Net Migration Figures

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend speaks for my constituents as well as his—he represents a constituency near mine—in saying that the British public want us to get on with the job and bring down the numbers coming into the country. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I are committed to bringing forward a set of fundamental reforms that I hope will achieve the objective that my hon. Friend sets out. There are definitely strong arguments for using caps, whether in general or on specific visas, but those are conversations we need to conclude within Government.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Instead of sitting in Whitehall and trying to persuade people that this is some sort of threat to them, why does the Minister not get out and talk to the businesses in communities such as mine that are crippled by labour shortages? He first promised me a meeting to talk about the issue of visas for deck hands in the fishing industry. He is obviously scared—because he has not met me yet—to sit across the table from people like my constituent, a skipper of a crab boat in Orkney, who has had to sell one of his two boats because he cannot get the crew to work on it. That is the reality of the Minister’s failure.

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman obviously missed our announcement earlier in the year where we added various fishing occupations to the shortage occupation list. That was as a result of a very helpful meeting I had with other colleagues from across the House, which he did not come to.

Illegal Migration Update

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Parliament’s support for our Rwanda plan was made clear with the passage of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. That is a statutory scheme to underpin the Rwanda partnership, so the will of Parliament to get on and deliver the policy is clear for all to see. I am confident that we will secure the result that we seek in the Supreme Court when it hears the case in October, and that is the Government’s focus right now, but like my right hon. Friend I do not think we should take anything off the table. If we are truly committed to stopping the boats, we will have to consider all options, including with regard to the European convention on human rights.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

If the Government’s attention is so strongly focused on crossings in the channel, can the Minister explain to me why one of the four Border Force cutters spent so much time this summer tied up at a pier in Orkney? We have a history of people coming in small boats to Orkney, but the Vikings have been quiet for quite a while now. Is that not a curious use of that scarce resource?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to look into that issue, and I am delighted to see the right hon. Gentleman’s Damascene conversion to stopping the boats. I can assure him that the UK has a very robust and efficient operation in the channel. We have been commended by international organisations—including when I spoke to the director general of the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees—for the work that we do to save lives at sea in the channel. I commend the Border Force officers who are part of that. At the end of the day, though, we have to put in place a deterrent if we want to stop people crossing the channel, and that is why we need policies such as Rwanda, which the right hon. Gentleman and his party have vigorously opposed.

Inshore Industry Fishing Crews: Visas

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 25th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate and for the constructive meeting that he and I had earlier in the year with representatives from the fishing sector. I am grateful to him and to all other hon. Members who have participated today. I was grateful for a recent meeting with my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), which was very productive. He made a number of important points, and in a moment I will respond to him as to how the Government intend to take them forward. I will pass on to the Prime Minister an application from my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) to be fishing Minister, although he might have competition from my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan.

The Government fully recognise the importance of the fishing industry to the UK’s economy. It has played an integral part in the UK’s heritage and will play an important part in its future. It is a mainstay of coastal communities. It provides employment, shapes infrastructure, and provides nutritious and delicious food for our domestic and international markets.

In recognition of the important contribution that fishing makes, the Home Secretary and I are of the view that, following the implementation of section 43 of the Nationality and Borders Act, which clarifies the long-standing position that migrant workers within 12 nautical miles of the UK require a work visa, it is vital that the Government do what they can to find further ways to support the fishing sector in using the immigration system.

In the Home Secretary’s letter to the sector last month, which has already been referred to, she set out that the Department stands ready to deliver a comprehensive package of support to the sector. The package includes guiding fishing firms through the visa and sponsor application process, as well as the broader immigration system; ensuring that there is sufficient capacity for English language testing slots; expediting visa and sponsor applications; further quickening the decision-making process for no extra charge; and having dedicated points of contact in UK Visas and Immigration for the sector. That is a broad package. It is based on one that we have produced for other sectors in the recent past that has been appreciated by those sectors and has generated dividends.

[Mr Carmichael]

Earlier today in the House, the Minister said that the package had been welcomed by the fishing industry. Who was he talking to who welcomed it?

