Immigration Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We have said that the pace of migration was too fast. It is right to have measures to bring the level down. We have said that many times. The Home Secretary has had every opportunity to apologise for the divisive ad vans, which she has admitted were a serious problem. I will give her another opportunity to intervene to do so.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mr Stewart Jackson]

On the subject of regrets, does the right hon. Lady share the regret of the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who said in 2010 that having unmitigated and unplanned immigration from the European Union at the same time as 5.2 million people were on out-of-work benefits under the last Labour Government was a mistake that the Labour party needed to face up to?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have said that we should have had transitional controls for eastern Europe. Government Members need to consider how they can defend the fact that since the election deportations have dropped by 7% and deportations of foreign criminals are down by 14%, and how they can explain why the number of illegal migrants absconding at Heathrow has trebled since the election and why the number caught afterwards has halved since the election.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), although I shall not be agreeing with her. It was also a great pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is no longer in his seat. I agree with him about the reasons to support the Bill. He spoke of the impact immigration has on the streets and it is true that this is a matter of great concern. The immigration rules have been reformed to cut out abuse where it is rife, but there is still more to do, particularly on landlords.

Let me start with the report by the Migration Observatory in Oxford entitled, “Migrants and Housing in the UK: Experiences and Impacts”. It is a very short report that sets out some key findings, one of which is that the foreign-born population has significantly lower home ownership rates than the UK-born population. The detail shows that the foreign-born population is three times as likely as the UK-born population to be in the private rented sector. If we drill down further, we can see that recent migrants are more than twice as likely as the normal foreign-born population to be renters—76% are more likely to rent. Foreign-born individuals have lower ownership rates than UK-born individuals and have greater representation in the private rented sector.

Recent migrants have very different accommodation standards. The report states that

“new migrants moved into temporary accommodation upon arrival…However, after realising that their stay in the UK could be permanent it is common for migrants to look for better housing choices”.

The evidence from that statement is clear: if we want to look for new migrants and potentially illegal immigrants, we need to look at the private rented sector. It is a key part of trying to ascertain where they might lie within the system. The evidence so far suggests that that is what is happening.

The UKBA and Ealing council recently visited six properties and the agency found that 22 out of 39 individual tenants, a large percentage, were illegal immigrants. Of those 22, 19 were detained. Of those 19, nine entered the country without leave, eight were overstayers, one was a failed asylum seeker and one was working in breach of his visa conditions. In such circumstances, the correct duty should be for the landlord to check for residence status. There is a long list of excluded tenancies in the Bill and the Secretary of State has the right to grant such a right to a person who would otherwise be disqualified.

The obligation on landlords—the choice of words is crucial—is to make “reasonable enquiries”. Private landlords are not expected to be experts in immigration; they are expected to make reasonable inquiries. They are not supposed to know the details of all the 400 or so immigrant visas that were mentioned earlier. They are merely meant to make reasonable inquiries. We are looking to secondary legislation to include a list of acceptable documentation.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. He will no doubt be aware of a 2006 study by Cambridgeshire constabulary that considered crime trends arising from the 2004 accession, particularly in houses in multiple occupation in Peterborough. That showed the disproportionate impact of crime on women living among largely male occupants of such houses as a result of poor landlord stewardship. Is that not an important issue that the Bill will address?

[John Howell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that. I was not aware of that valid point and I am sure it adds to our debate.

The penalty payment is £3,000 per individual. A public consultation ran over the summer and the majority of landlord representative organisations opposed and disagreed with the principle of the policy. Most of the comments related to untrained British civilians undertaking the work of immigration officials, but the policy is a positive way of landlords contributing to British society given the proven link between migrants and rented accommodation. That contribution to British society will also involve freeing up the housing stock.

The policy will not conflict with landlords’ contractual arrangements. Indeed, if we ask the members of the organisations rather than the representative organisations we find that many members undertake such checks anyway—63%, I think. The Minister is nodding. The Bill is simply asking that all landlords do what the best landlords already do.

