Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Avebury

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Teverson. His combative style shows that his pillaging instincts, at least in a verbal sense, have not been forgotten, and I will come back to some of his comments in a moment.

The majority of the speeches we have had and the briefings we have received on the Bill have focused on two aspects: first, the risk that the Bill poses to the economic advantages that this country is said to enjoy as a result of immigration and, secondly, that the proposed tightening-up of the country’s immigration procedures represents an undue restriction on what my noble friend on the Front Bench called in his opening remarks “access to justice”. Those are serious charges, to which I wish to return in a few minutes.

At the outset, however, I may disappoint the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Winston, because I want in this Second Reading debate to declare my support for what the Government are proposing today. For those of us engaged in the political process, there are few policies which our fellow citizens regard as being as counterintuitive, if not downright illogical, than those surrounding immigration rules and procedures. The regulars in the saloon bar of the Dog and Duck find it hard to understand how people who have come here illegally, and who may have committed crimes or enjoyed access to our non-contributory health and social services, seem to be able to avoid removal for an inordinate length of time. I am not suggesting that the only way to access political wisdom is via the saloon bar of the Dog and Duck but the regulars have a point. If we are not to be seen as being out of touch we need to address those concerns to maintain public confidence, as my noble friend also said his opening remarks. The Bill at least addresses some of those concerns and that is why I support it. I quite agree that there are issues and details that we shall need to explore and discuss in Committee but the Government are broadly on the right track.

I referred a moment ago to the question of access to justice. I attach great importance to that. Members of your Lordships’ House may be aware that I am a trustee of Fair Trials International and that I was extremely critical of the Government’s proposals to reduce the time in which an appeal can be made against a European arrest warrant from 14 days to seven days. That proposal formed part of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill which your Lordships’ House has just finished considering. My noble friend on the Front Bench felt the full force of my disappointment, which continues as he was not prepared to shift the Government’s position. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, may be smiling but it was also pretty disappointing that noble Lords opposite would not support that either. When I hear them talking about how important it is to get these procedures right, the question worth bearing in mind is whether you are going to talk the talk or walk the walk. But—and this is an important but—I had to recognise that in the case of European arrest warrants, at least, there was a substantial proportion of unmeritorious appeals, which clogged up the system at considerable expense. I expect and fear that the immigration appeal process has similar characteristics and is therefore in need of streamlining. Therefore, while access to justice is very important, it is not a card that trumps all others. There are balancing issues of fairness to other law-abiding members of society and of the appropriate use of scarce resources in our health and social services. Finally, there are balancing issues of the interests of the long-suffering British taxpayer who foots the bill. No doubt we shall examine these balances in detail in Committee.

In the rest of my remarks, I want to set these proposals in the wider issue of the economic advantage that many claim the country enjoys from immigration. Here, I want to follow some of the themes that my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater was developing in his interesting remarks earlier. I do so in the context of immigration as a whole. I recognise that the Bill seeks to address only immigration from outside the EU but, in this Second Reading debate, we should step back and look at the jigsaw as a whole—not just the piece that the Bill represents. I argue strongly that to consider immigration only as regards economic activity is to adopt too narrow a prism. We need to consider also the impacts of immigration on other issues, such as quality of life and social cohesion.

I should make it clear at the beginning—my noble friend Lady Hamwee made this point—that, lest my remarks should be misinterpreted, when I talk about the native population I am talking about the native population irrespective of race, colour or creed. The basic facts may be simply stated. The population of this country is going up by 1,100 people a day—a large village or a small town every week. Our population, which is currently 63 million, is estimated to reach 70 million by 2025. That is an increase of 7 million, or 14 cities the size of Manchester. “No worries”, say many people, “Only 5% of Britain is built upon”. It is probably about 12% of England but it is a small proportion, they say. However, the population is not evenly spread. England has now overtaken the Netherlands as the most densely populated country in Europe. Furthermore, the UK is expected to have the largest European population by about 2030, having by then overtaken Germany. Let us think about the position of the south of England when a goodly proportion of those 14 Manchesters come to be built, as I expect that they will be, south of a line from Bristol to the Wash. To suggest that there are no consequent quality-of-life issues is fanciful. The heated public debates that we are having about building on the green belt, expanding Heathrow Airport and the construction of HS2 are the first outriders of what will be increasingly challenging public policy issues.