[Robert Jenrick]

My Department has told me that stake- holders have welcomed it, and I think it is a good package. We are already starting to engage with firms and representatives who are responding to it. The sector is well catered for under the points-based system, but I will come in a moment to the changes that we propose to make. Those in a range of eligible fishing and processing roles—including deckhands, which the right hon. Gentleman referred to earlier—have had access to the skilled worker visa since April 2021.

We believe that with the right level of support, the sector should be able to further navigate the existing immigration system. Building on that, and further to representations from a number of right hon. and hon. Members present, including my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan, we have decided to add further fishing occupations—share fishermen, trawler skippers and deckhands on large fishing vessels—to the shortage occupation list, all of which the Migration Advisory Committee recommended in 2020 as part of its SOL review. That will ensure that the fishing sector can continue to access the talent that it needs at reduced cost, and the Government will implement that during the summer on an interim basis until the wider MAC review into the SOL has been completed.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Member’s knowledge of the fishing sector is superior to mine. I do not know the exact definition, but I will happily get my officials to write to him and we will place on record in the Library of the House what the Home Office considers the official definition to be.

We strongly encourage the sector to engage with us to ensure that firms can attract the workers that are needed. The sooner that happens, the less disruption the sector will face. My officials, along with officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, stand ready to help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes said—echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan and others—the long-term, sustainable answer is not to rely solely on international labour but to train more domestic workers to embrace technology and automation to the extent that that is applicable. We all appreciate the challenges that the sector faces and the difficulty in recruiting domestically at present. Nobody is blind to that, and the Home Secretary and I are certainly not.

On broader non-immigration aspects—this point was raised by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and others—DEFRA continues to run the access to labour working group that was launched in June 2022 with the purpose of improving relationships with the industry, ensuring that it has a voice at the table, and Home Office officials are represented on that working group. That includes representatives from the catching, processing, aquaculture and shellfish sectors across the United Kingdom. I have encouraged my officials to play an active part in that so that we can have the dialogue that everyone present seeks to achieve.

In terms of helping the sector to recruit and train the next generation of fishermen and women, the Government have provided funding through the £100 million UK seafood fund to remove some of the barriers that new entrants to the sector face, and DEFRA has awarded £1.1 million through the fund for skills and training to help industry with recruitment and retention issues. Seven projects across the UK have received funding to improve the quality of training, promote career progression and help to attract new people into the sector.

[Mr Carmichael]

What help is that to the constituent I referenced who still owes £680,000 to the bank, and who cannot go to sea because he cannot get the crew? He will not be around by the time these people are available for his ship.

[Robert Jenrick]

I appreciate the urgency of the issue, but it is important that the sector plays its part in considering the long-term future of training and recruiting new individuals. The funds provided by DEFRA will play a part in helping the sector to adapt to the future.

In addition to the grant schemes in England, the fisheries and seafood scheme offers extensive support aimed at attracting new entrants. Eligible projects include supporting new entrants into the industry, the creation of job opportunities and the provision of apprenticeship schemes for new entrants, perhaps including the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes.

[Mr Carmichael]

Is it the Minister’s position today that the same people—the same stakeholders in the industry —who have been telling him that they welcome this somehow or other did not realise they had a responsibility to upskill their own workforce?

[Robert Jenrick]

No, it is not. As with any sector of the economy, there is a role for Government in producing an immigration system that enables access to foreign labour on a pragmatic basis where there are skills shortages. There is also a role for the industry to adapt, evolve and train British workers to take those jobs, and both have to work together in harmony. I have just set out the funding streams available through DEFRA to help support the sector to do that, but I do not underestimate how challenging that will be for the sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not want to overstate it, but I know from my conversations with officials in the Department that they believe there is evidence of abuse. If I am able to put any of that in the public domain to give a guide on the scale of it, I would be pleased to.

Section 43 of the Nationality and Borders Act simply clarifies what has been the Government’s policy position for some time, which is that foreign workers working in our waters need permission to do so. It does not introduce a new policy.

[Mr Carmichael]

Why did the Minister include Sule Skerry within the definition of waters to which the Act applies?

