Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Nigel Mills and John Baron

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills]

That is the point that I was alluding to. It would have been better to have had this debate during consideration of the amendment to the Immigration Bill on Report, so that we could have dealt with the issue on the Floor of the House before the restrictions were lifted, which, sadly, is likely to happen in less than two weeks’ time. However, I am afraid that House business management is even further above my pay grade than the machinations of the Backbench Business Committee, so it is probably not wise for me to be drawn on that subject.

The right hon. Gentleman takes me to my first theme. The Minister and I—alone, sadly—have debated this topic before, at Committee stage. A month has passed, and a few things have changed. I was the lone signatory to the amendment at that point, but more than 74 MPs have now signed it for Report. A few of the facts have probably changed since then as well; obviously, there was already a petition with more than 150,000 signatories, but since that point, we have learned that despite the Government’s many welcome measures over the course of this Parliament, net migration rose in the last year, which causes concern to those of us who are committed to our manifesto promise to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. Can that be achieved, especially if large numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians take advantage of the lack of restrictions? The Government have made a series of welcome announcements of policies to tackle immigration. Welfare measures were introduced to Parliament yesterday.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, but I put it to him that perhaps those measures, particularly the changes in benefits, risk being too little too late. They also risk feeding a minority’s views and prejudices about immigrants. My experience is that the vast majority come here to work, and they work hard. They come not because of the benefits, but because the average salary here is so much higher than in their home country. Would it not be a better option to extend the transitional controls and stop people coming in, to give us time to assimilate those already here? Given that whichever route the Government take, they will be challenged, they might as well go for the better option.

[Nigel Mills]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend says. If he has read the speech I made in Committee, he will have seen that I focused on the argument about the impact on our labour market, which is already and still disrupted by the recession. If he has not read that speech, luckily I can give most of it again, seeing that we are debating much the same topic. I fear that I may have to give the same speech in a few weeks’ time, when we debate the Immigration Bill.

My hon. Friend is right that it is important to get the tone of any debate about immigration right. We are not looking to insult people or make untrue claims; we are looking at what is in our national interest and the public interest. We are still experiencing higher unemployment than we would like; it is higher than before the recession, and even though it has decreased significantly in recent months, it is still the main problem.

That is not to say that the Government are wrong to try to ensure that our welfare system is no more generous than those of other western European nations, and to tackle some of the potential weaknesses, such as the fact that we still have a system based on entitlement, not contribution. A fundamental reform of the system may well be required. I wholeheartedly support the measures announced; perhaps we could have gone further.

I have an interesting question that I hope the Minister will answer later: how many people do the Government think their new measures will catch? How many fewer people do they estimate will come over the next five years than would have come without the measures? I suspect that the number is not very large, but the information would be welcome.

Why are we concerned about the potential level of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria once the restrictions are lifted? We have talked about people coming here to abuse our welfare system, to the extent that that is actually the case, but there are real concerns about the impact on our health service. The fact that we have free health care, which is, of course, very welcome, makes us a little more attractive a destination than many other western European nations where the situation is not quite as simple.