Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

We are carefully considering the extension of the existing contracts in accordance with their terms. The introduction of the COMPASS contracts has improved the standards of accommodation, but where there are failings we will take action.

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

T5. Last Monday, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) asked how many EU citizens had been deported during the last four years. Now, as I understand it, the question has been answered and we are told that only 102 EU citizens have been deported. Does the Minister acknowledge that the deportation of such a small number is rather poor?

[James Brokenshire]

I remind my hon. Friend that the Government have removed more than 30,000 foreign national offenders since 2010. The number of offenders from EU countries who have been removed has more than tripled from 1,000 in 2010-11 to more than 3,400 in 2015-16.

EU Immigration

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered immigration from the EU.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for attending; this is a bigger audience than I normally get, and I will do my best to cope with it. EU immigration is a very important issue for my constituents, so I am most grateful to Mr Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means for granting me permission to hold this debate. I am sure that its timing is appreciated by everyone present this afternoon.

Immigration is an important issue for my constituents—it is the number one issue on the doorstep. It is now, in the run-up to the EU referendum on 23 June, but it has been for many years. Simply put, the problem is that the number of people coming into our country, both from outside the European Union and from inside it, is simply too great for our country or indeed my constituency to cope with.

Hon. Members will recall that when we joined the European Union on 1 January 1973, immigration from the then Common Market was not an issue. We joined an association of trading partners. That was the decision taken at the time, rightly or wrongly, but the number of Common Market citizens coming to the United Kingdom was relatively small and easy for the country to cope with. Indeed, the flow of United Kingdom citizens into the Common Market area was also small. But we are now in a different world, in which our membership of what was then the Common Market morphed into the European Community and now the European Union—if we stay in, no doubt, it will become the united states of Europe. Immigration is happening on a simply unprecedented scale and we are not able to cope with the numbers coming to our shores from the European Union. That is a big problem, because we have absolutely no control over it.

Immigration has been a big issue for some time, but my attention was drawn to the scale of the problem when it was revealed just a few weeks ago that, although official figures from the Home Office state that 257,000 EU migrants arrived in our country last year, 630,000 EU citizens were issued with British national insurance numbers over the same period. My alarm at the scale of those numbers was intensified by the disparity between the two. My constituents and I are extremely worried that the official Government statistics on the number of people coming to our shores from the European Union are simply not true. If the discrepancy between the two figures cannot somehow be reconciled, we are underestimating the numbers coming into this country by a significant margin. The number of migrants living in the UK may have been undercounted by a quarter of a million over the past five years. If that is true, the British public need to be told. Unless we have some faith in the official statistics given by Her Majesty’s Government, widespread alarm could grow that the scale of the problem we are facing is far bigger than we had estimated.

Migration Watch, which is the respected body of choice for the independent analysis of migration figures, has done a report comparing the migration figures with population estimates for migrants born in the group of eastern European countries known as the A8 nations—the nations that joined the European Union in 2004. The report shows that between 2010 and 2015, the population born in the A8 countries and living in the UK increased by an average of 90,000 a year, but during the same period estimated net migration and the official statistics from the A8 countries averaged only 40,000. That is a difference of more than 50,000 a year. The chairman of Migration Watch UK, the respected Lord Green of Deddington, said:

“This analysis casts serious doubt on the accuracy of our immigration figures.”

The row over the numbers has been stirred by the fact that Her Majesty’s Government refused freedom of information requests at the end of last year that would have clarified the situation. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that some 919,000 EU migrants have arrived in Britain since June 2010, but in that same time—over the past six years—some 2.2 million national insurance numbers have been issued to EU migrants. That official figure, 919,000, is worth dwelling on for a moment. The spokesman for Her Majesty’s Opposition, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), might like to note that when the Labour party was in government and the A8 countries were admitted to the European Union, we were reliably told by the Minister at the time that only 13,000 A8 migrants were expected to come to our shores. We are now approaching 1 million and counting.

The gap in the numbers is extremely disturbing. I understand that, having resisted for several months, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs agreed in April to pass information to the Office for National Statistics to examine whether the numbers might be reconciled, and that the Office for National Statistics is now processing the information and plans to release a reconciliation on 26 May. Will the Minister confirm whether that is his understanding of the process and that we can expect the reconciliation numbers to be published on 26 May? It is important that the numbers are released before the referendum on 23 June; otherwise, the British people might make the decision on our ongoing membership of the European Union without all the requisite information.

Of the national insurance numbers issued, I understand that some 209,000 were given to Romanians and Bulgarians, yet officially only 55,000 Romanians and Bulgarians settled here last year. Those numbers are extremely worrying for my constituents and for the country. We may now have reached a total of some 450,000 Romanian and Bulgarian nationals living in the United Kingdom. When we debated the number of Romanians and Bulgarians expected to come to this country after their countries’ accession, we were told that projections of half a million people coming from those two countries were simply fanciful and scaremongering and that we should know better. We have had debates in this very Chamber in which those dangers were highlighted.

