them to reach a judgement. That was a mark of her integrity.

Asked if the Home Secretary was going to tender his resignation as well in the light of his comment on Tuesday that he took ultimate responsibility for what went on in his Department, the PMOS said no. The Prime Minister believed that Mr Blunkett was a first-class Home Secretary. The Government had clearly taken seriously the allegations that had been made and confronted the issues speedily. Equally, it was important to look at the progress which had been made at the Home Office in terms of asylum, for example, where we had seen the number of applications halved, the speeding up of the applications process and the increase in investment in police and crime reduced. Pressed as to why David Blunkett was still in post when he also ‘clearly didn’t have a clue’ about what was going on in his Department, the PMOS said that it was important to keep the whole issue in perspective. The implications of all the different documentation and what had been said during the course of this week had been assessed and discussed at a meeting between the Prime Minister, Beverley Hughes and David Blunkett yesterday afternoon. It would have been easy to ask the Sutton Inquiry to investigate the matter. That had not happened. This was about a Minister allowing a misleading impression to take hold. She accepted that and had resigned. It was up to the Sutton Inquiry to look at the actual allegations and decide whether they were with or without foundation.

Questioned repeatedly as to when Ms Hughes and Mr Blunkett had become aware of the correspondence from Mr Ainsworth, the PMOS insisted that he was not going to get drawn into a discussion about who knew what, when. Suffice to say that the speed with which Ministers had acted on this matter was commendable. One option that could have been taken was to ask the Sutton Inquiry to look into the issue. That had not happened. Ms Hughes had felt that the point that Mr Ainsworth had highlighted in his letter last March was, despite being qualitatively different to the new allegations, germane to the issue and she had felt that, in that context, what she had said on Monday could be open to misinterpretation and could be seen as being inaccurate. That was why she had decided to resign. Pressed as to when Mr Blunkett had become aware of Mr Ainsworth’s involvement, the PMOS repeated that he was not going to get into an hour-by-hour chronology of events. Put to him that it was important to find out when Mr Blunkett had known because he himself might have misled the Commons on Tuesday, the PMOS said the point was that a Minister had resigned this morning as a result of information that had come to light during the course of this week. In the grand scheme of things, that was a pretty big story in his view. Asked if Mr Blunkett had been informed on Monday or Tuesday, the PMOS said that the implications of all the different issues had been assessed during the course of yesterday. The Prime Minister, Beverley Hughes and David Blunkett had met yesterday afternoon. The result of that was as had been announced today. Questioned repeatedly as to why he was refusing to answer these questions, the PMOS said he thought it was enough to say that, as result of a very careful trawl of paperwork (because Mr Ainsworth had been speaking from memory) and an assessment of the implications of what had been said earlier in the week and Mr Ainsworth’s correspondence, a Minister had decided to resign. We could easily have batted it all off to the Sutton Inquiry to deal with. However, we hadn’t done so and Beverley Hughes had volunteered her resignation. In answer to further questions, the PMOS underlined the importance of drawing a distinction between the as-yet-unproven allegations which had been brought forward and which would be looked at by the Sutton Inquiry, and what Bob Ainsworth had written in his letter. They were clearly of a different order.

Asked if his colleague had known about Mr Ainsworth’s correspondence when he had ‘batted off’ questions about Ms Hughes and immigration at yesterday afternoon’s press briefing, the PMOS pointed out that the meeting between the Prime Minister, Ms Hughes and David Blunkett had taken place after that briefing. In answer to further questions, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would be doing a press conference in the hour.

8 Comments »

Ms Hughes resigned because she had "inadvertently" misled people. She claimed that she had forgotten about a letter from a colleague warning her about a scam. Wasn’t it more serious if she was telling the truth, that the seriousness of the letter had escaped her.
Comment by Henry — 1 Apr 2004 on 7:16 pm | Link
No wonder the electorate is increasingly apathetic, but the politicians seem unperturbed over their general lack of credibility.
Comment by Dismayed Voter — 1 Apr 2004 on 8:21 pm | Link
"Equally, it was important to look at the progress which had been made at the Home Office in terms of asylum, for example, where we had seen the number of applications halved…"
— when the government say this, they normally imply that it’s only "bogus" asylum seekers who are being excluded. Is there any evidence for that?
Comment by Chris Lightfoot — 3 Apr 2004 on 9:39 am | Link
I also don’t understand the connection between the actions of the Home Office and the number of people applying for asylum. The Home office can improve the processing of asylum claims when people get to this country but they have no control over whether people in other countries are victims of persecution.
Is the government going to claim that improving standards in education has reduced the number of children starting school?
Comment by Uncarved Block — 3 Apr 2004 on 10:19 am | Link
Surely the reason the number of asylum applications dropped is because everyone was getting in legitimately by way of ‘legal’ immigration (presumably because it was much easier as Bev and Dave dropped any checks)
Comment by DEGREEK — 3 Apr 2004 on 3:33 pm | Link
DEGREEK– no, since most asylum seekers won’t have originated in Bulgaria, Romania, or the United Kingdom, which were the countries from which the visa and nationality applicants processed through the "fast track" came. Bulgaria and Romania are, I believe, declared "safe", and people already legally resident in the UK cannot (and do not need to) apply for asylum here.
Comment by Chris Lightfoot — 3 Apr 2004 on 10:16 pm | Link
CHRIS–have to say that today’s papers seem to back up what I guessed at such as TB’s secret deal with Nastase.
Comment by DEGREEK — 4 Apr 2004 on 7:40 pm | Link
Can’t be long now for Blunkett as he wasn’t allowed to say much at the press conference
Comment by DEGREEK — 6 Apr 2004 on 6:13 pm | Link

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» Thursday, April 1, 2004

Beverley Hughes Resignation

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