Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd.

I rise to speak to new clause 11 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and to support the amendments in the names of the right hon. Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald).

Immigrants have always played an integral part in the vitality of our communities, but we have been told, of course, that covid-19 changes everything. That prompts the question: does it change how we handle immigration as much as it does our approach to health and the economy? There has been some interesting mention of the value of the high-skilled jobs that we will expect from this immigration policy, but it is worth taking a step back and considering how things have changed under covid. I understand that 70% of people believe that the crisis has shown the key role of immigrants in running our essential services—the essential services that we have been clapping on the streets for many Thursdays; I think there is another clap here on Sunday—while 64% of people say that they now value so-called low-skilled overseas workers. We are now looking at who provides our services, and how, in a different way.

Surely what we have here is a hostile, inhumane immigration environment, and that is exactly what we should be questioning. Does such an immigration policy reflect the sort of society that we hope to be after covid-19? Plaid Cymru’s proposal in new clause 11 challenges how this Bill presents a radical change in UK immigration policy without allowing a thorough debate about the details of its replacement or the implications—although, as can be seen from the nature of the amendments, there is much concern about those implications. Before we legislate, we should have a proper comprehension of the following: the impact of discriminatory “no recourse to public funds” conditions; the impact of NHS charging; the merits of removing all fees for visas and citizenship applications; and the merits of devolving powers over immigration to our nations, recognising the different needs of the different nations.

Finally—crucially, in the current context—our new clause calls on the Government to investigate the possibility of granting citizenship to all health and social care workers who have given so much during this crisis. A former Government did the right thing and granted citizenship to the Gurkhas. Health and social care immigrant workers have been fighting heroically on two fronts. They have fought on our behalf against the virus; they are now facing having to fight a hostile environment in the Government’s immigration policy. The new clause would be a means to right that wrong; it would reflect the public mood, and I beg the Government to consider adopting it.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I support the Bill, which I believe will make our immigration system better, and fairer. Some hon. Members—today, and before today—have bemoaned the fact that the new points-based system will end freedom of movement. I heard the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) say so earlier this afternoon. In fact, there was no such thing as freedom of movement; the concept was an illusion, a chimera, apart from for those who were fortunate enough to live on the continent of Europe.

I benefited from the system—my wife is from Sweden, and for a while I lived and worked in Belgium—but it is a bad system, an outdated model, a discriminatory model, a system that works for Europeans but against the rest of the world. It is unfair. It discriminates against people who want to come here—people whom we want to welcome, people who help us build, run and support our country, who add value to our communities, contribute to our national debate and bring talent, expertise and drive, but who struggle to get entry purely because they are not from Europe. I am glad that we seek to replace that system today.

To those who are already here from Europe in this country, that have made it your home, that have raised families, invested, worked, lived and contributed to our society , we must repeat and repeat that they will always be welcome here.

[Alison McGovern]

How welcoming was the hostile environment?

[Andrew Bowie]

I remind the hon. Member that the hostile environment was created by the previous Labour Government and had no effect on anybody who was coming into this country from the continent of Europe under freedom of movement in the first place. It is incredibly good news that more than 3.5 million applications to the EU settlement scheme have already gone through, and we can be very proud of that.

[Christine Jardine]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that the Prime Minister should honour the pledge he made during the general election that all EU citizens here had no need to worry about settled status and would have guaranteed citizenship?

[Andrew Bowie]

What the Prime Minister sought to do during the election was to reassure anybody who was here and had come here under freedom of movement from the continent of Europe that they would always be welcome here. All hon. Members in this place should urge anyone they know who has not applied thus far for the settled status scheme to do so immediately, because they are welcome here and contribute hugely to our national debates and national life.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On his point about encouraging people to apply for settled status, does he agree that it is absolutely wrong for senior elected SNP politicians in Scotland to be urging people not to apply for settled status?

[Andrew Bowie]

If that is indeed the case, it is shameful. They should be doing everything in their power, from the position of responsibility they hold, to help and support those in this country who may be unsure about their future status here. They should urge them to apply for settled status, so that they can remain, and contribute to our country as we move forward.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that the Scottish Government are investing a lot of time and resources in encouraging people to take part in the EU settlement scheme. We have our differences on immigration, but will he join me in encouraging the Home Office to think again about having abandoned the remote areas pilot scheme, which would be of huge benefit to lots of constituencies around Scotland—such as his, I suspect?