If it is true that we now have 450,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in this country, an apology from Her Majesty’s Government would be most welcome, because those of us who have been trying for some time to alert the Government to the dangers of the scale of migration have frankly been ignored. The British people will not put up with this for much longer. Also, it is a breach of a key Government promise that EU migrants coming to this country must have a job offer, because, in November 2014, the Prime Minister said:

“We want EU jobseekers to have a job offer before they come here”.

EU migrants are coming to this country without a job offer and getting national insurance numbers, yet our official statistics are not recognising those people properly.

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

It occurs to me that the Prime Minister actually said the people from overseas would be here for up to six months when they were looking for work. Which was correct? Was it the people overseas telling me that or was it the Prime Minister?

[Mr Hollobone]

I would like to know the answer to that question as well. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for posing it. Perhaps the Minister will clarify when he responds at the end of the debate, because my hon. Friend makes an extremely important point.

We have had an attempt to reform how Britain’s membership of the European Union works. The Prime Minister has concluded some form of minor renegotiation of our terms of membership, which, surprisingly and increasingly, members of the Government do not seem to talk much about, but apparently this reform has given us special status in the EU, despite the fact that in the official communiqué about the supposed renegotiation, the term “special status” is nowhere mentioned. It is my contention that the proposed minor reforms to benefit entitlements for EU migrants will not slow the intake of EU migrants to our shores at all.

A report this week says that only 6% of such migrants would be affected by the proposals, and I would suggest that the very welcome increase in the national minimum wage and the new national living wage will act as a far greater magnet for workers to come here from other European Union countries. Increasingly, even more than now, the United Kingdom will be seen to be the land of milk and honey with not only the strongest growth rate in the European Union, but now a national living wage well above what many could hope to earn in their own poorer countries within the European Union.

My concerns on behalf of my constituents about the dodgy statistics being used by the Government to count the number of people coming here and about the inadequacy of the supposed renegotiation that the Prime Minister has concluded were added to by further talk about the future admission of Turkey to the European Union. The more I have researched this subject on behalf of my constituents in Kettering, the more alarmed I have become. Yesterday, perhaps anticipating remarks that might be made during this debate, the Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee:

“I would say very clearly to people, if your vote in this referendum is being influenced by considerations about Turkish membership of the EU, don’t think about it... It’s not an issue in this referendum and it shouldn’t be.”

He went on to say that it would not happen for “decades”. I contend that that is simply not the case. Indeed, it is official Government policy to encourage Turkish membership and accession to the European Union. Were Turkey ever to join, the concerns we have now about the present level of immigration to this country from the European Union would be magnified several times over. Perhaps I can give the House some figures that demonstrate the scale of the potential challenge we face.

The A8 countries that joined in 2004 comprise Poland, with 38.5 million people; the Czech Republic, with 10.5 million; Hungary, 10 million; Slovakia, 5.5 million; Lithuania, 3 million; Slovenia and Latvia, with 2 million each; and Estonia, with 1.3 million. Mr Pritchard, you are probably the only person in this room to have visited all those countries, given your reputation for wanting to see international issues at first hand. I know that your reputation precedes you in many of those nations. If we add up all the A8 countries, the figure comes to 72.8 million people. That is the number of people who joined the European Union when the A8 countries joined in 2004.

There are 75 million people in Turkey. The figure is slightly smaller than Germany’s population of 80 million and bigger than the populations of France with 66 million, ourselves with 65 million, and Italy with 61 million. In addition, Turkey would be the poorest member of the European Union. Its GDP per capita is $9,500 per year compared with Poland’s—the biggest of the A8 countries —$13,400 per year and our $43,800 per year. Those 75 million Turkish people are more numerous than us and poorer than us. Most of them are Muslim and they have a different culture. Were those people to emigrate to our shores at the same rate as people from the A8 countries have done, it would transform communities in this country up and down the land, yet it is the official policy of Her Majesty’s Government to actively encourage Turkey to join the European Union.

In Kettering, there are 74,000 registered electors; 4,000 of them are EU citizens, most of whom come from the A8 accession countries. Were Turkey to join the European Union—given that it is poorer than any of the A8 and more numerous than all the A8 combined—we can expect, within five to 10 years of Turkish accession, 4,000 Turkish people in Kettering. I am sure you know many Turkish people, Mr Pritchard; I know several, some of whom live in Kettering and are a great asset to the local community. They are hard-working, diligent, family people. The problem is not their ethnicity, their language or their culture; it is the number that could come to our shores.

