British Border Agency
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( UKBA ) was the border control agency of the Government of the United Kingdom and part of the Home Office that was superseded by UK Visas and Immigration, UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in April 2013. UK Visas and Immigration now manages applications for people who want to visit, work, study or settle in the UK. Previously, this was part of UKBA (UK Border Agency) which closed in 2013. I can answer this with some authority as I became a citizen in December. My father was Scottish (though born in Canada) so I was on an ancestral visa program. If you are asking how long it took from.
The List of UK Border Force Cutters is a listing of all cutters to have been commissioned by the UK Border Force and its predecessors,
- Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs[1] (Front line Customs Controls Transferred to New Border Agency in 2008)
- Her Majesty's Customs and Excise (HMCE) (merged with the Inland Revenue in 2005)
Prior to the formation of HM Customs and Excise in 1909, revenue cruisers of various types were operated by various bodies including HM Customs, the Excise, the Admiralty and the Coast Guard.[2]
In 1980 HMCE's Revenue Cutter Service was renamed the Customs Cutter Service. Thenceforward its vessels bore the ship prefix 'HMCC' - Her Majesty's Customs Cutter (previously they had long been known as HM Revenue Cutters).[3] Following the flotilla's transfer to the UK Border Agency they were given the prefix 'HMC' - Her Majesty's Cutter; all current vessels of the UK Border Force bear this prefix.
For much of the 20th century the Cutters were supplemented by smaller 'launches'; but these were non-seagoing vessels, restricted to patrolling rivers and estuaries.[3]
Pre-Second World War[edit]
For the first part of the 20th century HM Customs and Excise made do with a single Customs Cutter:[2]
- Vigilant (1902-1920) built by Cox & Co. of Falmouth[4]
- Vigilant (1919-1928) (formerly HMS Esther)[3]
After 1928 no new Cutter was procured until after the Second World War, HMCE seeking instead to rely on its Launches.
Post-war[edit]
- HMRC Vigilant (1946-1962), a former Royal Navy Isles-class trawler
- Valiant (1947-1967), a former Royal Navy motor launch
- Vincent (1948-1965), a former Royal Navy motor launch
V-class[edit]
- Venturous (1962-1980) built to Customs specifications
- Vigilant (1965-1980)
- Valiant (1968-1979)
Tracker-class[edit]
- HMCC Active (1976–1988)
- HMCC Alert (1976–1983)
- HMCC Challenge (1977–1989)
- HMCC Champion (1978–1989)
- HMCC Safeguard (1979–1993)
- HMCC Swift (1978–1993)
Fast patrol vessel[edit]
- HMCC Searcher (1979-2001)[5]
- HMCC Seeker (1980-2001)
Protector-class[edit]
- HMCC Valiant (1988–2003)
- HMCC Vigilant (1989–2003)
- HMCC Venturous (1989–2003)
- HMCC Vincent (1993–2004)
Island-class[edit]
- HMC Sentinel (1993–2013)
UKBF 42m Customs Cutter[edit]
- HMC Seeker (2001)
- HMC Searcher (2002)
- HMC Vigilant (2003)
- HMC Valiant (2004)
Telkkä-class[edit]
- HMC Protector (2014)[6][7]
Coastal patrol vessels[edit]
- HMC Active (2016)
- HMC Alert (2016)
- HMC Eagle (2016)[8][9]
- HMC Nimrod (2016)
Image gallery[edit]
HMC Seeker
HMC Vigilant
HMC Valiant
HMC Protector
HMC Nimrod
References[edit]
- ^Cutters List of Revenue Cutters
- ^ abSmith, Graham (1980). Something to Declare: 1000 Years of Customs and Excise. London: Harrap.
- ^ abcSmith, Graham (1983). King's Cutters: The Revenue Service and the War against Smuggling. London: Conway Maritime Press.
- ^'The Restoration of Vigilant'. Medway Maritime Trust. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^Photo, 1998
- ^HMC Protector: Customs patrol boat launched, bbc.com, 17 March 2014 - 'It will be located in Portsmouth and will operate around the UK coastline.'
- ^'Home Secretary launches new Border Force cutter to protect UK coastline'. gov.uk. HM Government. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
- ^'Patrol boat deployed in English Channel as Calais 'Jungle' prepares to be demolished'. 15 March 2017.
- ^Pyman, Tom. 'Border Force introduces more coastal patrol boats in bid to step up security off Kent coast'. Kent News. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
External links[edit]
Migration officer 'sang Um Bongo song to an asylum seeker from Congo'
A Border Agency staff member sang the Um Bongo advertising jingle to a Congolese asylum seeker, it has been alleged.
Louise Perrett, 29, claimed a colleague sang 'Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they kill them in the Congo' when the woman revealed she was fleeing fighting in the strife-torn West African country.
She also said border guards made migrants pretend to shoot guns to 'prove' they were former child soldiers.
Former UKBA employee Louise Perrett alleges some staff were 'racially prejudiced' towards asylum seekers
The Home Office department has launched an internal review after the former employee made the allegations.
Miss Perrett did not reveal whether the woman was offended by the song, which had been adapted from the TV advertisement song first aired in the 1980s. But she said it illustrated her claim that some UK Border Agency staff were 'racially prejudiced'.
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Miss Perrett, who worked at the Agency's office in Cardiff for three and half months, made a series of other claims about staff behaviour during her appearance at a House of Commons select committee hearing on Tuesday.
She spoke of her shock at the advice a colleague gave her on how to interview asylum seekers.
Miss Perrett said: 'One of his examples was that... when he had young men or children claiming to be former child soldiers, he would make them lie on the floor and demonstrate how they would shoot someone in the African bush.
Lin Homer, chief executive of the UKBA, says they are taking the allegations 'very seriously'
'If he didn't do it immediately, or there was some hesitation, they would be refused asylum.'
She claims that the staff member told her: 'If it was up to me I would take them all outside and shoot them.'
Us Border Agency
Miss Perrett, who formerly worked as a policy adviser at the Welsh Assembly, also said that the Border Agency's Cardiff office had a cuddly toy monkey nicknamed 'the grant monkey'.
It was left on the desk of any staff member who granted asylum. Miss Perrett did not tell the committee why she thought this was offensive.
She did, however, point out that not all staff had behaved in an offensive manner. She said: 'There are good people there. Don't get me wrong. There are good people who work in a professional, courteous manner.
'But the younger members of staff were more gung-ho and rude from the moment they met an asylum seeker in the interview room.'
She said that they showed a 'general hostility, not so much in things they would say but in their demeanour and their abruptness and general intimidation that I thought, as a good official, was totally unnecessary.'
British Border Agency
The Um Bongo advert featured a variety of animated jungle creatures contributing a different tropical fruit to the juice mix. The theme tune has been voted one of the UK's top ten catchiest advertising jingles
Written in 1981, it includes the line 'Um Bongo, Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo' but the drink has never been sold in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Republic of Congo - the two main countries on the Congo river.
The Border Agency's chief executive Lin Homer said: 'I take very seriously any allegation that any of our leaders in any part of our organisation would be disruptive or racially prejudiced.'
She said an investigation was under way, adding: 'If it generates any evidence... we would see that as a very serious priority for the agency'.