Immigration

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

Mr Speaker has agreed that for this debate, members of the public may use handheld electronic devices in the Public Gallery provided that they are silent. Photos, however, must not be taken.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to immigration.

It is a privilege, an honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Percy. Given the petition before us, the members of the Petitions Committee wanted to ensure that we addressed immigration fully, despite the fact that we have already had a number of immigration debates in the House—not least last week, on Second Reading of the Immigration Bill, which allows us to go further in tackling mass uncontrolled immigration. As a Committee, we thought it important that, although some of the petition’s wording was not quite what many Members would support, we did not just brush these issues under the carpet. We must tackle immigration in a responsible way, in a full and frank debate, to ensure that we can get the resolution and result that we all want: measured, controlled immigration.

This is a really serious issue. We wanted to ensure that we reflected the concerns of the population as a whole. I know from going around my constituency of Sutton and Cheam that immigration probably became the No. 1 issue during the election campaign—its last month in particular. That is reflected in opinion polls. It was Ipsos MORI, I believe, that recently came up with immigration as the No. 1 issue for people at the moment.

There are a number of areas in the petition, and I will take them in turn. One point is that there is a belief among the 198,000 who have signed the petition to date that many people are trying to convert the UK into a Muslim country. I do not particularly subscribe to that view. I can understand people’s fears given some of the headlines in the tabloid press and some of the comments on Twitter, Facebook and other parts of the internet, but we need to look at the situation as a whole.

Given such headlines and the reality of what is happening in places such as Syria and Iraq, and that we see people from the UK travelling to Syria to join ISIS, it is not surprising—indeed, it is very welcome—that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has come up with his statement on countering extremism. We are looking at taking tougher action against individuals. We are going to ensure that there can be extremism disruption orders on individuals who foment and preach hatred and encourage people to decide to remove themselves from their families and travel to those foreign areas to fight alongside people who, frankly, have a disgusting doctrine and no sense of respect for human life at all.

There is tougher action on premises as well: any premises that are hosting such extremism can be closed down. We are giving Ofcom more powers so that it will be able to close down TV and radio stations that are repeating those sorts of messages. We are reviewing schools and other public institutions—colleges and the like—where radicalism and extremism might be fomented. It is also important, and I welcome the fact, that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is having a review of sharia law in the UK. That review is a very important cornerstone of our counter-extremism policy.

I can understand people’s views in certain parts of the country where multiculturalism may have failed and stalled somewhat, sometimes because of the fact that so many people are coming into one area. We can look at Tower Hamlets and parts of the north, for example, where extreme groups have actually built up no-go areas for white British people. It was quickly stamped down on in Tower Hamlets, which was welcome. Vigilante gangs were walking around that area picking on people just minding their own business. That sort of thing has no business in the UK at all. However, only a tiny minority of people are committing such actions. We need to do more to stamp such behaviour out, hence the counter-extremism.

I will give one quick example of where community cohesion slightly breaks down, on a small scale, in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam. In the lead-up to my election, there was a controversial planning application for a small mosque on Green Lane in Worcester Park. I objected to it, as did a number of people, purely and simply because it was in totally the wrong place. There was no parking around and it would have been on a really busy junction that was already at capacity. It was rejected by the planning committee for that reason. However, it was conflated into anti-Muslim feeling among a few people around that area; the two issues got conflated.

There is an Ahmadiyya mosque nearby, in Morden. It is the biggest mosque in Europe; about 15,000 people worship there. A lot of residents in Worcester Park who do not particularly know the ins and outs of Islam thought, “Why do you want this small mosque on the corner of Green Lane? Why can’t people go to the massive mosque round the corner?” They did not understand that Ahmadis are one group that actually unites the Sunnis and the Shi’as, who both dismiss Ahmadi Muslims as not being of the faith, as apostate. Sending Sunnis and Shi’as to that mosque would be like sending someone from the Church of England faith to a Mormon church, frankly, given the different doctrine that they perceive the Ahmadis to have, even though in many cases that is just not the reality at all.

The mosque in Morden recently suffered a fire, which destroyed a lot of its administration offices—back offices. Fortunately, the mosque itself was not damaged. It happened on the day after Eid; if it had been the day of Eid, there would have been 10,000 to 15,000 people in the building. As it happened, there were, I think, 10—there were no injuries and certainly no fatalities. However, 70 firefighters put out that fire.

