Immigration

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s making time for a debate on this subject. It is a sensitive issue but, as the Minister for Immigration said in his introductory remarks, it is one of major public concern, and if the main political parties do not address it, we leave space for extremists to flourish.

Concern about the issue has risen up the political agenda during my political lifetime, and one has only to look at the Library paper on migration statistics to see why. Almost as soon as the previous Labour Government came to office, there was a significant increase in the level of immigration. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) sighs wearily, but one has only to look at the chart in the Library brief to see that effect. Over the course of the Labour Government’s time in office, immigration into this country doubled.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I would give way to the hon. Gentleman, but a number of other Members wish to speak, so I am going to restrict my remarks to seven or eight minutes.

Also under the Labour Government, net migration increased fivefold to 250,000 by 2010. That gave rise to two major concerns. The first was about population growth and pressure on services, and Members have spoken a lot about that in the debate. This morning I visited a project called the Well in my constituency. It is run by the Salvation Army, but a number of different public agencies are involved in it. It deals with people who are either sleeping rough, sofa-surfing or have profound housing difficulties. They often have mental health, alcohol or drug problems as well. It was interesting to see both at that project and at the Nightwatch scheme in Croydon, which provides food parcels to people who are in profound housing difficulties, that there were a significant number of people from eastern Europe in need of those services. They came to the UK looking for a better economic future but have not found it, but they are unable or unwilling to return.

Immigration has given rise to a second concern, which has not really been referred to in the debate because it is not part of the polite political discourse. If we are honest, there are people in this country who feel that their local community has changed demographically during the course of their lifetime and is not the place that it used to be. That is not my view of my local community, but when I canvassed door to door in the run-up to the election, I found that there were people who felt like that and we need to recognise that.

Both those effects are increased by the fact that the impact of migration in our country is particularly pronounced in certain parts of the country. About 12% of the UK population as a whole were born abroad, but in Greater London that figure rises to about 36%, and in some London boroughs it is even higher than that.

That concern about migration led to one particularly damaging effect in some of our communities. When the Conservative Government left office in 1997 there was not a single British National party councillor in this country but, as a result of the huge increase in migration, a number of extremists were elected to public office. Thankfully, the number is now declining again.

Before I touch on a couple of further measures that I should like the Government to take, I wish to set out my views, because it is important for a Conservative representing a demographically highly mixed part of London to recognise that in the past the Conservative party has been perceived, to some degree rightly, as unwelcoming to people from overseas who have tried to settle in this country.

My view is very much that immigration is a good and necessary thing. If we examine our population, we see that the baby boomer generation is ageing and that if we do not bring in some people of working age, we will have fewer working people supporting more pensioners. If we believe in the UK as a global trader, we clearly need to have links with countries around the world and people need to be able to come here and set up businesses. I sit on the Select Committee on Science and Technology and am very passionate about our best universities having the ability to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world. I also see in my home town the vibrancy that migration can bring.

It is possible, however, to have too much of a good thing, which is what I contend we have had. Government policy needs to pass seven tests, the first of which is tone. It is so important that we do not demonise migrants. They are doing what any Member of the House would do in the equivalent situation.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely progressive and moderate on such issues, but did the Conservative party general election pledge pass the tonal test that he speaks about?

[Gavin Barwell]

I believe that my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister, who is not in the Chamber, absolutely passes that test. Under the previous Government, policy was loose, but sometimes rhetoric was extremely tough, whereas the Minister is toughening up policy while passing that tonal test.

Migrants are doing what any hon. Member would do—they are seeking a better life for them and their families—and we must not demonise them as individuals as we seek to address immigration.

Numbers are part of the issue. The House has already touched on the balance between net and global figures, so I will not. However, it is a question not just of how many, but of whom. I want to talk about the best and brightest academics from around the world, because the Government have introduced a new special tier 1, whereby 1,000 such people are allowed in each year. It seems bizarre to me that there is no limit on the number of professional footballers who have reached a certain standard who can come into the country, but we apply a limit of 1,000 a year to the best and brightest scientists. None of my constituents who are concerned about migration object to people of ability, who will create wealth for the country, coming here.

The Minister spoke persuasively in his opening speech about removing either people who are here illegally or people against whom a decision has been taken. One thing I would like the Government to do is investigate how we can use our aid budget to help in that regard. I am a great believer in what the Government are doing on overseas aid, but there is a lot of popular concern about it in this period of austerity. One thing we could do is say to countries that one condition of the aid package we provide is having an agreement with the UK to accept back foreign citizens who have committed crimes in this country.

In the last minute that is available to me, I want to touch briefly on two issues. First, on integration, other hon. Members have spoken passionately about the importance of people learning English, but immigration is a two-way street. The main obligation is on the immigrant to fit in with British society when they arrive, but we as a society need to ensure that we are welcoming to people who come into our midst. Britain has a proud record in that regard, but research shows the barriers that many immigrants still face. The National Centre for Social Research has found that people who have an African or Asian-sounding surname need to send about twice as many job applications as people with a traditional English name.

Secondly and finally, many UKBA staff live in my constituency. In a period of austerity, they are doing the very best they can to maintain and improve the service they provide, both in retaining control of our borders and in ensuring that decisions on migration are made quickly and fairly. I want to pay tribute to the work that UKBA staff are doing within a tough environment within the agency, which is a result of the failures of the previous Government and the banking crisis that were not their fault.

I am sorry that I cannot elaborate any further on some of the issues that I wanted to mention, but I want to allow other hon. Members the time to speak.