'Strip the Home Office of asylum power'

The Home Office should be stripped of its powers to decide asylum cases and the job given to an independent body to restore public confidence in the system, a former Immigration Minister urged today.

In an interview with the Evening Standard, Barbara Roche, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said there was a need for radical change to persuade voters that the Government was treating their concerns seriously.

Other reforms could include an independent source of statistics to boost the credibility of official figures and a streamlining of the post of Immigration Minister to focus solely on migration and asylum, she said. Her remarks came as Tony Blair prepared for an emergency Downing Street summit on immmigration tomorrow in a bid to defuse the crisis that has engulfed him since Beverley Hughes quit as Immigration minister last week.

The Home Office faced fresh criticism today amid reports that officials had deliberately avoided arresting illegal-immigrants over fears that they would claim asylum and ruin Mr Blair's attempts to get the figures down. Ms Hughes was forced to quit when it emerged that she had misled the public over allegations that Romanian migrant scams were being ignored by the Immigration and Nationality Department.

Commenting for the first time on the affair, Ms Roche said that the resignation of her predecessor as Immigration Minister underlined the need for a fundamental shake-up in the Home Office. "I felt extremely sorry for Bev, watching it unfold the way it did. I think she is a very, very decent person. But it is a tough job at the best of

times," she said.

Ms Roche, who left the Government last summer, said one major reform that could transform the situation would be to take asylum decisions out of the hands of the Home Office's much criticised Immigration and Nationality Department.

The IND handles 80,000 asylum applications a year and any appeals go to an immigration tribunal and then a further appeal tribunal if disputes are unresolved.

Ms Roche favours Britain following Canada and Denmark, which have an independent body rather than civil servants determining most of their claims.

"We should make the whole system independent of Government from the beginning," she said. "You could have decisions made independently, quasi-judicially, then that would be good for both applicants and for the public as it would boost confidence in the system."

To improve the credibility of official immigration figures, an independent academic body should also be set up to compile statistics on migration across Europe, she added.

Another change could be to allow the Immigration Minister to concentrate solely on immigration and asylum. "You can't always sort things out with structural change but all these options are worth looking at," she said.

As the Jewish daughter of a Russian-Polish father and Spanish-Portuguese mother, Ms Roche is more aware than most of the sensitivities

of the asylum and immigration debate. Five months ago her constituency office was attacked with Nazi propaganda and swastikas pinned on her door. "You've got to keep it in proportion, but I would be lying if I said I didn't find it upsetting," she said.

Yet during her time at the Home Office, it wasn't just the far Right who had Ms Roche in their sights. Left-wing critics were outraged when she attacked the "vile" practice of Romanian asylum seekers forcing their children to beg on the Tube.

"I believe that migration is a good thing, I just think it should be done legally," she told the Evening Standard.

Despite the nervousness of some in Downing Street, it was she who first raised the idea of "managed migration" to Britain, increasing the number of work permits to meet skills shortages. In the same speech in 2000, she also floated the controversial idea of a new citizenship ceremony for immigrants. Both policies have since been vigorously adopted by David Blunkett.

Ms Roche has emerged as one of Mr Blair's sternest critics, a fact that is all the more damaging because she is a moderniser and normally a natural loyalist.

An Oxford graduate born and bred on a Hackney council estate, she was one of group of pro-Gordon Brown MPs who held the Prime Minister's political fate in their hands during the student top-up fees vote in January. Mr Blair squeaked home by five votes after a last-minute switch from Ms Roche and fellow rebels.

Her views chime with those of MPs who fear the Prime Minister sees regular rows with his own party as a form of political virility test. "It can all look a bit macho," she said. "I think you've got to take the party with you instead of trying to fight it all the time."