Suella Braverman says new task force to crack down on ‘immoral immigration lawyers’

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Home secretary Suella Braverman, speaking about the task force, said: “Crooked immigration lawyers must be rooted out and brought to justice. “This government is committed to stopping the boats – that means breaking the business model of criminal gangs and holding to account unscrupulous lawyers who aid and abet them by abusing the legal system.” But Richard Atkinson, deputy vice president of the Law Society, said: “This ‘task force’ has been around for months now, so it is not clear what, if anything, the government is announcing today.” He added: “The government, regulators and law enforcement agencies already have the powers they need to deal with immigration advisers engaged in misconduct. “The focus of the Home Office on a tiny minority of lawyers to which they are apparently applying considerable resources should not deflect from the fact that there remains significant backlogs in asylum claims or the unworkability of the Illegal Migration Act.” Now, weak as ever, they are setting up a talking shop instead of cracking down on those who abuse our immigration system. He said: “The task force must not fall into the trap of identifying lawyers with the causes of their clients, nor should it assume that misbehaviour by clients amounts to misbehaviour by lawyers.” For Labour, shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said it was “too little too late” and the “buck stops” with the Conservatives, accusing them of having “sat idly by for 13 years while illegal migration has spun out of control”.