If a little borough such as Kettering can expect to have 4,000 Turkish people in short order, imagine what would happen in some of our larger towns and cities. There would be an influx with which we would simply not be able to cope. We are finding it difficult to absorb 1 million migrants—that is the official statistic. It could be double that once the true figures are revealed from the accession A8 eastern European countries. Were we to get immigration on a similar scale from Turkey, this country would be transformed and, I would suggest, not for the better.

London is currently the biggest city in the European Union, with 8.5 million people. Istanbul has 14 million people, and only 3% of Turkey is actually in Europe. Turkey’s accession would extend the borders of the European Union to the borders of Syria, Iraq and Iran, and we know that Turkey’s borders are not secure, which is one of the reasons why we have the troubles that we do with ISIS in Syria. Imagine if Frontex, the EU border force, were put in charge of the Turkish border with Syria, Iraq and Iran. I suggest that there is simply no way that Britain’s future would be safer and more secure as a member of a European Union with such external frontiers.

The Prime Minister said in his remarks to the Liaison Committee that he did not expect Turkish accession for decades, yet Her Majesty’s Government are providing millions of pounds to Turkey to help it to prepare for entry to the European Union. Other accession countries are also in the queue: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia; and the EU has agreed to an instrument for pre-accession assistance to pay money to those countries to facilitate their becoming EU nation states. The UK’s share of that money is £1.2 billion between 2014 and 2020, which is a rate of £170 million each year. That annual sum is the equivalent of half the NHS cancer drugs fund managed by NHS England. It would pay for child benefit for 157,000 children. It would pay for 27,000 state pensions. I know that this will interest my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis): it would treble the UK Government’s dedicated pothole action fund. Those are very large sums of money, which we are giving to the accession states, yet the Prime Minister tells us that accession will not happen for decades. Well, both sides of the argument cannot be right. Either Turkey is not going to join—in which case, why are we spending all this money?—or it is going to, in which case the British people are not being told the whole truth.

We are giving each year for this fund £9 million to Albania, yet Albania has some of the nastiest criminals in the whole European Union. I am afraid that, along with lots of immigrants from the EU to this country, we are also importing a wave of crime. There are 472 Albanian nationals currently serving time at Her Majesty’s pleasure in our prisons. Albania is in fifth place in the list of countries that have exported their criminals to this country. Albania, with 472 people in our jails, has a population of 3 million. Poland has a population of 38 million, and there are 951 Polish nationals in our prisons. Albania in particular has a problem with organised crime, and it has come, and is coming, our way. Albanian mafia gangs are believed to be largely behind sex trafficking and immigrant smuggling, as well as working with Turkish gangs that control the heroin trade in the United Kingdom. I am sure that the Minister will want to help the House by giving us more details about the extent to which crime from Turkey and Albania is already on the streets of London.

Vice squad officers estimate that Albanians now control more than 75% of this country’s brothels and that their operations in London’s Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year. They are said to be present in every big city in Britain, after fighting off rival criminals in turf wars. Hon. Members will know from the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in our prisons and the number of arrests made of Romanians and Bulgarians that we have already imported a wave of crime from EU-entrant countries. I and my constituents are worried about that wave of crime being magnified with new entrant countries if they include Albania and Turkey.

We are giving £2 billion to the accession countries to encourage them to join the European Union. On top of that financial assistance, which would be better spent on health services in our constituencies, we now have a visa-free area all the way from Calais to the Syrian border, because the EU Commission in its wisdom has proposed visa-free access for 75 million Turkish citizens, to the Schengen area. That is part of a co-ordinated, accelerated move towards Turkish accession to the European Union. The Commission has also proposed visa-free access for Kosovo. The problem with Schengen is that, although it makes it easy for people to travel across the Schengen area without having to show their passports, criminals can now pass from the Syrian border to the French coast at Calais without being intercepted. Ronald Noble, the former Secretary General of Interpol, has said that the Schengen system

“is effectively an international passport-free zone for terrorists to execute attacks on the Continent and make their escape... Leading up to these latest attacks, none of those countries systematically screened passports or verified the identities of those crossing borders by land or at seaports or airports. This is like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe. And they have been accepting the invitation”.

With the wave of immigration, we now have visa-free travel for citizens of non-EU-member states across the Schengen area, all the way to the English channel. I suggest that that endangers our security.

The Lord Chancellor, who is a wise man and who has been ahead of the curve on the issue, has said that the wave of immigration hitting our shores, which is set to get worse if we stay in the European Union, is a direct and serious threat to public services in the United Kingdom. To give one example, GP registrations have increased in this country by 1.5 million in the past three years alone.

