Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I said in response to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), I fully accept that we have not met the net migration target that we set, but we have tightened every route into the United Kingdom from outside the European Union, and we have said clearly what a Conservative Government would do to deal with free movement from the European Union. I say once again that it ill behoves the Labour party to make such comments, because in government it presided over uncontrolled mass immigration that had the impact of keeping incomes at the lower end of the scale down and was identified by its own policy guru as a 21st century wages and incomes policy.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The public certainly want immigration to be properly controlled, and far better controlled than it is at the moment, but they also want some honestly about immigration. Is not the fact of the matter that while we remain in the EU with free movement of people we cannot guarantee how many people will come to this country, so we should not be making promises that we are in no position to keep? Is not the fact of the matter that we cannot control the number of people coming to this country while we remain in the EU?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is right to identify the significant increase in the number of people coming to this country from inside the European Union as the key reason we have failed to meet our net migration target. However, crucially, not only has the coalition already taken steps to tighten up on movement from inside the European Union—for example, by reducing access to benefits—but the Conservative party has clearly set out what we would do in government after the election to deal with free movement and tighten up further to reduce migration from inside the European Union.

UK Borders Control Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 9th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I rise briefly to support the Bill. Whenever I carry out surveys among my constituents, immigration is always one of the top two issues that they are concerned about, and no wonder given the figures cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on the level of net immigration into this country, which is running at around a quarter of a million people a year. To me and many of my constituents that is simply unacceptable, but it is also unsustainable, which in many ways is the biggest issue. Immigration is putting a huge strain on our public services, whether the NHS or school places. We simply do not have the wherewithal to build the number of houses that would be needed to house such a level of immigration. It is perfectly obvious that it is unsustainable in the long run and that the numbers need to be brought down dramatically.

As my hon. Friend said, the Prime Minister made his pledge at the previous election, and I do not doubt the sincerity with which he did so. I am sure that he was certain in his own mind that that was what he would deliver were the Conservatives to win that general election. As a caveat, I should say that we did not win the general election, so the Conservatives had to form a Government with our gallant Lib Dem colleagues. Whatever anybody thinks about them, they are not renowned for being tough on immigration. It was inevitable that any coalition with them would result in a weakened immigration policy. I accept that backdrop, but I am sure the Prime Minister, even with a hand tied behind his back, would accept that he would have hoped to do better than he has on immigration.

My hon. Friend was right to make the point that the levels of immigration are similar to those under the Labour Government, but there is a difference. It is fair to point out that, in this context, Peter Mandelson made it clear that the Labour Government sent search parties out to find people from around the world to come to the UK. Having that level of immigration was a deliberate policy of the Labour Government, whereas it is not a deliberate policy of the current Government. Those levels of immigration have happened despite their intentions and best efforts. In many respects, they have faced a perfect storm.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Fascinating as it is to hear the hon. Gentleman’s views on what Peter Mandelson thought about immigration, thousands of people in this country today hope to hear a debate on Second Reading about the dangerous, costly and unpopular practice of pavement parking, my private Member’s Bill that is a little further down the Order Paper. As the hon. Gentleman promised to be brief, I wonder whether he will be able to bring his remarks to a close at some stage. That would be very helpful.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was making a speech on the current Bill. It is not for the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) to stand up and give an advert for his Bill. The hon. Member for Shipley is in order and has been speaking for a very short period of time thus far. We should allow him to make his points without interruption. That might help the speed of business.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not entirely sure what has happened to the patience of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), but as you said, I have only just got started. He has ensured that the chances of getting on to his Bill have become more limited, but I shall make progress. I can see why he is anxious—he does not want us to talk about Liberal Democrat immigration policy and wanted to divert attention away from it.

The Government have faced a perfect storm. In some respects, this country will always have much higher immigration. Many more people from the EU want to come to this country rather than go to other EU countries. That is partly, or perhaps mainly, because of language. If a person is looking for a job, they will go to a country where they can speak the language. It is great benefit to all that English has become a universal language, but immigration is a downside, because people from the EU who speak English who are looking for a job are more likely to come here than go to other EU countries.

