Migrants: Indefinite Leave to Remain

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend tempts me to go into the main course rather than the hors d’oeuvre, which is today’s Question. I cannot trail for him matters that may or may not be in the immigration/net migration White Paper that we will produce in the very near future. We are intending to look at the inheritance that we had from the previous Government but also at the economic needs and training needs of the United Kingdom and how we can upskill the UK workforce, as well as at the impact of net migration students on university places—and the points that the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, mentioned. I hope that my noble friend can have patience, as that will be before this House in relatively short order.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. It is a priority for the Government to track down and provide safeguarding measures for those children who went missing under the regime of the previous Government. There are approximately 80 to 90 for whom we do not have records of where they are now. It is priority to understand where they are. The responsibility for that lies not just with the Home Office but with local authorities, such as Kent, which had initial responsibility and now has responsibility for safeguarding issues. It is a priority to find them, and I shall update the noble Lord in due course.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, will the Government’s White Paper abandon the doctrine proclaimed by Tony Blair, and to which subsequent Conservative Ministers, sadly, succumbed, that mass immigration is necessary to promote growth in this country, given that in the ensuing 20 years we have had the highest rate of immigration in our history and the lowest rate of growth? Will they go back and look at the record of Mrs Thatcher—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

During Mrs Thatcher’s 12 years in office, net immigration was precisely net zero, but we moved from being the slowest-growing economy in Europe to the fastest-growing major economy in Europe.