It is commonly assumed that the crisis in our accident and emergency departments is caused by new migrants not actually registering with their GPs at all, but going straight to A&E whenever something goes wrong, thus clogging up the system for everyone else. That is just one example of the pressure on our public services. Another would be schools. It is not now uncommon for primary schools to have lots of children whose first language is not English. That puts a great strain not only on the number of school places but on the resources that schools must find to provide the requisite education for our youngsters.

Not only has the EU bent rules to create a visa-free zone from Syria to the English channel, but I contend that many of the people in that zone will end up as migrants to these shores in the fullness of time. It is all very well for the Germans to grant asylum to 1 million Syrians, but in five years’ time those 1 million Syrians will be able to get EU passports and to come to this country, with London in particular acting as a magnet. While we remain in the European Union we have no control on the numbers coming to our shores.

Frontex, the seriously discredited EU border force, which is clearly struggling to maintain the security of Europe’s borders, has said that the expansion of the visa-free area will increase the pressure on our borders. A recent Frontex report noted:

“The number of persons aiming to get to the UK with fraudulent document significantly increased (+70%) compared to 2014. This trend is mostly attributable to the increasing number of Albanian nationals often misusing Italian and Greek ID cards followed by Ukrainian nationals abusing authentic Polish ID cards”.

There we have it. Members do not have to believe me: Frontex, the EU’s border force, says that there has been a 70% increase in the number of people using false documentation to try to get into the United Kingdom.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Will my hon. Friend repeat what he just said about the ability of people with no UK passport to come into this country because they have a German passport, which they can become a holder of very quickly?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that issue. Many other EU countries do not have the rigorous rules on the issuance of passports that we have. For example, in Romania, there are lots of Moldovans. Moldova is not in the European Union; it is next door to Romania and used to be part of Romania, but it is no longer. Lots of Moldovans qualify for EU passports because they are the grandparents of Romanian citizens. They are not EU citizens, but with their EU passport they are able to waltz into the United Kingdom and we are unable to do anything about it. Were we a free, independent and sovereign nation once again, we could say, “No, you’re not allowed into this country,” because we could set new rules. While we are a member of the European Union and the European Court oversees our border policy, we do not have that right.

The migration crisis is already having an impact on the forces that we have at our disposal to control our borders. The UK Border Force runs five seaborne cutters to protect Britain’s shores from immigration from the European Union. At any one time, one is under repair, which leaves four others. Two have been sent to help out with the migration crisis between Greece and Turkey, which leaves just two to patrol Britain’s territorial waters. Members will be as shocked as I am to learn that official Home Office statistics show that 67,500 small planes and boats enter Britain each year unchecked. At least, that is what the Home Office tells us. That is an alarming number of incursions into British airspace and British territorial waters. Reducing the number of seaborne cutters available to intercept such vessels clearly weakens our borders.

This week, the situation relating to our borders and to people coming to this country from the EU was made even worse by new European Union rules on the Dublin regulations. The Dublin regulations say that, if a person claims asylum in an EU nation state and then goes to another EU nation state, the second country can send them back to the first. That is the way the system is meant to work, except that it does not work with Greece, because its system is meant to be so badly run that sending an individual back to that country after they have been intercepted here breaches their human rights. That is despite the fact that tens of thousands of our citizens go to Greece on holiday every year.

Under the Dublin regulations, we have been sending back only 1% of the asylum seekers who reach our shores. That is pretty pathetic, but the European Commission is now changing the regulations and will give us no guarantee that Britain will be able to maintain even the current regulations should we decide to stay in the European Union. I seek further clarification from the Minister on that point, because my constituents are concerned not only about the volume of legal immigration to this country, but about people abusing the asylum system to come to our shores.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I was going to limit myself to intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), but I want to make a couple of points as well.

I read in the analysis by Her Majesty’s Treasury about the long-term economic impact of EU membership and the alternatives. On page 136, it states:

“In the principal projection, total net international migration to the UK falls from 329,000 per year in 2014 towards 185,000 per year from 2021 onwards.”

What did the Treasury mean by that quote? It went on to state:

“This is a stylised projection rather than a forecast.”

That tells me nothing. Perhaps you can explain that better than I can, Mr Pritchard, but if so we will have to converse about it later.

My staff and I have worked out that “stylised” must mean that the projection is artificial, mainly because it does not consider alternatives and is filled with uncertainties. The Treasury has considered no potential models in case of Brexit other than the two already available alternatives—for both we would have to accept free movement of people—and nor has it considered uncertainties such as future Government policies on immigration and student fees.

What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say about that? He said that calculations based on the Treasury’s projection mean that there will be 3 million more immigrants in this country, at a minimum, by 2030. He has made his position clear: through the renegotiations, he has received more powers for the country to deal with net migration; and we will have to accept free movement of people if we want access to the single market. I am very concerned about that. The Chancellor may have said that we are the people who want free movement, but that is something that I do not want. I especially do not want limitations on immigration from outside Europe and yet free movement within Europe.

