Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s helpful intervention. I praise the work that he does on behalf of his constituents in Peterborough. He has the courage to speak out on these often controversial issues on their behalf. Rightly, he does not mince his words. The situation in his constituency is intolerable. How have we let this happen? We will never have any sensible degree of integration if large numbers of immigrant communities are all in one place. One difficulty with such a large number of people all arriving at the same time is that they do not disperse across the country, but tend to congregate in concentrations, Peterborough being one. Any sensible management of public services, whether schools, hospitals or other local service provision, is difficult under those intolerable pressures.

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

My hon. Friend is attacking this from the wrong end. It is no good saying, “What happened in 1066? What happened in 2004?”, because what happened then should never have happened. We have to say to the Minister, “You are responsible. You must fix a limit and say, ‘That is the maximum that is allowed, and that is all.’” It does not matter how the rules are fiddled or used to make that happen, but happen it must.

[Mr Hollobone]

I do not think that my hon. Friend and I disagree. I was trying to say that the British public expect, as a minimum from their Government, some sensible estimate of the numbers coming from Romania and Bulgaria. Why would a country open its borders to two foreign countries when it has no idea how many people will come to our shores from those countries? All I am asking, as a starting point, is why do we not use what happened last time to work out our estimate? If we do that, we eventually end up with well over 400,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in this country. I hope I am wrong—I hope those numbers are a huge exaggeration—but the Government are not saying whether I am wrong or right; the Government have no view, and they refuse to take one. The British public expect rather more than that from Her Majesty’s Government.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we have to try to fix the problem, although I do not think it is a problem that can be fixed. We should say, “No, we are not going to have immigration from Romania and Bulgaria.” When the transitional controls end, we should say, “Sorry, we are not going to allow immigration from these two countries.” For those who want to remain in the EU but renegotiate our terms of membership, that would send a firm signal of intent that this country means business.

At the moment, I do not believe that the other EU countries believe we are serious in trying to renegotiate our membership. I feel renegotiation of our membership is doomed to failure. I do not believe the other EU countries will take us seriously—they are going to shuffle about for years and years to put off the day when any new treaty could be signed. We may well be in the same bind in five, six, seven or 10 years’ time. I think we should leave the EU, but for those who want to stay, a firm signal of intent that we mean business in renegotiating our membership would say to the Romanians and the Bulgarians, “We are sorry, but Britain is full and we will not take immigration from your two countries.”

There are very good reasons for saying no, not least crime levels. There is currently a crime wave of bag snatchers and pickpockets on London underground. I am a special constable with the British Transport police, so I know what I am talking about. Eight out of 10 pickpockets on the London underground are Romanian, and I would welcome an intervention from the Romanian ambassador to say, “We recognise that you have a problem here in London with crime levels from our nationals. We are going to try to help address that situation for you.”

Of course, London is a huge magnet. With 7.5 million residents, it is the largest city in western Europe, compared with 3.5 million in Berlin, 3.25 million in Madrid, 2.5 million in Rome and 2 million in Paris. London is one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, and with English as our native language, London is a magnet for millions of people throughout the EU. Romanians or Bulgarians looking for some of their fellow countrymen in the EU are most likely to find them here in London. London is a magnet that attracts people from those two countries.

The very least that Her Majesty’s Government should do is ensure that all European nationals who intend to come to our country and stay for more than three months have to have a residency card. Her Majesty’s Government are allowed to do that under the rules—this point has been put to the Immigration Minister previously, not least in the excellent private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), and I have also raised it with him directly on the Floor of the House—and other countries do it, not least Spain. That means those countries have a far better handle on the numbers of other EU nationals coming across their borders, and it would give us a far better handle on where EU nationals are coming from and where they are living in this country. It would also help us with issues such as benefit entitlement, access to services in the national health service, and school places.