[Robert Jenrick]

I was interested to hear the point that the right hon. Gentleman made in his speech. As I understand it, the Home Office has simply taken the standard definition of 12 nautical miles, and all islands that fall within UK waters are in scope of the UK’s immigration system. It is not within the power of the Home Office to change where UK waters begin and end. If he contests that or would like to further discuss the matter, I would be happy to take it up with him.

[Mr Carmichael]

It is in our interests to try to polish this particular item, because it could make a real difference. Sule Skerry is about 90 or 100 miles out from Orkney mainland. Those waters are very different from the ones we are talking about. Boats often go there, and they rely on it for shelter. Including places such as Sule Skerry will put lives at risk. Is the Minister happy with that?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to make further inquiries and come back to the right hon. Gentleman. As I understand it, 12 nautical miles merely represents the standard definition of UK waters. If that is the case, it seems difficult to hive off particular parts of UK waters for the purposes of our immigration system. I am happy to be corrected if that is not an accurate description.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. I assure him that I will take that request away and give it careful consideration. If there is any further information that he or the representative bodies would like to submit to us, I would be happy to consider that. But I think he understands the principles on which the decision is taken and that it is not an easy decision to give special treatment to one particular sector when others in the country would like similar treatment. Our overall policy is the right one. We want people to have a good degree of English if they are coming here for sustained periods or on a route to settlement.

I would like to update hon. Members following the conversation I had with my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan. He asked for two particular Home Office considerations. First, he asked whether the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which, as he noted, we have extended into 2024 and increased to up to 55,000 workers, could be extended to include certain fishing occupations that are undertaken onshore and that could be construed to be seasonal in nature. I undertook that we would consider that. My hon. Friend undertook that he and the sector would build an evidence base to support and inform the decision by the Home Office.

Secondly, my hon. Friend asked whether the package of support set out by the Home Secretary to enable easier access to the skilled worker visa system could be extended to certain onshore activities. Again, I undertook to look into that. I will revert to him and other right hon. and hon. Members once we have taken those issues forward. If other Members or representatives from the sector who might be listening to the debate want to participate in informing those decisions, I encourage them to do so.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—although we still have an hour and a quarter. He has been generous with his time so far. The hon. Member for Strangford can still take time at the end of the debate, as I recall.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), told me on 20 April that she would pass on my request for a meeting. That request was to meet not just me, but fishing organisations as well. I do not know whether that maybe slipped her mind, or if there are other bases on which meetings are offered. Will the Minister meet me, other hon. Members who have an interest and fishing organisations, to hear from them, in early course? Those organisations may be different from the stakeholders who have given him the views that seem to inform his thinking today.

All joking apart, this really matters. It is having a massive impact on some of the most economically fragile communities in this country.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to meet the right hon. Gentleman and his constituents. I have met the hon. Member for Strangford and representatives from the Northern Irish fishing sector, and I met my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan. That is a decent number—I have met two out of the four Members here. I would be pleased to do the same for the right hon. Gentleman.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for securing the debate, and all those who have spoken. I hope I have made clear that the Government are committed to supporting the fishing sector as much as we can. On top of the already good coverage that our immigration system has of the fishing sector, I hope that the additional support that the Home Secretary and I have brought forward in the last few weeks, both in the package to assist with navigating the skilled worker visa system and now the additional occupations added to the shortage occupation list, will further improve the situation.

I hope Members will assist the Government in encouraging full engagement with our offer of support, which in turn should enable the industry to make full use of the system. The sooner that engagement happens, the less disruption there will be. I look forward to working with the sector in the future.

Net Migration Figures

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We believe that the measures we announced yesterday with regard to student dependants will have a tangible effect on the number of student dependants coming into the country, which, as the figures published by the Office for National Statistics show, is currently very considerable. It is not right that universities are in some cases in the immigration business rather than the teaching and education one. We are clamping down on those practices and that will help us bring down net migration in the medium term. But let me be abundantly clear to my right hon. Friend: net migration is far too high and we need to take measures to bring it down. We are not complacent; we want to make good on our promise to the British public.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Immigration Minister seems to be making a very good case for increased wage inflation. I wonder what his Treasury colleagues make of the overall impact of that on the economy. Sector after sector, whether agriculture, hospitality, fishing or care services, tell us that they all need access to more skilled staff, and they simply do not have that access at the moment. He stands at the Dispatch Box and talks about adding fishing to the shortage occupation list, but he completely ignores the fact that his and the Home Secretary’s refusal to lower the standard of English language skills required renders that absolutely meaningless for the fishing industry and, as a result of his decision, fishing boats in my constituency and right around the coast are tied up today. When will he start listening to business? When did the Conservative party stop doing that?