The Treasury could have created potential Brexit models that do not include the Swiss or Norwegian alternatives. Two such potential models are a restrictive migration policy and a very liberal policy—both could have been offered, but neither of them were. The reason is that the Treasury wanted to use the analysis for political reasons, not for explaining anything. That was the policy of the Chancellor and, indeed, of the Prime Minister.

The 100,000 net migration pledge in the Conservative manifesto includes immigration from both EU and non-EU countries, but many more people have come to Britain from the EU than originally anticipated. In 2010, the Prime Minister pledged to reduce net migration into Britain to below 100,000—“no ifs, no buts”. He claimed that that was a promise, although it has been watered down to a mere ambition. Why was the target re-included in the 2015 manifesto if it was already known that he could not keep it and we as a nation could not keep it, and why did the Chancellor agree to it?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

It is important to underline that the OBR’s numbers are a projection and not a forecast. Projections do not attempt to predict the impact of Government policy or changing economic circumstances at home or abroad. That is why I make the point about the policy changes we have made and continue to make and why we retain the focus on bringing net migration down to the sustainable levels that my hon. Friend and I recognise are important to reduce the pressures on public services.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Does the Minister not realise that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we had to accept the prospect of 185,000 migrants a year to this country and that we could not argue about it? We cannot move the numbers.

[James Brokenshire]

I come back to the point I made about the OBR’s projections. Clearly, numerous factors can affect migration flows. At any given point in time, the UK’s position relative to where potential migrants come from and other places they could go will affect flows. Part of the Prime Minister’s reforms at EU level are about competitiveness. Some of the challenges we have seen in recent years have stemmed from disparities in the economic development of one European country against another. That is why the competitiveness part of his negotiations is important.

We are looking at a number of factors. In terms of the skills agenda, my hon. Friends will very much welcome the approach that the Government have taken in creating apprenticeships—some in the previous Parliament and more in this Parliament. That is giving significant opportunities to reskill and providing our young people with opportunities to meet the needs of the employment market.

We need to look at this in relation to reform of migration rules: the steps we have taken for those outside the EU and through the EU renegotiation on factors that could draw people here. However, it is also about the overall competitiveness of the EU. We need the EU market to grow and to see countries’ economies succeeding and creating jobs. There is also the skills agenda here and welfare reform more broadly, with people seeing that work always pays and taking up opportunities to work.

There are a number of factors at play, which is why the Government are looking at this from the perspective not only of Home Office migration policy but of other policy areas. That demonstrates our commitment to look at sustainability levels. We are acting across Government to reduce net migration and to establish a system that acts in the best interests of our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I am afraid that the Minister’s answer is not good enough. There was no evidence of any Home Office presence in any of those camps, and what is happening to children in the camps is utterly disgraceful. In the Grande-Synthe camp—

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

It is up to the French.

[Joanna Cherry]

If I am allowed to speak, I shall try to continue.

Child Refugees in Europe

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have said to other right hon. and hon. Members, we are closely considering the issue of children. I have already indicated that of the 1,000 refugees who arrived through the resettlement scheme before Christmas, around a half were children. We are very conscious of the need for support for local authorities. We have announced additional funding to meet the needs under the resettlement scheme for years 2 to 5, recognising the pressures that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined.

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

We were told that 100,000 people would be admitted to this country each year. In fact, 320,000 people have been admitted in the past year. If we admit another 20,000 people over the next five years, or 4,000 per year, does that mean that 4,000 are not admitted from other parts of the world?

[James Brokenshire]

The vulnerable persons resettlement scheme is meeting our rightful obligation to respond to the crisis that we see in Syria, which is the basis for the figure of 20,000 that we have outlined for the course of this Parliament. Obviously, we have certain other arrangements with UNHCR, but we need to meet that commitment and respond to the crisis that we see before us.

Relocation of Migrants in need of International Protection (Opt-in Decision)

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

Our position is that mandatory quotas are not the way forward. Any numbers taken in this country should be on only a voluntary basis. In view of what we see as the current failure of relocation policy, the Government should rethink whether we should take some numbers from Europe on a voluntary basis. It would be for the Government to decide what number, on a voluntary basis, would be the right number. It has been suggested that if every city or county in Britain took just 10 refugee families, we would be able to help perhaps 10,000 individuals. As I say, in the first instance we call on the Government to reconsider their approach in the light of the prevailing situation.

