Government ministers have admitted that the Home Office's flagship 'eBorders' IT scheme is powerless to measure immigration.
The £1.2 billion border security system is not able to be used to provide sufficient data on levels of migration due to EU legal rules banning border agents from asking travellers how long they intend to remain in the country.
If border officers ask too many questions to passengers regarding their stay, the Government could face legal challenges, ministers confirmed.
In light of this, the Home Office has been accused of “abject failure” in setting up the IT system, with the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, saying that he was concerned a “key original objective” of the project will not be met.
The current method for estimating net migration, known as the International Passenger Survey, was to be replaced by the new system, but this will now no longer be the case. Earlier this year, the head of the Border Force, Sir Charles Montgomery, confirmed that eBorders had been “terminated” in its current form and incorporated in a wider IT scheme.
Bernard Jenkin MP, the Public Administration Select Committee chairman, said: “The Government is backing off from its own proposal, and trying to reduce the expectations of what eBorders will be able to achieve.
“Anyone coming into our country should be obliged to answer any questions that officials wish to ask, within reason. The freedom of movement principle undermines our authority to do that.”
Shadow Immigration Minister, David Hanson, told The Telegraph that it was “central to an effective immigration system that we are able to count people into the country and know when they should have left the UK.”
He added: “Theresa May and her ministers have scrapped the eBorders programme at huge cost to the UK taxpayer with no thought to what to put in its place - once again they are failing to take the effective steps needed to strengthen our borders while being obsessed with a net migration target they fail to enforce and won’t meet.”