The benefits system is another factor. I applaud the Government for the efforts they have made to restrict access to benefits for people from the EU. It is much tougher for people coming to this country to claim benefits. The Government intend to make it tougher still, which I very much support. Many EU countries have a system of benefits under which people have to pay in before they can take something out. Under our system, people can to a large extent take things out even if they have not paid anything in. That is also a pressure on immigration into this country.

There is also—the Government could never have predicted this—the collapse in the economy around the EU and the fact that economic growth in this country has been so much better than in the rest of the EU. I think I am right in saying—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that this country created more new jobs in the last year than the rest of the EU put together. Of course, that will be a magnet for people looking for a job, and they will want to come to this country. I fully accept that there is no way the Prime Minister could have predicted that five years ago, when he made the promise that he did. He has faced a perfect storm.

That is why my hon. Friend’s Bill is so important. We may be a victim of our success in some ways, and other things may be beyond our control, but the fact is that, although people want to control immigration into this country, they also want something else: some honesty in the debate on immigration. Whatever anybody says, and no matter what rhetoric people use, the honest fact—the public know this, so I have no idea why politicians are so reluctant to admit it—is that while we are a member of the EU under the current regime, we cannot control immigration. We cannot say that a certain number of people will come into this country—we simply cannot. The Prime Minister made his promise in good faith, but it was one he was not entitled to make, because we do not have the ability to control the numbers of people coming into this country. My hon. Friend’s Bill would allow us to do that.

In my view, we need to leave the EU; that is the only way we can control immigration into this country—not just the numbers, but the nature. My hon. Friend made the good point that the free movement of people may sound like a great principle to some, but it also means free movement of criminals. If we look at the nationality of the prison population, we see that there has been a massive increase in recent times in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians. If we had had proper controls, we could probably have stopped those people coming into the country in the first place because of the criminal records they have back home.

We need to control immigration—I think that is something the Minister agrees with, and the Government also seem to agree with it—but we have to be honest with people. We have to acknowledge and accept that the only way we can control immigration is by stopping the free movement of people in the EU. As long as we have that, we cannot control immigration, and we will just be spitting in the wind with the measures we take. I therefore hope that, to properly control immigration, the Government will accept my hon. Friend’s Bill.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I find myself utterly at one with my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) on this matter. I support the Government on these issues because it is the first duty of any Government to protect their citizens. It is in that spirit that I support the motion, notwithstanding any concerns that we might have about our relationship with Europe or the sovereignty of this House. In our increasingly interconnected world, criminal activity recognises no international boundaries. Consequently, the need for international co-operation in the fight against crime is essential if we are to keep our people safe.

I appreciate, and am sympathetic to, the sincere concerns that have been expressed by colleagues, but for me this is about practicality and I am satisfied that the Government have exercised their right to opt in only to those measures that will enhance the operational capacity of our law enforcement agencies. The simple truth is this: it is very easy for a wanted criminal simply to leg it to the Costa del Sol or scuttle across the channel. I want our law enforcement agencies to get their hands on these people—people who are plotting terrorism and people who are engaged in serious crime.

As hon. Members know, I represent a constituency that has significant port interests, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes. That perhaps explains why we may be more naturally Eurosceptic on many issues, but on this one we are influenced by hard-headed pragmatism about what needs to be done to tackle international crime.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend says that it is very easy for people to get from one country to another and that we need to do something about these crimes. Surely the solution would be to make it much harder to get from one country to another. What we should be doing is stopping this free movement of people which is allowing all these criminals to come through our border controls daily with impunity. Surely that is what we should be dealing with.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are very short of time, and I am trying to protect the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who has been waiting patiently to speak. Taking interventions from people, however eminent, who have just entered the Chamber in the past few minutes would not really be fair on the final speakers.

Criminal Law

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The Home Secretary keeps talking about a package of measures, but, of course, this is not a package of measures but things that she has bundled up into a package. As she appears to be making up parliamentary procedure as she goes along, will she explain how on earth those people who agree with some of the measures but not others should vote this evening?

