IMMIGRATION minister Beverley Hughes was right to resign but should have done so much earlier, says Maidstone and Weald MP Ann Widdecombe.

The former Conservative home office minister said the minister’s unexpected resignation showed the Government was in an “unholy mess” over immigration and needed to get a grip on affairs.

Downing Street said that Ms Hughes had quit after inadvertently misleading Parliament in responding to a series of claims about immigration applications from Romania and Bulgaria.

Ms Widdecombe said: “She was right to go but the amazing thing is that only days ago she was saying she had no intention of doing so.

“That is the real surprise. This does show the Government is in an unholy mess on immigration.”

She added: “Beverley Hughes was a minister without a grip on her department.

“I think her problem was that she sounded as if she was on top of her brief but in fact didn’t appear to know what was happening on the ground.”

Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt (Lab) said the Government needed to create a separate stand-alone ministerial department to deal with asylum and immigration.

Ms Hughes was the minister who faced widespread criticism of her department’s handling of the Coniston Hotel saga, when the Sittingbourne hotel was earmarked to become a hostel for asylum seekers.

“The issue is big enough now for us to have a team of ministers whose only job should be to deal with these issues. There is so much more that needs to be done – to have one person in charge is too much. I would like to see it taken out of the Home Office,” the MP said.

On Wednesday (March 31) Conservative leader and Folkestone and Hythe MP Michael Howard described the immigration system as a shambles and demanded an independent inquiry into claims that visa applications from Romania and Bulgaria were based on false documents.

The Government has set up an internal inquiry into the charges raised by the British Consul in Romania.