The Home Office (HO), also known as the Home Department, is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for immigration, security, and law and order. As such, it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, Border Force, visas and immigration, and the Security Service (MI5). It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counterterrorism, and immigration. It was formerly responsible for His Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service, but these have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Most law enforcement duties are carried out by those who hold the office of police constable of a territorial police force.
Liam Dominic Byrne is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, previously Birmingham Hodge Hill, since 2004. He served in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Cabinet from 2008 to 2010.
Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the former territories of the British Empire and the European Union.
Dame Priti Sushil Patel is a British politician who served as home secretary from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017. Patel has been the member of parliament (MP) for Witham since 2010. She is ideologically on the right wing of the Conservative Party; she considers herself to be a Thatcherite and has attracted attention for her socially conservative stances.
The UK Border Agency (UKBA) was the border control agency of the Government of the United Kingdom and part of the Home Office that was superseded by UK Visas and Immigration, Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in April 2013. It was formed as an executive agency on 1 April 2008 by a merger of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), UKvisas and the detection functions of HM Revenue and Customs. The decision to create a single border control organisation was taken following a Cabinet Office report.
Campsfield House was an immigration detention centre located in Kidlington near Oxford, England, operated by private prison firm Group 4 under contract with the British government. For 25 years, it was the site of a regular monthly protest from human rights campaigners and saw a number of internal protests, hunger strikes and two suicides. However, it was highly praised by the Chief Inspector of Prisons at the last full inspection in 2014. Campsfield closed in 2018.
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, formerly the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, is a government appointed official responsible for providing independent scrutiny of the UK's border and immigration functions such as the Border Force. The role of the Independent Chief Inspector was established by section 48 of the UK Borders Act 2007. In 2009, the Independent Chief Inspector's remit was extended to include customs functions and contractors.
Border Force (BF) is a British law enforcement command within the Home Office, responsible for frontline border control operations at air, sea and rail ports in the United Kingdom. The force was part of the now defunct UK Border Agency from its establishment in 2008 until Home Secretary Theresa May demerged it in March 2012 after severe criticism of the senior management.
Robert Edward Jenrick is a British politician who served in the Cabinet as Minister of State for Immigration from 2022 to 2023 and as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government from 2019 to 2021. He also served in the government as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2018 to 2019 and as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, Jenrick has been Member of Parliament for Newark since the 2014 by-election.
Immigration Enforcement (IE) is a law enforcement command within the Home Office, responsible for enforcing immigration law across the United Kingdom. The force was part of the now defunct UK Border Agency from its establishment in 2008 until Home Secretary Theresa May demerged it in March 2012 after severe criticism of the senior management. Immigration Enforcement was formed on 1 March 2012, becoming accountable directly to ministers.
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Sussex Weald since 2024, having represented the predecessor constituency Wealden from 2015 to 2024. She has served as Chairman of Ways and Means, the senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons since 2024.
Theresa May served as home secretary from 2010 until 2016. As a member of David Cameron's first government May was appointed as home secretary on 12 May 2010, shortly after Cameron became prime minister, and continued in the post as part of the Cameron's second government following the 2015 general election. She held the post until she succeeded Cameron as prime minister on 13 July 2016. May was the second woman to be appointed as home secretary after Jacqui Smith, and the fourth woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State.
The Department of Home Affairs is a department of the Government of Australia that is charged with responsibilities for national security, protective services, emergency management, border control, immigration, refugees, citizenship, transport security and multicultural affairs. The Home Affairs portfolio reports to the Minister for Home Affairs, currently held by Tony Burke, and was led by the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, until his sacking in November 2023 for breaching the code of conduct.
An increasing number of refugees and migrants have been entering the United Kingdom illegally by crossing the English Channel in the last decades. The Strait of Dover section between Dover in England and Calais in France represents the shortest sea crossing, and is a long-established shipping route. The shortest distance across the strait, at approximately 20 miles, is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais.
The UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was an immigration policy proposed by the governments of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak whereby people whom the United Kingdom identified as illegal immigrants or asylum seekers would have been relocated to Rwanda for processing, asylum and resettlement. Those who were successful in claiming asylum would have remained in Rwanda, and they would not have been permitted to return to the United Kingdom. The UK would invest in a development fund for Rwanda and financially support migrant's relocation and accommodation costs to move to Rwanda.
The Sunak ministry began on 25 October 2022 when Rishi Sunak was invited by King Charles III to succeed Liz Truss as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Truss resigned as leader of the Conservative Party the previous day after Sunak was elected unopposed as her successor. The Sunak ministry was formed from the 2019 Parliament of the United Kingdom, as a Conservative majority government. Sunak reshuffled his cabinet twice, first in February 2023 and later in November 2023.
Rishi Sunak's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 25 October 2022 when he accepted an invitation of King Charles III to form a government, succeeding Liz Truss, and ended on 5 July 2024 upon his resignation. He is the first British Indian and the first Hindu to hold the office. Sunak's premiership was dominated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, the cost-of-living crisis, and the Rwanda asylum plan. As prime minister, Sunak also served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Minister for the Union, and Leader of the Conservative Party.
The Kent Intake Unit (KIU) is a facility located in Dover, led by the Home Office for the processing of migrants who have crossed the English Channel. The Home office has described the centre as a "short-term holding facility". In November 2022 it became a centre for processing unaccompanied child asylum seekers.
Tug Haven was a migrant processing centre located near the Viaduct in Dover, beside a jetty in Dover Western Docks. It existed to process migrant crossings across the English Channel who had arrived on the coast of the United Kingdom. It was closed in 2022 following negative reports, with migrants being taken to Western Jet Foil and Manston arrivals and processing centre from then on.
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