It goes without saying that under any scheme, and under a voluntary scheme in particular, there should be robust and effective vetting and safeguarding procedures, wherever those procedures take place. We therefore call on the Government to reconsider the refusal to take people relocated from other member states on a voluntary basis, without opting into a mandatory system. Even if we are not part of the mandatory relocation scheme, we should do everything in our power to ensure that it works effectively. The EU relocation scheme has so far relocated just 130 individuals from Italy and 30 from Greece of its intended 160,000 people, which seems to indicate that it may be incapable of dealing successfully with the pressures being faced in Italy and Greece. In addition, only six of the 22 member states have notified the EU that they have the capacity to host relocated individuals.

What steps, if any, are the Government taking to support the relocation programme and to help to cope with this volume? On a point that has been raised on more than one occasion by the European Scrutiny Committee, in the absence of voluntary relocation how do the Government interpret the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility in the EU?

Let me turn to the questions that we have on the motion, which we support. Can the Minister update the House on the number of Syrian refugees who have arrived in Britain since the Prime Minister announced that we would take 20,000 over the course of this Parliament? In addition, the Home Office has stated that 55 local authorities will welcome Syrian refugees into their communities before Christmas. How many of those authorities have so far welcomed refugees? The Government say they are reluctant to take migrants relocated from within the EU for fear of creating new pull factors, but they have consistently produced little evidence that this would be the result of allowing internal relocation. As the European Scrutiny Committee has observed, the Government have been thin on substance on this issue. Can the Minister now give some substance on the pull factor argument? Surely we must recognise the level of desperation that forces people to leave their homes and attempt the journey to the EU in the knowledge that they or their loved ones might not make it. That will be a significant factor whatever relocation programme is put in place.

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

Can the shadow Minister assist us by explaining how many people leave Syria, how many come into Greece and why there is a large difference between the two numbers?

[Keir Starmer]

I am not sure that I am in a position to deal with that intervention; it is probably better put to the Minister.

The Government have rightly said that they will take refugees from outside Europe, and we support that, but what about those who have made it into Europe? Of course the Government do not want to get drawn into a mandatory relocation programme within Europe, but why cannot there be a voluntary arrangement that we could enter into in order to play our full part in solidarity and fair responsibility for refugees across Europe? Just as we have joined with our European and other international allies in trying to defeat ISIS and other causes of refugees and migration, so we should play our full part in dealing with the crisis here in Europe, with huge numbers already desperately needing relocation. On the basis of the figures, at least at first blush, it looks as though the relocation programme is not working as was anticipated. As I say, only 160 or so individuals have been relocated. In those circumstances, we ask whether the Government could and should do more.

I finish where I started and return to the way in which this matter now comes before the House. Recognising that the situation is moving fast, will the Minister give an assurance that the House will be properly updated and that time will be allowed for proper scrutiny and debate as the relocation policy rolls out over the coming weeks and months?

Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I think the hon. Gentleman is conflating two issues. We are not discussing that issue today. Let us be clear, to avoid any misconceptions, that we are talking about the DNA of people who have been convicted of a recordable crime. It seems to me that that provides sufficient safeguards against the abuse of such data. If the hon. Gentleman is making an argument for the wider collection of DNA, as opposed to fingerprints—the fingerprints of people entering the country are collected—that would raise other civil liberties concerns that he would have to discuss with his colleagues. He seems to be envisaging going even further than the Prüm decisions, but I do not believe that we are at that point right now. Perhaps he will return to that issue with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

In these times in which we live, the speed of investigation is essential. I invite every Member of the House to cast their mind back to the hours after we heard about the Paris bombings, or indeed to the hours after the shocking attacks in London a decade or so ago. People were hanging on to the news, waiting to hear of leads against those who might have committed those atrocities. That is what people want. They want the police and the security services to have, in those moments, the clearest possible line of sight across Europe, so that they can pursue immediate leads and track the suspects down. That is what we need to remember when we consider these issues. We need to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to give the police and the security services, not just here but across Europe, that ability to get on the trail of people who are committing atrocities against us and to track them down. In my view, the case is unanswerable: we should give them that power.

We should also ensure that the British police and security services have access to a much larger collection of biometric and biographical data, which will lead to more crimes here being solved and to more victims here getting the justice that they are being denied today. The earlier detection of crime and the conviction of the individuals responsible must be in the forefront of our minds.

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

Would the right hon. Gentleman like other countries, such as Iceland, to join Prüm?