[Mrs May]

I described them as a package because that was what was open to us under the terms of the Lisbon treaty negotiated by the previous Labour Government. We have to opt back in to a group of measures. There are measures in the package that interrelate. For example, the European supervision order relates to the European arrest warrant. We cannot simply pick and choose individual measures; many of them interrelate and should be considered together.

Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am very proud of this Government’s humanitarian work. The investment we have provided for places such as Syria—we have committed about £700 million to the aid effort that is providing direct assistance to those in need—reflects our response. The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of search and rescue operations, but I want to highlight the fact that such matters are for individual member states in respect of their territorial waters. It is ultimately for Italy to decide how it conducts its search and rescue operations.

The Frontex operation, which I have outlined, provides surveillance capability and other support at the border. I find it inconceivable—the head of Frontex has said the same—that support would not be provided if a boat were in peril. Obviously, a rescue would be undertaken in those circumstances.

The Government’s view is that, because of the situation in various parts of the region, a regional solution is required. I have already made the point that assistance is required to prevent people from making such perilous journeys. The judgment of the UK Government and other Governments across the EU is that the emergency measures should be stopped at the earliest opportunity. Ultimately, we want to do something that helps, but sadly, in our judgment, the emergency measures are not achieving that end.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend the Minister for his statement, which, to be perfectly honest, was full of common sense. Is it not the case that since the search and rescue operation began, more and more people have tried their luck, with the result that there has been more and more illegal immigration and more and more deaths? The solution must therefore be to stop the search and rescue operation. Does he agree that the message that should go out from this House is not about restoring the operation, but about telling people to stop trying their luck in the first place?

[James Brokenshire]

Our genuine concern has been to provide solutions to prevent people from making those perilous journeys. As I said in my statement, the sad reality is that the number of those who have died in the Mediterranean sea has increased since the introduction of the Mare Nostrum operation. It is therefore right to look at what assistance can be provided on north African borders through direct aid, and at what further assistance the European External Action Service can give for such solutions. The approach of the Government and of other EU member states is about saving lives, not putting them in peril.

Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am very pleased to have this surprising opportunity briefly to set out the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I should like to make sure from the start that we give all the credit to him: this is his Bill and it is superb. Members will only be disappointed that he is not here to propose it himself, because he could do so with much more skill and panache than I am able to muster. While I give him full credit for the Bill, I certainly take full responsibility for the poor quality of the speech proposing it on his behalf.

We do not have enough time to go into any great detail, but I want simply to set out what the Bill does and why it does it. It makes it a criminal offence to be an illegal immigrant in this country. At the moment, people can come here with impunity: they can come into this country as an illegal immigrant, try their luck and do their best to give it a good shot. Unfortunately, as we have seen in recent years, far too many people are successful at giving it a shot. They come into the country and if they get caught the worst thing that can happen to them is they will be kicked out, but, given all the human rights legislation we have, they would have to be particularly unlucky for that to happen. There is absolutely nothing in place to give any real, meaningful deterrent to prevent people from giving it a go in the first place. My hon. Friend is trying, rightly, to provide a real, proper, meaningful disincentive for anybody who tries to come into this country illegally by making it a criminal offence that can carry a sentence of imprisonment.

I am not naive enough to imagine that this Bill will, at once, clear up the mass problem this country has with illegal immigration. There is an awful lot we need to do. We need to get ourselves out of the European Union for starters and get back control of our own borders. We need to have much better controls over who is coming into the country, including knowing whether they have any criminal convictions. We also need to get rid of all the human rights legislation that stops people being deported when they are illegal immigrants.

My hon. Friend’s modest Bill makes it clear that being an illegal immigrant in this country should be a criminal offence and that a meaningful deterrent of a prison sentence should go with it. That may play a small part in deterring people from trying to enter this country illegally, and on that basis I commend the Bill to the House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I genuinely feel that this a Radio 4 moment: I will speak for just over a minute—that is all the time I have—without repetition, deviation or hesitation. [Interruption.] I will try my best not to deviate.

It is very important that we in this House think carefully about the matter of immigration, which, as we all know from our time on the doorsteps, our constituents care about. It is an issue of integral importance to the people we speak to and represent, so it is vital that we take their concerns seriously.

