Priti Patel’s committee grilling shows she is running out of excuses

MPs are demanding answers over mounting crises regarding immigration, asylum, policing and crime, Lizzie Dearden writes

Priti Patle has made a succession of promises on key issues that have not yet been realised (AP)

The office of home secretary is not an easy one, burdened as it is with responsibility for the volatile areas of crime, security, immigration and asylum.

Few holders of the post have had an easy run, but Priti Patel is looking increasingly embattled as crises mount on every front.

Her grilling before parliament’s Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday was indicative of a worsening situation, as MPs demanded answers - and accountability - for everything from misogyny in policing, record low rape prosecutions, rocketing small boat crossings across the English Channel and the stranding of British allies in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Patel put on a combative display, demanding to be allowed to give “context” to her answers and reeling off government inquiries, strategies and bills said to address the issues.

But examples of concrete action were thin on the ground, and after two-and-a-half years of promises by the home secretary, a desire for results is growing among Conservative supporters.

The committee’s new chair, Labour MP Diana Johnson, asked for updates on the government’s announced action on violence against women and girls (VAWG).

Patel could not give a date for a new Domestic Abuse Strategy, which was due last year but never materialised, and did not know when the public consultation would start on a new offence to tackle sexual harassment.

The home secretary was “appalled and sickened” by the police watchdog’s report exposing fresh misogyny and racism in the Metropolitan Police, and said a public inquiry sparked by Sarah Everard’s murder would investigate issues with “culture”.

Despite saying there had been “failures of leadership”, she would not directly criticise its commissioner and said she was “confident in her and her work“.

Questioned on why the proportion of recorded rapes prosecuted had fallen to just over 1 per cent, the home secretary said there were a “number of reasons” and vowed that the “government isn’t just shrugging its shoulders”.

Again, she promised that “new initiatives” would yield change, but women’s advocacy groups and legal experts have cast doubt on their effectiveness.

When asked about the one million burglaries that have gone unsolved over the past five years, Patel pointed to the government’s Beating Crime Plan, and its targets for reductions.

The day before her appearance, she was reported to the UK’s statistics watchdog for a claim over the same plan.

A Home Office press release had quoted Patel as saying: “This government continues to cut crime through our Beating Crime Plan.”

But the Office for National Statistics (ONS) release she was commenting on showed overall crime up by 14 per cent, and said offence groups that did fall were heavily affected by Covid restrictions.

Despite her tough rhetoric on crime and immigration, the home secretary’s tenure has seen small boat crossings rise to record numbers, while only 10 “inadmissible” asylum seekers were deported in the past year.

Several Home Affairs Committee members pressed Patel on what was being done, but were denied details of new plans to involve the Royal Navy in the English Channel situation.

The home office has been bruised in a succession of court battles over its policies, last week admitting unlawfully seizing Channel migrants’ phones and previously being blamed for a “legal heresy” driving wrongful prosecutions for crossings.

As Patel was addressing the Home Affairs Committee, the High Court was hearing arguments that her plans to force boats back to France were unlawful and potentially deadly.

In an exchange with Conservative MP Tim Loughton, she insisted that “it’s not right to say nothing is working” when asked why crossing numbers had continued to rise.

“Numbers have trebled and that is the basis on which the policy is judged,” Mr Loughton said. “Things are getting worse, not better.”

The same can be said for several areas of Home Office policy, and the home secretary may be running out of excuses.