[Andy Burnham]

I personally see no objection to that, but let us start within Europe. Let us get a clear set of standards and arrangements within Europe first. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that one of the benefits of the European Union is that it sets a standard that the rest of the world then begins to follow. We are seeing that now with Norway and Iceland. In effect, they have to follow all the norms of the European Union if they want to be a full trading partner. So I would not see a problem with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. The Home Secretary has said that there will be many safeguards. I put it back to the hon. Gentleman: would he be happy with somebody who has committed a crime going back to Iceland and thus avoiding justice? I would not be happy with that and I would want measures in place to ensure that they could be brought to justice. Opting in will also lead to a much better use of police time and resources, as the Home Secretary has said, and will improve the intelligence picture that the crime and terrorism authorities have, so that they can better understand the patterns emerging across Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Will my right hon. Friend assist me by saying whether Iceland, for instance, should be encouraged to join?

[Damian Green]

Iceland is not a member of the European Union. If Iceland wished to sign some kind of deal with the European Union, I assume that it would be open to Iceland to do so, but I have seen no sign that it does. It is not within the purview of this House to dictate to the Icelandic Government and people what they should do. I imagine that they want to keep their streets safe as well.

Immigration Bill

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

In April 1939, a 10-year-old Jewish boy from a place called Ostrava in what was then Czechoslovakia was put on a train by his mum and teenage sisters. He never saw them again; they were killed during the war.

He was the only member of his family able to leave. He arrived in the UK only able to speak three words of English but became the youngest grammar school head teacher in the country, and was honoured by the Queen with an MBE for his education and charity work. He adopted four children, of whom I am the second, so I know all about the benefits that immigration can bring to individuals, our communities and our country.

I also know that immigration is something many people are very worried about. Research from the Oxford Migration Observatory shows immigration has ranked in the top five issues for many years and has ranked as the top issue for our country in many of the most recent polls. There is no point in mainstream politicians trying to ignore this or refusing to listen to people. It is our job to listen to people on this and come up with fair and reasonable ways of addressing their concerns. It is when we fail to do so that reasonable people with legitimate concerns turn to UKIP or, in the past, the BNP.

So I have worked hard to listen to local people in Dudley and I have held dozens of community meetings over the last couple of years on this issue. The truth is that most people are reasonable, fair and pragmatic when it comes to immigration and other contentious issues. Detailed research from British Future shows most people wanting fair controls on immigration but not a closed border. Mainstream politicians should be working in their communities to come up with fair and reasonable solutions to tackle exploitation, the undercutting of wages or some of the other challenges presented by immigration.

That is not, as some have said, “trying to out-UKIP UKIP”. It is being part of a mainstream Labour party that takes the concerns and worries that ordinary people have seriously. The vast majority of the hundreds of people who came to my meetings on immigration and the many thousands who completed the detailed surveys I distributed agree that we should welcome people who come to Britain and work hard and contribute, and they agree that Britain has always provided a safe haven for people fleeing persecution abroad.

Because of that, I welcome plans to help to train the next generation of skilled workers here in Britain instead of hiring from abroad. Our proposals at the election would have required large firms to take on a local apprentice every time they took on a skilled foreign worker, so I think this should go further, but it is good that some funding from skilled worker visas will now be put towards apprenticeships.

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

Is the hon. Gentleman just talking about people from outside Europe, or is he talking about people from within Europe as well? Should there be the same requirements in respect of both?

[Ian Austin]

I think that jobs should be advertised in Britain before they are advertised abroad. I also think that if large firms or public sector organisations cannot find people in Britain with the necessary skills and have to employ someone from abroad, they should also have to provide an apprenticeship for a British youngster so that we can train up the next generation of British people as well.

At the last election, we also proposed tougher measures to tackle the illegal exploitation of foreign workers, and the creation of a new Home Office unit to enforce the law, so I support the Bill’s proposals for a director of labour market enforcement and for stronger sanctions against those who employ illegal workers. I have always thought that if you want to live in Britain you must be prepared to work hard and pay your way, obey the law and learn to speak English, because there is no other way to play a full role in British society, so it is right that the Bill will make it easier to monitor foreign nationals who have broken the law and to ensure that customer-facing public workers speak fluent English. Most people will think it is also completely right that the Bill proposes to tackle illegal immigration and its links with organised crime, people trafficking and exploitation, which have a knock-on effect on our communities, on wages and on public services.

As we heard earlier, however, the Government have not yet provided any evidence that the trial of plans to intensify the right to rent scheme, which requires landlords to check the immigration status of prospective tenants, has cut illegal migration. Indeed, there are worrying signs that it has made it much harder for British people from other backgrounds to find a home. I do not think that reasonable people would support a measure that could prevent British people who have worked and contributed to this country for decades from finding a home just because they have a foreign-sounding name or a different accent.

