Immigration

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to take all necessary steps to reduce immigration to a level that will stabilise the UK’s population as close as possible to its present level and, certainly, significantly below 70 million.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for the House to debate this topic, which is of fundamental importance to the future of our country and which badly needs to be addressed on more occasions in this House and the other place. I welcome the new Minister for Immigration, with whom I hope the cross-party group on balanced migration will be able to have as good a relationship as we did with his predecessor.

This debate is in response to a petition launched by Migration Watch UK on the Government’s website last autumn, which acquired more than 100,000 signatures within a week. That clearly indicates the grave public concern about the scale of immigration to this country.

We can, of course, all agree that immigration is a natural and essential part of an open economy. There is absolutely no doubt that many immigrants make a most valuable contribution to our society, and I hope that we can take that as read in this debate. The real issue that must concern the House and all our fellow citizens is the scale of immigration. Heads must come out of the sand.

We are currently experiencing the greatest wave of immigration to our country in nearly 1,000 years. One of the worst of the many appalling legacies that the last Labour Government, in their folly, bequeathed this country was their chaotic, ill thought out and deeply irresponsible policy on immigration, which has led to bogus colleges being allowed to flourish by the hundred; nearly half a million asylum files being found lying around in warehouses; a Home Office that, after a decade of Labour government, was declared by Labour’s own Home Secretary to be “not fit for purpose”; a new so-called points-based system that has turned out to be a bureaucratic nightmare; and a fivefold increase in net immigration from 50,000 when Labour came into government to 250,000 when it left.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Nicholas Soames]

I will not; I will continue, if I may. The outcome was a total of 3.5 million foreign immigrants, during which time 1 million British citizens left our shores. As the Institute for Public Policy Research put it,

“It is no exaggeration to say that immigration under new Labour has changed the face of the country.”

All that took place in the teeth of public opinion, and without any proper consultation or debate. Public concern—indeed anger—has been mounting, and opinion polls paint an unmistakable and chastening picture. There are, of course, positive aspects. All of us know that immigration has had a positive effect on entrepreneurial skills, premier league football, film, music, art and literature, as well as on food and restaurants. None of that is in dispute but, as I have said, the issue is one of scale.

The most immediate effect of the wave of immigration has been on our population. The results of the 2011 census show that in the past 10 years, the population increase in England and Wales was the largest for any period since census taking began in 1801. Looking ahead, if net migration continues at 200,000 people a year—the average over the past 10 years—we will find that our population hits 70 million in 15 years’ time.

Let us be clear about what that means. We would see a population increase of 7.7 million people, nearly 5 million of whom would be purely as a result of new immigrants and their children. Numbers of that kind are hard to grasp, so let me put it like this: in the coming 15 years, just for new immigrants and their families, we will have to build the equivalent of eight of the largest cities outside the capital—Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Bristol and Glasgow—together with the associated social infrastructure of schools, roads, hospitals, railways and all the rest. Perhaps those who support the continuation of mass immigration will explain where the money will come from to cope with such numbers, particularly at a time when the Government are borrowing £1 for every £4 they spend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

The questions of how many people we need in the UK to sustain the standards of living we all want and of what role immigration can play in answering that question have been taboo subjects for much too long. The reason is that ever since Enoch Powell made his infamous speech in Birmingham back in 1968, most politicians from mainstream parties, with a few exceptions, some of whom have been brave, some foolish and some both, have steered clear of the subject for fear of saying something that would be called politically incorrect and thus being labelled as racist or anti-immigrant by the media. Because mainstream parties and politicians have not debated these issues and the effect that immigration might have—I say “might”—on jobs, wages and public services, we have left the field wide open to those racist and xenophobic parties that want to talk only about immigration and put their own particular spin on it.

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to hear the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made. It is such an important point. If the House does not debate these issues sensibly, calmly and rationally, we cede the field to the extremist parties, which none of us wants. Does he agree that the most important people in this debate are the hundreds of thousands of British people, of all races, who are looking for work at this moment but are in strong competition with large numbers of immigrants? They are the people whom we must keep in mind. They are of all races and they are British.

[Mr Godsiff]

I was going to come to that issue later, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for making his point.

As has been said, this silence on the questions of how large a population the UK should have and of how much more immigration we should allow is not shared by the wider electorate, who want the issue debated, as is confirmed by opinion polls, all of which list immigration as one of the electorate’s top concerns. For politicians here to ignore this fact while continuing to peddle the simplistic free-market mantra that immigration always benefits the economy and raises living standards, that immigration, together with the free movement of people and economic globalisation, is wonderful, and that the trickle-down effect benefits everybody, is not only an insult to the people of this country but ignores the pressures that an increasing population puts on public services, particularly housing, health and education, in areas such as mine, which is one of the most multiracial constituencies in the country. It does a great disservice to the cause of good community relations in our multicultural society.

I want to say a little more about the myth that immigration brings growth. This myth is peddled usually by elements of big business that do not want the responsibility of training young British school leavers and graduates—do not forget that 1 million of them are unemployed and cannot get jobs. Instead, these elements want as big a pool of labour as possible, from anywhere in the world, to hire and fire so that they can push down wages and increase profits, shareholder value and, of course, their bonuses. As much research has shown, the reality is that immigration can add a small percentage increase to gross domestic product, but there is no evidence that it benefits per capita GDP or individual living standards for the vast majority of people. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of the population see their wages fall and have to face increased competition for social housing, education and health facilities.