There is also the issue of social cohesion, referred to by my noble friend in his opening remarks and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester in his interesting contribution. If the default option is to encourage immigration, we run the risk of crowding out our native born. Crowding out can take many forms. If we consider football’s Premier League, an undeniably successful British activity that earns this country millions, we should also consider how few British players play in the Premier League. Does it matter that 200 or 300 young British males are unable to realise their dreams? In the grand scheme of things, it probably does not, although it matters rather more if you are one of the 200 or 300. It matters particularly to the black minority community, who proportionately provide a large number of those who play football at the highest level.

Universities UK may be briefing us, and undoubtedly has briefed us, about the impact of these proposals, but I hope it has read the report on higher education, published in October 2012, that drew attention to the increasing shortage of home-grown postgraduate students as a result of the increasing number of people coming from overseas to pursue postgraduate education here. Below those two quite small, perhaps rather atypical, examples are thousands of our fellow countrymen who may find their aspirations and ambitions if not shattered at least limited. We risk creating or perhaps reinforcing a sullen, discontented underclass—and especially where that underclass is a minority group, we risk creating an atmosphere in which extremism may flourish.

On Thursday 6 February, in the Moses Room, the noble Lord, Lord McFall of Alcluith, who is not in his place, initiated a debate on social mobility. The speeches focused, unsurprisingly, on what can be done to hasten the “up” escalator. But the darker side of social mobility, about which we prefer not to talk, is the “down” escalator. This one carries people who for a wide variety of reasons have found themselves disadvantaged. While the “down” escalator can apply to individuals, it can apply to countries too. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, talked about the impact of the “down” escalator in that we are perhaps attracting to this country skilled people who can help to stabilise less advantaged, underdeveloped failing states. Although we may benefit from that in the short run, in the long run we may be creating a yet more dangerous world.

Finally, there is the argument that we need immigration to look after our ageing population. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and I have discussed this issue in the past. If we follow such a course we will be, in the famous words of Sir David Attenborough, engaging in a gigantic Ponzi population scheme. For today’s young people become tomorrow’s old people. I should like to share some figures with the House. In 2003 the dependency ratio of workers to pensioners was 3.7 to 1—3.7 workers to each pensioner. We know that in 2050 there will be 17.1 million pensioners. If we maintain the ratio we will need 63.4 million workers. Yet on the same projection we know that we will have only 36 million. That is a gap of 27 million. That means that we would need a population not of 70 million, but of 100 million, which is 50% above our present level. These 100 million would in due course become pensioners, requiring still more people to look after them. These are not the remarks of a little Englander determined to pull up the drawbridge.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, does the noble Lord’s arithmetic take into account the fact that the pension age will be increasing during this period?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is right. We could certainly change the ratio by increasing the pension age, but it would not remove the problem. It might obviate it: it might not be 27 million; it might be 20 million. But I accept that a change in the pension age will make a difference.

No one with any knowledge of the history of our country can be unaware of the vital contribution that new arrivals have made to its life: its vitality, diversity and dynamism. However, given the UK’s, and particularly England’s, geographical constraints, which do not exist in the same way for the United States, a country that is often used as an example for us to follow as regards immigration, we are approaching a point at which we must begin a balanced, calm debate about the interaction of size of population with economic advantage, quality of life and social cohesion. The Bill before us today is a first small step in the process to ensure that in principle those who come here legally make a reasonable contribution to our society while those who are here illegally are speedily removed. That is why the Bill has my support.