There is no reason why the system should not be clear and easy to comply with, and I accept that it must be. However, I do not accept that landlords will be confused about who is caught by the provision and I do not accept that any substantial cost burden will be passed on to tenants. I accept that publicity is important, and that we have to let landlords know what is happening. There is a need to be precise if we are to get the message out. I received calls from constituents on the matter when it was first mooted, as they were confused and wanted assurances about what was right. I was able to give those assurances. The issue of potential discrimination, which the hon. Member for Slough raised, is a real one, and I look forward to guidance from the Government to overcome that.

I shall conclude, as other Members wish to speak. This is a simple process for landlords, and it is something that they already do in the main. I urge the Government to make it simple, so that we can keep a check on migrants.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is 16 years since the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and I stood in the same hall in Wembley, he winning his seat and I losing by 19,000 votes, and his speech felt like every one of those 16 years as it passed by.

I welcome the Bill and want to talk about the general issues it deals with. I think that it is courageous and principled, because what we are talking about is one of the most important functions of any Government: to protect the country’s borders and, most importantly, to allow the public, of all creeds, colours and religions, wherever they come from, to have faith, trust and confidence in those borders. This is a dividing line between the Government and the Labour party. I think that it is the height of cowardice that Labour Back Benchers have adopted this mealy-mouthed, curate’s-egg approach yet, for purely political reasons, will not have the courage of their convictions to oppose the Bill in the same way they “rubbed the right’s nose in it” during their time in government. If they really believe that this is a bad Bill, why will they not vote against it tonight? They will not do so because they know that that would be unpopular with voters.

Opposition Members say that the Government should be ashamed of the ad vans, but where was the mandate to inflict unmediated, unmitigated, uncontrolled and unplanned immigration on this country? There were between 2 million and 3 million European Union migrants to this country, when the LSE assessment was 13,000 to 15,000, and unprecedented levels of non-EU migration. There was no mandate, and the Labour party should hang its head in shame for never going to the British people with an honest prospectus for that policy.

I will take no lectures from a representative of the Scottish National party about the poison of chauvinism and nationalism. If it is all right to aim that at English people in order to propagate the ridiculous policy of breaking up the United Kingdom, it would be best for the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) not to say anything about it—

[Pete Wishart]

Are you trying to say I am a racist?

[Mr Jackson]

No, I am not saying that, but if the hon. Gentleman is attacking the Government side for being racist, as he did in his Westminster Hall debate, I say that chauvinism and nationalism are bad and that he should be mindful—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think that I need to help a little bit. In fairness, we are on immigration, but independence for Scotland has not happened, so the immigration part will not apply at the moment. It will obviously help us all if we can carry on with the debate.

[Mr Jackson]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

With regard to the rationale for immigration, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee found in 2008, as indeed did the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, that large-scale immigration had a minimal impact on the economy holistically. I pay tribute to the Government for having the guts to listen to people and take appropriate action in a responsible, reasonable and measured way. They have taken action before on things that have caused real problems for all communities. The hon. Member for Brent North is not the only one who represents a diverse, multicultural society; I have 10,000 eastern European migrants in my constituency and 10,000 voters of Pakistani heritage. The question is what is good for the whole community. We all know that when we go to those wonderfully moving citizenship ceremonies at the town hall there is a feeling of cohesiveness about being a British citizen. Those people who have followed the correct route and done the right thing are just as angry and concerned about the impact of illegal immigration as anyone else, irrespective of their race or ethnicity.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman started his speech by saying that the number of new arrivals in this country had been vastly underestimated. Presumably he was talking about migrants from eastern Europe. How many of them would have been captured by the Bill?

[Mr Jackson]

I will move on to EU migration later, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and we have discussed the issue before.