[Andrew Bowie]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s views on that issue. In fact, I will come to the seasonal agricultural workers scheme briefly in my speech—if I get that far this afternoon.

In Scotland we have a problem—as I said in my speech on 11 February in this place, we are, as a country, simply not attracting enough people to live, work or invest. The Office for National Statistics estimates that Scotland attracted only 8% of immigrants to the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2018. That is fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London or the south-west. We now have a growing population in Scotland and we need it to continue to grow, but even with freedom of movement we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population, with deaths already outnumbering births. In 2019, there were 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland and the problem is even starker in rural communities, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) was just saying.

In speaking to new clause 1 the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was right to draw attention to the effects that the changes to our immigration system will have on the health and social care sector. Although I do not support new clause 1, I urge the Government here and the Government in Edinburgh to work together to find imaginative and creative solutions to the issue, and to work with all stakeholders to see what can be done through the UK-wide immigration system to support and continue to grow the Scottish population, particularly with regard to the health and social care sector on which we rely so much.

Before I move on, it would be remiss of me not to use the opportunity of a debate on immigration to talk about seasonal agricultural workers. I know that I am at risk of sounding like a broken record, as the Minister has heard representations from Scottish Members of Parliament on this issue a few times before, but the fact remains that Scottish agriculture relies on, and therefore simply needs, seasonal labour. A farm in my constituency saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last year, which led to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. Although I welcome the quadrupling of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme from 2,500 to 10,000 workers—a very welcome first step in this direction of travel—the needs of Scottish agriculture for seasonal labour are, in fact, considerably higher.

Numerous amendments and new clauses have been tabled to the Bill, and no doubt they all have a good intention behind them: Members want to create an immigration system that is fair, humane and understandable. I say in particular to my hon. and right hon. Friends who tabled new clause 29 that although the intent is good, we must allow the negotiations with the European Union time to play out. We have presented an offer to the EU on the future reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, where it is in the child’s best interests. For the UK to act unilaterally now—as the amendments seek us to do—would undermine the negotiations and make it less likely that we would secure a reciprocal arrangement, which might mean that the number of children we could help would be reduced.

We in this country are rightly proud of the steps that we have taken over the years to provide shelter to refugees fleeing war and persecution from around the world. We have been a beacon of light to the poor and oppressed of the world for generations, and we continue to be that country. We are rightly proud that so many people across the world seek to call the United Kingdom—this country—their home, and I am proud that in moving the Bill forward today we will be taking one more step towards making our immigration system fairer, non-discriminatory and fit for the 21st century.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I rise to speak against this Bill in general and for any new clause that seeks to end the hostile environment.

Ministers seem to create confusion about the contents of the Bill. If they speak in public, they claim that it will introduce a points-based immigration system, which is not true. In any event, it is doubtful whether primary legislation is needed for such a system. When Ministers speak it is clear that they have no intention of introducing a points-based system, but rather an income-based one. There will be some exemptions because Ministers have been forced to accept the fact that many nursing professionals will not meet their planned income threshold, yet at the same time Ministers seem blissfully unaware that social care workers earn nothing like the proposed salary thresholds—and nor do the cooks, cleaners, security guards, porters and many others who have seen us through this pandemic.

Many of these people were on subsistence wages even before years of real-term cuts by the Conservative-led Government from 2010 onwards. There have been huge shortages of all these workers. Ministerial plans—if not this Bill—will only make those staff shortages much worse in care homes, in the NHS and in many other sectors of the economy, both public and private. It is as if this entire public health crisis has passed Ministers by. A plan that will exacerbate the crisis in the NHS and social care is one of the last things that this country needs.

The Bill in its current form is a disaster, so I am pleased to support the new clauses that would impose a strict 28-day limit on immigration detention; end the immigration surcharge, which should be ended for all; reform deportation law and citizenship fees for those who are brought to the UK as young children; and ensure that our moral obligation to child refugees for family reunion remains a legal one. Such provisions would address the glaring issues of our immigration system.



There is a further issue that I want to raise. Last week, the Home Secretary astonished most of us when she said that she would implement the recommendations of the Windrush lessons learned review “in full”. The entire spirit and some parts of the letter of that review run completely counter to the whole thrust of this Government’s immigration policies. In essence, to right the injustices perpetrated on the Windrush victims and to prevent their reoccurrence, the Government’s hostile environment policies have to go in their entirety, full stop.