The impact of Brexit on the Home Office is likely to be
significant. The Department faces the challenge of meeting
ongoing demands for its services while, at the same time,
planning for and then implementing the new
arrangements.
The Home Affairs Committee is launching an inquiry to explore the
capacity of the Home Office to meet this Brexit challenge. This
inquiry will be wide-ranging and is expected to run for the
duration of this session of Parliament. It will be divided into
discrete strands on immigration, policing and security
cooperation, and custom controls.
The Committee intends to take oral evidence from Ministers on a
regular basis and to hold sessions with relevant interested
parties. Written evidence will be invited on the separate strands
of the inquiry.
The inquiry will begin by examining delivery of immigration
services.
An initial evidence session was held on 10 October when the
Committee heard oral evidence on the current capacity of the Home
Office to deliver immigration services effectively, including its
ability to deliver accurate and timely decisions within its
available resources, and on the potential impact of Brexit on the
Department’s ability to provide effective services in the future.
Terms of reference
The Committee now calls for written evidence. Written
evidence is invited on, but need not be restricted to, the
following issues:
- · Does
the Home Office have the capacity to register EU nationals
already in the UK?
- · What
form should that process take and what risks need to be
anticipated?
- · What
challenges does Brexit present for the Home Office’s effective
management of immigration at the border and how might the Home
Office meet them?
- · What
different challenges do the ‘no deal’ and ‘transition period’
scenarios pose for the Home Office and how might they be met?
- · Is
there scope for the Home Office to streamline existing
immigration processes and, if so, in what areas might such
efficiencies be found?
- · What
challenges does Brexit pose to enforcement of the immigration
system?
- · What
principles should underpin a future immigration system and to
what extent does the existing system meet them?
Submitting written evidence
The deadline for submissions is Monday 6 November
2017. Written evidence should be submitted online via
the dedicated evidence
portal on the Committee’s website. Guidance on
submitting evidence is set out below:
If submitting evidence in this way is difficult for you, you can
email it to the Committee instead using this
address homeaffcom@parliament.uk
Your submission needs to be in Word format and
please try to avoid using colour type or logos.
Submissions should not exceed 3,000 words – and short submissions
are welcome.
Please also note that:
- Material already published elsewhere should not form the
basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed
memorandum, in which case a web link to the published work should
be included.
- Once submitted, your submission becomes the property of the
Committee. It is the Committee’s decision whether or not to
accept a submission as formal written evidence.
- The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make
public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the
internet (where it will be searchable), or by making it available
through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information
you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain
what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The
Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to
publish or further disclose the evidence.
- Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
