A Labour minister slapped down a Tory MP with a devastating reminder of his own time in government.
Nick Timothy has tabled a written parliamentary question asking the Home Office how many illegal immigrants had been given permission to work in the UK in every year since 2020.
Answering for the government, immigration minister Angela Eagle said she could not provide the answer because the cost of collating the information would be “disproportionate”.
Timothy, who was elected Tory MP for West Suffolk at last year’s election, posted her answer on X and said: “They don’t want you to know. But worse, they don’t want to know themselves. Because they don’t care.”
Eagle then took to the social media platform herself to point out that former Labour MP Teresa Pearce had asked a similar question and received a virtually identical answer in 2014 – when Timothy was working for then home secretary Theresa May.
Eagle said: “Remind me Nick Timothy what years did you spend at the Home Office?”
It is not the first time Timothy has been left red-faced over written questions he has tabled.
HuffPost UK revealed in January how he had asked the home secretary “whether she plans to decolonise the artwork and heritage assets in her department; and what guidance she issues to her department’s arm’s length bodies on decolonisation.”
Policing minister Diana Johnson told him: “Our immediate priorities remain the protection of national security, the restoration of neighbourhood policing, tackling the smuggling gangs responsible for small boat crossings and clearing up the chaos left by the previous government.”
Last December, Timothy also asked if the Home Office “will take steps to remove diversity and inclusion advisers and champion positions”.
Johnson told him those posts “were established under the previous government” and the reasons for having them “remain relevant today”.
And in January, Timothy wanted to know which flags the home secretary planned to fly outside the Home Office “other than the Union flag in the next 12 months and on which days each flag will be flown”.
Johnson replied: “Current Home Office ministers have not been consulted on this issue since coming to office, but prompted by [Timothy’s] question, we have advised that there should be no change from the arrangements in place under the previous government, whatever they may have been.”
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