The police and a number of community leaders organised a number of community events to try to calm the situation down, because it was not clear at the beginning whether it was a race hate or religious hate crime. We believe that, fortunately, it was not such a crime. It was a couple of teenagers, one of whom has been given bail and is coming back in the new year; we are hoping that it was nothing quite as sinister. None the less, the fact that people had to go round the community and set people’s minds at rest shows the unease that there is sometimes and the awkwardness when it comes to keeping a cohesive community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Main]

I accept that it was not ignored. The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next comments. The modelling was based on the equal access of member states to the labour market, but other states had imposed transitional controls at that time and the UK and Ireland had, unfortunately, not. We learnt that hard lesson.

A former speechwriter for Labour, Mr Nether, wrote in 2009 that

“mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.”

He went on to say that he remembered

“coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended—even if this wasn’t its main purpose—to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.”

That is an incredibly unhelpful statement, but if Mr Nether was correct it is no wonder petitions such as this have found favour in communities that might feel duped and that we are not facing the ongoing effects of mass uncontrolled migration.

In response to local authority and community concerns, mentioned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, the Communities and Local Government Committee looked into the matter. I served on the Committee in 2008, and we produced a report. At the time, the Committee was Labour dominated—obviously—and it also had a Labour Chair, Phyllis Starkey. It is worth noting the report’s findings. We learned lessons, and we have to learn lessons now. The report’s summary states:

“There is significant public anxiety about migration, some of which arises from practical concerns about its effect on local communities.”

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak referred to that. It continues:

“On our visits we heard from settled residents”—

some of those settled residents were second and third generation from other countries—

“about many such concerns, including the limited English of new arrivals; the problems associated with Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)…a perceived increase in anti-social behaviour; and pressures on public services. The practical concerns of settled residents about migration need to be addressed by central and local government for cohesion to be improved, and cannot simply be dismissed as expressions of racist or xenophobic sentiments.

Recent migration has placed pressures on local public services in areas that have experienced rapid inward migration, including pressures on schools, translation services, social care, English language teaching, policing and the NHS. These pressures are currently left unfunded by Government, because resource allocations are being made on the basis of flawed population data. Leaving local services with inadequate funding to cope with added pressures from migration is not only detrimental to the service provided to local communities; increased competition between groups for access to limited public resources can also negatively affect community cohesion.”

That happened, and I believe that the petition has come out of it. I think that the petition is wrong in its sentiments and language, but we cannot dispute those findings. We need to face into the situation—all of us. It will take a long time to turn it around.

In an effort to row back from that situation, the points-based immigration system was introduced. Our Government, elected on a mandate of trying to control immigration, say the same. We have, however, to be honest, in this Chamber and in this Parliament: we can control only outside-EU immigration. We are unable to control EU migration, so other areas must be particularly hit, including former Commonwealth countries. The bar is set extremely high, and it has an unfair and disproportionate effect on certain communities and industries.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam mentioned the curry industry. What he said was absolutely right, but the Chinese food industry is affected as well. The curry industry is worth £4 billion and employs 100,000 people across many of our constituencies. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned training up people. Yes, we can do that, but it seems rather perverse that a poor Polish immigrant can walk into this country and take up any vacancy they find in any industry, including the hospitality industry or a curry restaurant, even though they might not have the relevant skills, while a poor skilled Bangladeshi chef is not able to that because the bar is set so high.

My hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam, for Northampton South (David Mackintosh) and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and I returned two weeks ago from visiting a social action project in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a very poor country and it will be enormously difficult for its people to jump the bar to get in and take up vacancies. Someone from the EU can walk in and, hopefully, get a job in any restaurant by virtue of their EU membership.

In response to public concern, we have made it our mandate to cut immigration to tens of thousands, but my own concern is that certain countries are discriminated against. People from those countries have families here and other ties to the UK. We should not just tinker with the margins of the figures by hitting only non-EU countries. We need to look at immigration as a whole and ask ourselves what we can, and cannot, realistically control.

I want to regain control of our borders so that the UK once again says welcome and gives refuge and asylum to those it wishes to come and shows the door to illegal immigrants. Yes, we need controlled immigration. Yes, we need a reasonable debate. However, we do not need nasty, small-minded xenophobia, which wording such as that in the petition encourages and feeds. The petition and its wording have got it wrong on so many levels. After we have considered it today, I suggest that we consign it to the dustbin, where it belongs.

I want a debate on immigration. I do not want a shouty, nasty, ill-informed petition that means we are then discussing whether people are trying to turn us into Muslims or grab our jobs or whether to stop this, that and the other. We need to say why we believe in controlled immigration and explain how we can control it, recognising that we have control over only small amount. That leads to the big debate, which I look forward to having over the next few months, on whether we should throw the whole thing up in the air and say, “Do we want to be able to control our borders?” If being a member of the EU means that we cannot, that is part of the robust debate we should be having. I am pleased to have had the chance to put those comments on the record. I look forward to the vitriol, which I will wear with pride.

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

I am sure you will deal with it just fine.