[Robert Jenrick]

The case I was making was that we sustainably increase productivity by encouraging our employers to invest in their workforce and in technology, rather than simply by reaching for the easy lever of further international labour. With respect to the fishing sector, this measure that we have made this week has been broadly welcomed by the fishing sector. I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Gentleman if his contention is that we should allow people who cannot speak or write in English into the United Kingdom on visas that have a route to settlement. That is wrong. The standard of English that we maintain is a low standard, and we need it for health and safety at the workplace, to prevent exploitation and to ensure that people can integrate into our communities. That is absolutely the right approach.

Student Visas

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The education of international students is an important export industry. I believe that it is the UK’s fourth or fifth-biggest export industry, and that is a good thing, and it is supported by the Government. That is why we created the international education strategy that has proven to be so successful. But what we are doing today is ensuring that we do not see unintended consequences and unnecessary pressure on public services as a result.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

What impact will these changes have on the number of students from overseas coming to study in British universities, and what will be the financial consequences? Has the Home Office made that assessment?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I said, we have already met our target of 600,000 students coming to the UK from overseas. That is 10 years early; in fact, last year there were 605,000. We expect the numbers to increase this year beyond 600,000. There is no suggestion that universities will be short-changed as a result, but in the medium term it will obviously involve fewer dependants coming with those international students. For the reasons that I have set out, we think that is a good thing. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

On behalf of the Home Office, I pay tribute to those Border Force officers who nobly volunteered to serve in Sudan this week, to support British nationals and others as they are processed and swiftly returned to the United Kingdom. The Home Secretary and I praise their professionalism and their sense of service and duty.

Before I address the key Government amendments, it is worth reminding the House of why the Government introduced this vital Bill. A sovereign state must have control of its borders. Quite properly, we have an immigration system that determines who can come to the UK lawfully, whether to visit, to study, to work or for other legitimate reasons. Our immigration and asylum system also makes generous provision in providing sanctuary for people seeking protection. Indeed, we have offered such protection, in different ways, to nearly half a million people since 2015.

But the people of this country are rightly frustrated if a self-selected group of individuals can circumvent those controls by paying people smugglers to ferry them across the channel on a small boat. Why would someone apply to come to this country for employment if they can instead arrive on a small boat, claim asylum and then, as one amendment suggests, acquire the right to work here after 12 months?

Illegal migration undermines the integrity of our immigration system. It puts unsustainable pressure on our housing, health, education and welfare services, and it undermines public confidence in our democratic processes and the rule of law. That is why we want to stop the boats and secure our borders, and this Bill is dedicated to that goal. It will send a clear message that people who enter the United Kingdom illegally will not be able to build a life here. Instead, they are liable to be detained, and they will be removed either back to their home country, if it is safe to do so, or to a safe third country, such as Rwanda.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Is the Minister really asking the House to believe that such an amendment would act as a pull factor? Is he saying that people will come here because of the possibility that we might pass an amendment giving asylum seekers the right to work? If that is his case, it is particularly poor even by his standards.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a pull factor to the UK that individuals can work in our grey economy, which is a cause of serious concern. If we were to add an additional pull factor, by enabling people to work sooner, it would be yet another reason for people to choose to come to this country. I will return to that point in responding to other questions before the House today.

Illegal Migration Update

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who began this good work with her new plan for immigration—an incredibly important step forward. Among other points, it recognised that it is critical that, when individuals cross the channel illegally, they are moved either to detained accommodation, which we want to bring forward as a result of our Illegal Migration Bill, or, in the absence of that, to specific sites where they can be housed appropriately, where their cases can be processed swiftly and where they have minimal impact on the broader society.

