Population Growth: Impact of Immigration

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing the debate and for his kind words—flattery, of course, will get you everywhere.

There are few more important decisions for this Parliament to make than who gets to come to our country, which is why the debate is so critical. My right hon. Friend is right to say that, over the decades, immigration has generally occurred in this country in an ad hoc manner, without the careful thought and planning that it warrants. Sometimes it has been successful, and sometimes less so, but it has rarely been planned in the way that it should be. As has been said, the levels of immigration that we are currently seeing, and have seen for most of my adult lifetime, are significantly higher than throughout the history of this country. The level of net migration that we have seen in the past 25 years is not normal by historical standards, and it is right that we consider the consequences of that and whether we should take action to change it.

My right hon. Friend said that Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts proposed to create an organisation to consider more deeply the demographic changes that the country is experiencing. In fact, I met Lord Hodgson to discuss just that. I know him well, having grown up not far from Astley Abbotts, where his mother created the most northerly lavender farm in Europe in her 80s—that is by the by. His proposal is very important and worthy of consideration. The issue is something that the Migration Advisory Committee could play a greater part in considering when it advises the Government on changes to our immigration system, but, if not, I think there is a good argument for having a separate organisation. I committed to Lord Hodgson to give further thought to the topic.

My right hon. Friend and a number of others raised the profound consequences that large quantities of migration have on the population of this country as regards housing, access to public services and integration, cohesion and unity. We should consider each of those points very seriously. I have paid particular interest to housing throughout my time as a Minister. It is undoubtedly true that if 600,000 additional people come to this country every year, that has profound consequences for house prices and, in particular, for the poorest in society, who want either to get on to the housing ladder or to access social housing. We have to take that seriously.

I made a speech recently at Policy Exchange about the impact of illegal migration. Although that is a different subject, many of the same arguments apply. We have to make sure we are representing our constituents’ true opinions correctly, as my right hon. Friend said, and we must be cognisant of the consequences, including the pressure on public services, housing and integration.

Secondly, my right hon. Friend argued—again, the Government would agree—that companies should not reach in the first instance for the easy lever of foreign labour. That is not the route to productivity enhancement and prosperity. If it was, this country would be even more prosperous than it is today, given the large amounts of legal migration that we have seen in the past 25 years. We have to encourage companies to embrace technology and automation, train their staff and invest in their skills.

The Government are doing that in a number of ways through our skills reforms, such as those for apprenticeships. My right hon. Friend started that process when he was the apprentices Minister many years ago. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has made it one of the central missions of his tenure to ensure we get more of the economically inactive in our country back into the workplace, and to ensure businesses support them in the first instance rather than reach for those overseas.

The Government’s most crucial reform in this Parliament was taking back control. It is as a result of leaving the European Union that, for the first time in my lifetime, Governments of this country can control the levers that dictate the numbers of people coming into our country. That is an absolutely essential change. It is now in our hands, but there has been a lazy assumption that control alone was sufficient and that people were not concerned about numbers. I disagree with that, and the Government do too. We believe that net migration is far too high, and we need to take action to bring it down over the medium term.

It is correct that, as others have said, the levels of net migration we have seen in the past two years have included some exceptional factors. The kaleidoscope was shaken as a result of covid, and we have subsequently seen very large numbers of people return to the UK, such as students. We have made important commitments, such as creating the Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan schemes—all of which we should be proud of and which should command high levels of public support. In fact, the UK, contrary to the view we sometimes hear expressed on the left, is one of the world’s leading countries for humanitarian protection schemes. Since 2015, under a Conservative Government, we have enabled half a million people to come into this country for humanitarian purposes. But we need to do more.

We have recently taken a significant step, which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings mentioned, to ensure that dependants of students cannot come with a student unless they are coming for longer research degrees, such as PhDs. That will make a tangible difference to numbers in the years ahead. Most importantly, it reaffirms the principle that universities should be in the education business, not the migration business. No one should be coming to this country to study merely as a back door to a life in the UK. They are entirely separate things.

If there are further steps we need to take, we can and should do so. My right hon. Friend raised a number of important points to which I will give further consideration. He knows that I have sympathy about the salary threshold. There is a question as to whether the immigration health surcharge is at a fair place or whether there is more that can be done. There is also a question about whether family visas and such are being issued appropriately. Those are all things that the Home Office keeps under review. If we need to take further action there, we obviously will do.

I am conscious that my right hon. Friend is keen to speak at the end of the debate, so I will—

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I only have a few seconds. I don’t want to deprive my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

The debate will finish at 5.55 on the dot.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Can the Minister set out what the Government believe the right target is for the population of this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is a big question to answer in 30 seconds. What we have said is that we remain true to our manifesto commitment that we will seek to bring down net migration in the medium term. My hon. Friend can see from the first step that the Home Secretary and I have made on student dependants the seriousness with which we take this challenge. I hope I have said in my remarks that I am very alive to the issue. I take seriously the profound consequences of net migration on community cohesion and access to public services and housing. If there are further things we can do, such as some of the ideas raised by Conservative Members today, the Home Secretary and I will do everything we can to implement them.