The Home Office has been accused of dodging scrutiny after a damning report on the government’s response to the surge in Channel crossings was published on the last day of parliament. David Neal, the chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the response was “ineffective and inefficient” and left vulnerable migrants at risk. He revealed that 227 migrants had absconded after arriving in the UK in the space of just five months last year, with some disappearing before having their fingerprints or photographs taken. He warned that that the failure to record individuals’ biometrics raised safeguarding concerns for vulnerable migrants at risk of being trafficked and posed a national security risk. “Put simply, if we don’t have a record of people coming into the country, then we do not know who is threatened or who is threatening,” he said. “Data, the lifeblood of decision-making, is inexcusably awful. Equipment to carry out security checks is often first-generation and unreliable. Biometrics, such as taking fingerprints and photographs, are not always recorded.” Neal condemned the poor record-keeping as a “system failure”, adding that the Home Office response to the surge in Channel crossings was “poor” and “unacceptable”. The number of people making the 21-mile crossing from France to the Kent coast rose from 8,420 in 2020 to 28,526 last year. He said that problems arose mainly due to a “refusal” by the Home Office to move from an “emergency response to what has rapidly become steady state, or business as usual”. Between December 2020 and January 2021, Neal and his team inspected processing centres – Tug Haven, which has since closed, and Western Jet Foil – in Dover, where migrants are taken on arrival. He identified a series of failings, including children remaining mixed with the adult male population. He said ages were assessed by having migrants point to a board with numbers, despite most coming from countries where the Roman alphabet was not used. Neal said staff did not ask about pregnancy, which meant that unless a woman was physically showing the signs of carrying a child, identification was reliant on specific questioning. He also criticised the lack of interpreters and information printed in foreign languages, which meant “migrants were often confused, and in some cases visibly anxious about what was happening to them”. In his foreword to the report, Neal said: “The number of small boat crossings in the Channel has reached such a level that it has been described as a crisis and the number one priority for the Home Office. The volume is unprecedented, and on some days the system is clearly overwhelmed.” Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, accused the government of attempting to “hide” the critical report, which was sent to Priti Patel, the home secretary, in February. “They published it only on the final day of parliament so that they can’t be asked questions on it in parliament. So we can’t actually ask them the questions about what progress they’ve made and whether or not anything has changed,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme. She added in a statement: “This report is a truly damning indictment of a Conservative government which has badly lost control of border security. “It is flabbergasting that ministers haven’t made sure basic fingerprints and biometrics are being taken from everyone who arrives. When people can arrive and disappear without any biometric checks, that puts national security at risk and encourages criminal trafficking gangs.” The Home Office said it had already “transformed” how it dealt with migrants: “Since the inspection took place, we have transformed how we manage the arrival of migrants making dangerous and unnecessary Channel crossings in small boats … “We have accepted all the report’s recommendations, the majority of which were already being addressed at the time of the inspection, and almost all this work has already been completed.” Another damning report found that the agency in charge of UK border security may have been “counterproductive” in dealing with the small boats crisis. An independent review by the former Australian immigration minister Alexander Downer, which was commissioned by Patel to see how well the Border Force may respond to future challenges, found the organisation was performing at a “suboptimal level” and stretching its resources in an “unsustainable and highly inefficient way”. With regard to the small boats, the review states: “The overall approach to this problem over the past few years has been ineffective and possibly counterproductive in preventing these journeys. The Border Force maritime command has been drawn into a challenge that it is ill-equipped to deal with and yet [is] all-consuming.” The review states that “the problem of illegal entry by small boats is not solvable in the Channel by Border Force” and “a whole-system approach is needed”. Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesperson, said Patel should be sacked in the wake of the damning reports. “This is a shocking level of incompetency and the buck stops with Priti Patel. She has presided over a growing humanitarian crisis on our own shores and should be sacked immediately,” he said.