[Philip Davies]

The Minister has less than a minute left to speak, so may I help her by suggesting that, rather than just waffling on about the subject of immigration more generally, she explain succinctly why the Government think it is wrong that being an illegal immigrant should be a criminal offence?

[Karen Bradley]

I fear that we are getting into repetition. I want to talk about the important work of our Border Force. I was at Heathrow airport last week.

Foreign National Offenders (Removal)

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that that is a staggering response from the representative of a political party that is still debating whether it even needs to respond to the public’s concerns about immigration. I am sorry that she adopted the tone she did. This is a serious subject and we need to recognise and accept the challenges and respond to them. But the NAO report makes it clear, as I said in my opening statement, that this is a long-standing problem—her party did not face up to it when it was in power.

The report also makes it clear that, unlike the Labour party, we have a plan to deal with the problem, and that plan is working. We have removed 22,000 foreign national offenders since 2010. The NAO report makes it clear that the time taken to deport FNOs is reducing. It notes that the number of removals increased by 12% over the past two years,

“largely because of a change in the Department’s approach to deportation”.

It praises Operation Nexus—the work between the police and the immigration enforcement command—which has helped us to remove more than 2,500 foreign nationals in its first two years. We are the first Government to adopt a cross-government strategy on dealing with foreign national offenders. We want to increase the number of removals, reduce the number of foreign offenders in the UK and tackle the barriers standing in our way. Again, the NAO recognises that removing foreign national offenders

“continues to be inherently difficult”.

The report makes it clear that our efforts have been “hampered” by a “range of barriers”, including the law.

The main problem we face is the rise of litigation; we have seen a 28% increase in the number of appeals. That is why we have made the changes that I have set out in the Immigration Act to cut the number of appeals and why we have made it possible for someone to be deported before they can appeal. Those are the most significant changes to deportation appeals since 1971 and far more than we ever saw from the Labour party when it was in power for 13 years. But those things can take us only so far and we are also faced with the impact of the human rights legislation passed by the right hon. Lady’s Government. Only the Conservatives want to scrap the Human Rights Act and fix our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights, which is why we need a majority Conservative Government.

I do recognise that we face challenges and that we have some issues relating to processes to address. That is why I scrapped the UK Border Agency—Labour’s creation—and since then we have seen a change in the attitude being taken by immigration enforcement. But we will not turn these things around overnight. We have expressed our desire to rejoin the Schengen information system, because it can be a tool we can use in dealing with these FNOs. But we have moved on from the days before 2009 when, under the previous Labour Government, there was no mechanism to trace absconders—there is now a team to do that.

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that if she is going to take on an immigration issue, she really needs to look at her party’s record before she does so. Her party opened the floodgates; her party sent out the search parties and said there was no obvious limit to immigration; and her party passed the human rights legislation that made it difficult to deport foreign criminals. The Opposition still will not say that the level of immigration is too high, they still will not say it has to come down and they still defend the Human Rights Act. Perhaps when she says sorry for those things, the public might start to listen to her.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Is it not common sense that a foreign national should not be released from prison until they can be taken straight to an airport and deported? If any law, such as the Human Rights Act, is preventing that from happening, may I suggest that the Home Secretary comes forward with the necessary legislation and dares the other parties to vote down something that is such common sense to the British people? Is it not also time we started fingerprinting and taking the DNA of foreign nationals who want to enter this great country? Surely that is a small price for them to pay in order to keep people in this country safe from criminals.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is always willing to come forward with practical proposals on this matter. Steps have been taken to deal with those who would otherwise be released from prison, and to ensure that foreign national offenders who are subject to deportation orders are not being released into open conditions. On occasion, immigration judges do release foreign national offenders into the community, and release them on bail, so it is not simply a question of what is happening in relation to people who are in our prisons already. I recognise my hon. Friend’s concern and say that we will continue to look at the measures that we can take to improve our ability to deport these foreign criminals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I pointed out in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), I did commission a review of the status of the Passport Office. I think that the report of the right hon. Gentleman’s Home Affairs Committee came between considering the response to that review and the decision, but we are at one in thinking that the correct action was taken. A number of people did receive some financial help. Following my statement to the House, people whose holidays were in danger of being cancelled as a result of the problems at the Passport Office received free upgrades in relation to the handling of their passports. It is important that we ensure that the forecasting at the Passport Office is right and that the office is able to deal with people in an appropriate time scale, so that we do not see a repeat of the problems that we had this summer.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

8. How many illegal immigrants have been granted asylum or indefinite leave to remain in the UK since 2010.

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

We grant humanitarian protection only when it is genuinely needed. Sometimes that includes people who have overstayed their permission to be here, or who have entered the country without permission. Since 2010, 18,000 such people have been granted asylum.

