Minister faces immigration quiz

Home Office minister Beverley Hughes faces a grilling by MPs today over her admission that key checks on immigrants from eastern Europe were waived.

The all-party home affairs select committee is set to go on the attack after her U-turn, which has led to calls for her resignation.

Ms Hughes was forced to backtrack in a Commons statement yesterday in which she admitted that revelations by whistleblower Steve Moxon were true.

Mr Moxon, a civil servant who has now been suspended form his post, told how crucial checks on migrants were not performed as a backlog of cases built up. Ms Hughes's admission came only 24 hours after a Home Office spokesman had insisted Mr Moxon was wrong. Ms Hughes claimed that the guidance relaxing the checks was issued locally in Sheffield without the knowledge of ministers or senior managers.

The minister, who denied that this was a deliberate policy to reduce the impact of the accession of 10 eastern European countries to the EU in May, said she had ordered a full investigation.

Shadow home secretary David Davis told Ms Hughes: "Collusion, cover-up or simple incompetence, the responsibility for this disgrace rests firmly with you and the Home Secretary."

By a quirk of the parliamentary timetable, she is due to face a committee session today.

Mr Moxon was suspended from his job for speaking out after his internal emails were ignored.

The civil servant, based with the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Sheffield, disclosed that applications for UK residency by eastern Europeans had been fast-tracked under a procedure codenamed Operation Brace, which in one week passed 11,000 applications with minimal checks.