The Government have taken action on sham marriages, bogus colleges, seasonal agricultural workers—a controversial decision a few weeks ago, but I think that the Minister made the right call—and access to the NHS. I think that that is absolutely right. We can be proud of having reduced net migration towards the tens of thousands, as we heard in the earlier exchanges between the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary. Given that, it is not unreasonable for us to wish to have in this country good quality new people from around the world who want to be British citizens, people who speak English and make an economic contribution to our society. We want a colour-blind scheme whereby we attract highly skilled people who can make a serious impact on society, not least in terms of improving themselves and their family.

I welcome all the powers in the Bill, particularly the review of article 8 of the European convention on human rights. I put my cards on the table. I make a straightforward declaration to the House that I would vote to leave the European Union. I am a member of Better Off Out. I would have us out of, or at least suspend us from, the European convention on human rights, like Sweden, because of the perverse decisions the European Court has made. I do not believe that a foreign legal entity should be second-guessing our sovereign Parliament and our courts, and I will take that message to my constituents in due course.

I have two slight general criticisms of the Bill. It might seem strange, but I agree with the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart): I do not believe that the robustness and veracity of the data collected under both Governments —this one and the previous one—are sufficient for us always to make rational decisions on immigration. The Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, in particular, need to be making a better fist of collecting data. Too much of this debate is based on anecdote and on historical figures that do not make much sense when looked at in terms of real life and the particular pressures caused by mass migration. There needs to be a proper cost-benefit analysis of the displacement of mass migration, historically and in future, particularly as we look towards the situation with Romania and Bulgaria.

It is hard to countenance the fact that this is the Labour party of Keir Hardie, Clement Attlee and the Labour Representation Committee, given that it imported 2 million to 3 million low-paid, low-skilled eastern European migrants, some living in slum housing, at the same time as consigning 5 million people to out-of-work benefits, seemingly for the benefit of capitalists and big business. Had the Conservative party presided over such a record, the Labour party would rightly be deeply critical. We need a cost-benefit analysis of the young people in pockets of this country who remain on welfare and who are unskilled, untrained and on low wages because of Labour’s deliberate policy of mass migration while in power.

The Bill misses an opportunity to cover EU migration. I have previously rehearsed for the House the issues in my own constituency, with 34,000 national insurance numbers created for eastern European migrants in just seven years, a tripling in the number of GP registrations, and 19 schools with more than 40% of children speaking English as an additional language. Those are real pinch points in different geographical areas across the country. They may not exist everywhere across England and Wales or the United Kingdom, but they are certainly major issues in my constituency. The situation in Peterborough is acute. Having said that, we were the city that welcomed the Ugandan Asians when they were expelled by Idi Amin in the 1970s; we have a very proud record in that respect.

The Government need to look again at the non-contribution-based benefits regime. That is a vital issue. If we are to keep within the confines of the free movement directive of 2004, we must consider aligning our benefits regime with the regimes of other countries that do not the have large-scale benefits tourism that we have potentially had. The European Union Free Movement Directive 2004 (Disapplication) Bill, a ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced in October 2012, contained some very important measures about registration of EU migrants, access to benefits, deportation, criminal activity, housing waiting lists, GP registrations and so on. Unfortunately, only some of those have been taken up by Ministers.

This Government have taken the right decision, not particularly because they want to be electorally popular but because they have listened to people. They have understood the great sense of resentment and anger out there among very many people—people who are not part of a social liberal elite, who do not read the right newspapers and did not go the right schools but feel an inherent sense of helplessness and resentment. My warning is this: if we do not give vent to the legitimate concerns of the vast majority of decent people who pay their taxes and are kind and neighbourly, then we give an opening to fascists, racists and extremists like the English Defence League and the British National party. In the mother of Parliaments, we can debate these issues because we are not afraid to do so. It might be uncomfortable for the Opposition or for some Government Members, but it is right to have that debate. I commend the Bill and will enthusiastically give it my support.