[Philip Davies]

Surely anybody who enters this country illegally should not be able to remain here with indefinite leave or be granted asylum, but should go through the proper processes. Will the Minister explain how many such cases have occurred as a result of the Human Rights Act, dating back to 1997? Is it not the case that that Act, rather than giving any meaningful rights to decent, law-abiding citizens in this country, is a charter for illegal immigrants? Is it not time that that wretched Human Rights Act was scrapped?

[James Brokenshire]

I say to my hon. Friend that it is right that appropriate process is undertaken, but that this country is proud of its record of providing humanitarian protection for those in genuine need. He makes an important point about the Human Rights Act. As he will know, the Prime Minister and others have underlined our commitment to see that Act reformed so that actions and matters are dealt with in our courts rather than elsewhere.

The UK’s Justice and Home Affairs Opt-outs

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out that nuance in the intervention by the right hon. Member for Wokingham. I regard myself as a European and British citizen and part of—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I don’t.

[Mr Hanson]

I appreciate that others take a different view, but that is my view.

I welcome today’s debate because I believe—again, I think the Home Secretary shares this belief—that crime and criminals do not respect national borders. Technology has moved on in the last 15 to 20 years, which means that a range of issues need to be addressed not just within the boundaries of the United Kingdom, but across Europe as a whole. Free movement and new forms of criminal activity, such as cybercrime, require collective action across Europe.

[Mr Hanson]

As I think the Home Secretary also indicated in our little tête-à-tête of agreement, there is a wider world outside Europe, but we have strong ties with Europe. We have free movement in Europe on a range of matters. We do not have free movement from outside the European Community, so there are issues that we should ensure we deal with within the European Community.

[Philip Davies]

We appear to be reaching an extraordinary position, in that the right hon. Gentleman seems to be advocating the free movement of people all around the EU, so that criminals can come and go as they please, but then we need these ridiculous measures to try to deal with that. Why do we not just take a more simplistic approach and scrap the free movement of people? Then perhaps we would not need all these ridiculous measures in the first place.

[Mr Hanson]

Again, I think the hon. Gentleman perhaps has more in common with other parties than his own on that issue. Some of the changes that have taken place—in technology, free movement, cybercrime, new forms of crime, child prostitution, trafficking and drugs—demand a Europe-wide solution, and I think the Home Secretary has accepted that. They are international crimes that know no borders and they need international solutions. Each crime is creating new victims. I believe it is the duty of this House to ensure that we work with our European partners to reduce that crime, bringing criminals to justice and, yes, co-operating to do so.

Passport Applications

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman characterised the Passport Office in a particular way, which I think was unfortunate in respect of the staff. [Interruption.] No, the hon. Gentleman referred to what was happening in the Passport Office in a particular way, and I am simply saying that the staff—my hon. Friend the Immigration Minister and I have met and spoken to them—are working very hard to try to ensure that they turn round passports. As I indicated here last week, we have set in place arrangements—they have been in operation over the last weekend—to help those who find themselves unable to travel within seven days. Those are the free-of-charge arrangements that we have put in place—it is not a refund, as people are able to upgrade free of charge within those time scales.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Clearly, there are issues at the Passport Office that need resolving. However, I would like to pass on my thanks, through the Home Secretary, to our hon. Friend the Immigration Minister and his officials who have done a sterling job in helping me and doubtless other colleagues to deal with some urgent applications, ensuring that many people who were worried about not receiving their passports on time did get them on time. I am very grateful, and I want to put that on the record. The immigration Minister has been magnificent, and I hope that that sort of service will continue while the problems are ironed out.