LIVE BLOG: former UK borders chief faces MPs
Live Channel 4 News online coverage of Brodie Clark’s appearance before MPs on the home affairs select committee.
12:55: That’s the end of Mr Clark’s evidence and the end of our liveblog…
12:47: I’m pragmatic. That’s why I accepted the package. There was no place for me in the UK Border Force under Rob Whiteman.
12:44: Brodie Clark: Verbal offer was nine months pay if he retired.
12:42: Mr Clark said he accepted retirement, but UKBA later told him they had changed their mind and withdrawn the offer.
12:40: “There would be a package and he (Mr Whiteman) would give me a good reference” if I retired.
12:39: Mr Whitehouse offered him retirement and suggested he take it instead of being suspended. “I was just shattered.”
12:30: Mr Clark says he offered to meet Theresa May in person on a weekly basis. “I cannot explain why those invitations were not taken up.”
12:25: Admits that he lifted fingerprint checking without ministerial authority. Says he did it to preserve more stringent checks against “watch list” of terrorists and criminals.
12:13: Mr Clark says he has been a civil servant for 38 years, 15 at senior level. He has never had any disciplinary complaints. The allegations “have hugely taken over my life”.
12:09: Brodie Clark said he would be surprised if Theresa May or Damian Green didn’t know about pre-existing policies or understand them.
12:05: Health and safety exemptions have been in place since 2007 and had nothing to do with pilot scheme.
11:57: Fingerprint checks were suspended just over 50 times from May to July 2011 and seven times from August to October this year at Heathrow. Ministers would have been aware of the practice.
11: 56: Reveals that automatic fingerprint checks were sometimes suspended for visa nationals at Heathrow for health and safety reasons – long queues, overcrowding, planes unable to land.
11:49: Mr Clark says he never told UK Border Agency chief executive Rob Whiteman he went beyond the terms of the Home Secretary’s pilot – contradicting statements made by Mr Whiteman.
11:47: He completely contradict’s Theresa May’s evidence that he went beyond the original pilot. “I just do not understand why she has said that.”
11: 44: Mr Clark says he went over Damian Green’s head and went straight to Theresa May about the details of scope of the pilot scheme.
11:41: Brodie Clark: “I’m no rogue officer. Nothing could be further than the truth.”
11:40: Mr Clark Defends some relaxation of checks on schoolchildren, saying eight million checks only turned up one dubious case. “I would rather our staff were doing more productive work.”
11: 39: Brodie Clark makes statement: Categorically denies adding anything to Theresa May’s instructions on relaxing border checks.
11:37: Former UK Border Force chief Brodie Clark takes his seat at the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Chairman Keith Vaz thanks him for not giving media interviews first.
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