I know my right hon. Friend pursued a very similar prospect in north Yorkshire, and she will have sympathy with the work we have done in recent months to take forward these proposals. We do not have a current plan to proceed with the Linton-on-Ouse proposition, but the sites I have announced today are just the first set that we would like to take forward, because we want to remove people from hotels as quickly as possible and move to this more rudimentary form of accommodation, which will reduce pull factors to the UK and defend the interests of the taxpayer.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I think the House should be more generous to the Minister and acknowledge the true genius of this announcement. Only this Home Office team could think that the answer to the problem of growing numbers of people in small boats was to bring them all together and put them into one big boat. Armando Iannucci himself could not improve on that. But if the Minister is confident in his projections about what is going to happen to the backlog of asylum applications, why is the extra capacity going to be necessary?

[Robert Jenrick]

To answer the second point first, we want to see anyone crossing the channel moved into this rudimentary accommodation immediately. That is why it is critical that we build national capacity so that we can clear the hotels, consign that policy to the history books and put people into larger sites. That is why we need them. I have affection for the right hon. Gentleman, but he is being naive in this regard. I speak every day, as does the Home Secretary, to our northern European counterparts in Ireland, Belgium, Denmark and France, all of whom are pursuing options such as this, because there is a European migration crisis. We have to ensure that the UK is not a magnet for individuals who are either economic migrants or essentially asylum shoppers. I will not allow the UK to be a soft touch.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

And the evidence. The lack of evidence and impact assessments runs like a silver thread through the Bill. Have the impact assessments been done? Will they ever be done? If they have been done, will they be published? The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) made much of that in his speech, and he was absolutely right to do so. I was tempted to intervene on him to say, “Hold on a second here, man. You shouldn’t be going so fast; you should allow the Minister to get to his feet and tell us the position.” But the Minister did not do so then, and I suspect that he will not do so now, either. There have been times when I have seen Ministers on the Treasury Bench look more uncomfortable than the Minister for Immigration did when listening to the speeches of his right hon. Friends, but I am struggling to think of when that might have been.

The points that I will focus on relate to the question of detention and, in particular, the detention of children. The detention of children is something that I thought we had seen the back of. Although that initiative was driven by my former colleague, Sarah Teather, when she was the Minister with responsibility for young people, I again pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, who did so much to support it in the Home Office. It was an absolute stain on our country that we kept children locked up in immigration removal centres such as Dungavel in Scotland.

I remember visiting Dungavel—it must have been in 2007 or 2008. I also remember, I have to say, successive Home Office and Immigration Ministers in the then Labour Government standing up at the Dispatch Box and saying that I was a bleeding-heart liberal, and that this was just something that we had to live with and nothing could be done. Of course, as we know, there were things that could be done, and they ultimately were done—we did them five years later.

I think it tells us quite a lot about the journey that the Conservative party has been on since those years in 2011 and 2012 that the Government feel it necessary to reintroduce detention for children. We have had 10 years without it now, and what have the bad consequences of that been? I do not see any. Nobody is saying that it has caused a massive increase or spike in any particular problems, but now, for the sake of sheer political positioning, we are going to return to a situation in which children will be placed behind razor wire in places such as Dungavel.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Minister is sitting there shaking his head. If he wants to intervene and tell me I am wrong about this, I am more than happy to take his intervention.

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to do so, or to answer more fully later when I make my remarks. It is undoubtedly true that we face a serious situation today where the number of unaccompanied minors coming into the country over the channel has increased fourfold since 2019. That places a great strain on our system, and we need ways to ensure that where those people are age-assessed and may ultimately be decided not to be minors, they are held in appropriate detained accommodation. That is one of the issues we are seeking to tackle with this part of the Bill.

[Mr Carmichael]

I hope that the Minister gets a hold of Hansard tomorrow, reads what he has just said and, as my mother used to say to me, takes a long, hard look at himself, because the idea that that is a justification for locking up children is absolutely disgraceful. For him to try to draw and to invent a causal link where none exists is a consistent line of the way this Government act. It is the same way that they tried to draw a causal link between the Modern Slavery Act and those coming in small boats—it just does not exist.

