Immigration

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), who made brilliant contributions.

Migration is a contentious issue that until recently no one really dared discuss. The noble Lord Howard of Lympne brought it to the fore when he was the Conservative party leader, but it was not for another five years until both main parties recognised it as a problem to be addressed. The Conservatives have led the way on the issue since the last general election.

The facts are well documented but it does good to repeat them: the most recent figures show that in the year ending September 2011, 540,000 people entered Britain with the intention of staying for longer than six months, of whom 186,000 came from the Commonwealth, both old and new, and 200,000 from the rest of the world excluding the EU. That leaves 150,000 from the European Union. All they get is a simple passport check. Then they are entitled to come into the country, live in a house or flat, find employment and, crucially, apply for benefits—all because they came from a member state of the European Union, not from the rest of the world.

When in opposition, the Government specifically pledged to bring immigration from non-EU countries down to the tens of thousands before the next election. I applaud that sentiment, but I would like them to go further. I believe the time has come to conduct a wholesale re-evaluation of all our benefits policies. Within that, I would specifically end the agreement with other EU countries.

Why do I think we should have tougher border checks? Because not having them is very expensive—expensive financially, expensive for our young people trying to find low-skilled jobs and expensive for our housing market. If we prevent foreigners from settling in Britain, more money will stay in the country. There will also be less demand on houses, keeping the property markets in check and allowing our first-time buyers to get on the property ladder, especially in south-east England. There will also be fewer people applying for the same number of jobs, thus reducing unemployment. Other countries are tough on this, including the USA. Why does Britain have to be a soft touch? Rather than having people come to this country, we should be encouraging them to stay in theirs, and to generate the wealth that goes with that.

Every time Europe is discussed, I am grateful for two things: first, that we did not join the euro; and secondly, that we did not sign the Schengen agreement. As it is, the thought that some 437 million people of the EU are allowed to come to the UK chills my blood. If we had committed to Schengen, they would be able to come into the UK without anyone even checking their passports. It is bad enough that one can go from Cyprus to Calais without one’s passport being checked; imagine if we had signed away any advantage that the channel affords us as well.

Before I finish, I would like briefly to pay a tribute. The men and women who go to work at our ports of entry on a daily basis deserve our recognition. If our armed forces are protecting our borders in Afghanistan, the UK Border Agency has an equal responsibility at home. There would be no point conducting operations across the world if our border agency did not conduct its work with a similar professionalism here. I know that occasionally things appear to go wrong, but I also know that it is never intentional, and we must remember that. We are talking about dedicated public servants doing a difficult job, and I welcome that.

I call on the Minister to have a good look at those wanting to come into the UK from outside Europe, but I would also like the policies that allow arrivals from within the EU to be thoroughly reviewed too—this is one way in which the Prime Minister can really look after our national interests. Let us get tough on them. The shores of this island are ours, not Europe’s. We should be able to decide who lands upon them.