Today's Home Office coverage includes a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) on Immigration policy and the sale of drugs online.
Home Affairs Select Committee report on immigration policy
The Times, The Guardian, and the Daily Mail are among those that cover the report by the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) on immigration policy. The report sets out five areas where the HASC believes reform is needed and claims there is a lack of trust in official immigration data. It says stronger coordination is needed between immigration policy and labour market policy, and action is needed to address the impact of immigration at local and national level.
The Home Office’s response to this story can be found below.
A Home Office spokesperson said:
The British people sent a very clear message in the EU referendum: they want more control of immigration and our borders. That is why we are committed to reducing net migration to sustainable levels.
Net migration figures have fallen steadily over the past four quarters and after we leave the EU, we will put in place an immigration system which works in the best interests of the whole of the UK.
In order to do this, we will engage with a wide-range of stakeholders. As part of this work, we have asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to assess the economic and social impact of EU citizens in all parts of the UK.
Sale of drugs on social media sites
The Daily Mail reports that criminals are freely using Facebook and Instagram to push illegal drugs to children, according to its investigation. Its reporter found scores of dealers “openly touting for business online”, with the article accusing social media giants of failing to tackle ‘blatant’ law-breaking. The article says its reporter, who posed as a punter, was able to find Class A and B drugs offered for sale on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter within five minutes.
The Government response to this story can be found below.
A Government spokesperson said:
We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online. Anything that is illegal offline should be illegal online.
We encourage people to report concerning material to the police as well as using the in app tools to report such images to the app providers themselves.
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