Knowsley Incident

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Minister told us a few minutes ago that part of the problem here is human rights lawyers who abuse and exploit our laws. That is obviously very serious, Mr Speaker. Any lawyer doing that needs to be stopped, so could the Minister tell the House how many solicitors, advocates and barristers have been reported by the Home Office in the last 12 months to the regulatory authorities?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are monitoring the activities, as it so happens, of a small number of legal practitioners, but it is not appropriate for me to discuss that here. The wider point I was making stands, which is that the British public are looking on askance at the fact that individuals, mostly young males, are setting off from a demonstrably safe country, France, and soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel, and they are invariably throwing their documents into the sea, so that they can exploit our human rights laws. That needs to change. The British public are angry and frustrated at that situation. We understand that and that is why we are taking action.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I will certainly arrange that. As my hon. Friend knows, Kent has borne a particular burden in this regard, so it is right for us to do everything we can to support it and his constituents.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The only surprising aspect of this whole sorry affair is the fact that anyone is surprised by it. Young people are placed in totally unsuitable accommodation, and are then left there while the Home Office fails to process applications for them and, indeed, for all asylum seekers. This was always going to happen. On 16 December the Minister announced a £15,000 extra funding package for local authorities, which is due to expire at the end of February. Is he telling us today that that additional money—not the standard money—will continue after 28 February?

[Robert Jenrick]

Before I arrived at the Department in the summer there was already an initial payment to local authorities, which I believe was £6,000 or thereabouts. That did ensure that more local authorities came forward, but, given the scale of the challenge that we have been discussing today, I took the view that it needed to be more, which is why we made this more generous offer available. We have operated it as a pilot to establish whether it encourages more local authorities to come forward. I am receiving advice in respect of the number of local authorities that have taken up that offer, and before it is closed we will decide whether it was successful enough to warrant its continuation. However, I am open to continuing it further into the future.

Seasonal Worker Visas: Sponsorship Certificates

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The events of the past few years have taught us all the importance of resilience in many different respects, including food security. That is a factor that we at the Home Office take into consideration, as I know does the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as we enter into regular discussions. I will be making an announcement with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs very soon, so that we can give as much confidence and certainty as possible to the industry.

However, to return to the remarks that I have made on a number of occasions, this year’s quota of 40,000 does not appear to be wildly out of sync with the industry’s needs, as it appears that we will end the year with about 40,000 certificates having been applied for. Given that the scheme is either at that level or even undersubscribed, it is difficult to make the case for a very significant increase in the number of places for next year. However, I will not prejudice the decision that we will come to, and we are sympathetic to the clear labour shortages and issues that some parts of the industry are experiencing.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) on securing this important urgent question. The seasonal worker visa scheme is simply one symptom of a broader disease, which is that we do not have an immigration system that is designed to produce the workforce that different sectors need. Let me bring to the Minister’s attention another area that has been a problem for years: the need for crew for fishing boats. We finally have a visa scheme, but we are still not getting the crew because of the level of the written English language test that they are required to pass. Even when Ministers introduce schemes, the implementation by officials still thwarts the industry’s needs and the policy of Ministers.

[Robert Jenrick]

I am very alive to those issues. I will shortly meet a delegation from the fishing industry that has been organised at the request of other Members. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to join that, I would be more than happy to extend the invitation.

Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Absolutely. Fundamentally, the Opposition parties want to see uncontrolled immigration. We disagree with that and it is entirely out of step with the British public. We want to see those people who wish to come here do so safely and legally, and we want to see the best and the brightest around the world find a home in the United Kingdom. But it must be controlled immigration, and we must have a robust response to those who come here illegally.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) is right to remind us that during consideration of the Nationality and Borders Bill we were told repeatedly that the provisions of the Bill, which is now an Act, were necessary to stop the flow of small boats across the channel. The Act was brought into force in June. What has happened to the number of boats making the crossing since then?

[Robert Jenrick]

The number of people crossing the channel remains unacceptably high, and that is why it needs to be a priority for me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.