Migration curbs on eastern Europe

All immigration applications from Bulgaria and Romania were dramatically suspended today after revelations of a giant racket by fraudsters.

Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the emergency move amid claims that bogus applications were being nodded through by the suitcaseload without full checks.

The revelations, made by a senior diplomat who has now been suspended for speaking out, left Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes fighting for her political life. She faced the charge of failing to control her officials who relaxed checks in a secret policy to clear a backlog.

The new twist, that organised criminals were making fortunes in Bulgaria and Romania, emerged after she played down previous revelations as "rare and untypical" and promised the problem had been sorted out.

Mr Blunkett today admitted he had not got to the bottom of the scandal and was dispatching officials to Sofia and Bucharest to investigate.

Senior Home Office official Ken Sutton, who investigated the original claims that checks had been covertly eased, will take charge of the new inquiry.

The admission that ministers were not aware of what was happening in their own departments was a blow to Ms Hughes, who was facing an onslaught in an emergency Commons debate this afternoon.

The Government was also under heavy fire for its treatment of James Cameron, the British consul in Bucharest, who exposed the scandal in an anonymous email to shadow home secretary David Davis.

Mr Cameron was suspended and faces disciplinary proceedings.

In extraordinary comments, Mr Blunkett hinted that MI6 had trapped the senior diplomat, who was confronted about his email last week.

Asked how he was caught when ministers seemed to know nothing about the allegations, he replied: "The Foreign Office became aware that he had been emailing in circumstances that led them to be suspicious.

"I know the Foreign Office were obviously on the ball, given that we deal with espionage and terrorism all the time and people in a senior position would not be expected to be emailing willy-nilly."

That begged the question whether diplomats are routinely under surveillance.

Ms Hughes, 54 today, insisted she would not resign.