The Government must go much further to enforce the minimum wage so that unscrupulous employers cannot exploit foreign labour to cut costs and drive down wages. I want bigger fines for breaking the rules, and a ban on recruitment agencies hiring solely from overseas. We should also introduce changes to benefit entitlement right now, instead of waiting for the outcome of the Prime Minister’s negotiations with the EU. There should be a much clearer relationship between benefits and contributions so that people receive benefits if they have worked and paid in for at least two years. Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason why people should be able to claim child benefit for children who are living abroad. People in Dudley also want to see tighter border controls. We proposed to introduce a levy on US visitors to pay for 1,000 extra border guards and to do more to strengthen checks for illegal immigrants in Calais.

I would like to see the Government acknowledge that the costs and benefits of immigration are not shared equally across the United Kingdom. Lots of people have moved to places such as Dudley in search of work and a better life, and they are making a contribution. However, immigration can clearly put pressure on public services such as housing, schools and the NHS. The answer, of course, is to build more housing, stop cutting the NHS and ensure that schools have the teachers and staff that they need in order to cope. That could be funded by the benefits of immigration in other parts of the country. We do not get many millionaire American bankers, German city traders or French hedge fund managers moving to the black country. I would like to see an immigration Bill that ensures that the benefits migration brings to some parts of Britain help to fund the extra housing, NHS staff and teachers necessary to reduce the pressures in communities like mine.

I support some measures in the Bill, but I can think of other measures that would address mainstream concerns about immigration while providing fair, reasonable and progressive ways of doing so. Let us focus our efforts on the unscrupulous employers and organised gangs that bring people to this country illegally. Let us strengthen our border force so that Britain can have confidence that the rules are being enforced, and let us ensure that the costs and benefits of immigration are shared across the country.

Migration

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it behoves all Members of the House to be careful about how they speak in relation to these matters. It is the job of the Home Secretary, in responding to a question, to respond to the question.

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

We are told by a Lebanese Minister that 2% of Syrian refugees are from ISIL. What are we doing to sort the overwhelming majority of decent people from the murderers, both in Asia Minor and in Europe?

[Mrs May]

When people are identified to come to the United Kingdom under our resettlement scheme, we assess their needs and ensure that the proper security checks are undertaken. The fact that the refugees we are taking come from the most vulnerable sections of the populations in the camps suggests that the problems my hon. Friend is talking about are less likely. A lot of the people we have been taking are women and children who have been traumatised by sexual violence and who have particular needs. However, we do ensure that there are proper security arrangements in place in relation to the matter that he is talking about.

Immigration

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on immigration.

Immigration is consistently one of the most important issues for my constituents. I am sure that many other right hon. and hon. Members find that the same is true for theirs. In the next 10 minutes or so, I would like to do two things: first, explore the mismanagement of immigration under Labour and, secondly, encourage the Government to tell us about their plans to take back control of the situation.

I would like to mention the boiling frog syndrome—I will explain it for those not familiar. When a frog is dropped in boiling water, it immediately feels the heat and jumps out. That is the natural and instinctive reaction. And yet if one puts a frog in cold water and very gradually raises the temperature to boiling point, the frog will apparently sit quite unknowingly until it dies. I must stress that I have not tried that on myself, but I am sure that it is obvious where the analogy is going. The huge influx of immigrants to our shores did not come all at once. We have a proud history of welcoming foreigners who want to play a positive role in our society, but during the Blair years that changed, and we as a nation did not realise what was happening. When my noble Friend Lord Howard of Lympne was Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition in 2005, he rightly made the point that immigration would be one of the most contentious issues of the coming decade. Hardly anyone listened to him then, and yet how prophetic do his words seem now? Our nation—the metaphoric frog—must jump out of the hot water before it is too late.

Back in 1997, Tony Blair won a huge mandate from the people to govern our country, but he omitted to tell us about his absolute determination to introduce and pursue an aggressive immigration policy, designed to make the UK a multicultural society. Thanks to a certain Mr Andrew Neather, a former Government adviser, we now know the truth. More specifically, he said it was Blair’s intention to

“rub the Right’s nose in diversity”.

In fact, it was not just the right’s nose, but the large majority of ordinary people’s noses, yet people became afraid to say anything about it. They feared being labelled racist or worse for even raising the issue. That cynical policy was ill thought out and badly planned. People are suffering from a lack of housing and pressure has increased on the NHS, our schools, our transport and roads, and so on. More evidence of Labour’s apparent indifference to the people’s concerns over immigration came in 2010, when Gordon Brown called Labour supporter Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” simply for voicing her concerns. That sort of dismissive and arrogant attitude must stop. We need to shape the debate on immigration so that those who are concerned are not made to feel bigoted or racist. Rather, we need debate, with everybody free to express their honest concerns. I know our Government support that.

Before I continue, I would like to be clear on one thing: just because I believe that our immigration policy is out of control, it does not mean that I am anti-immigrant. It is my firm belief that many of the hardest working and best contributors to our society are immigrants. I am also aware that many of our public services would simply fall apart without the foreign nationals who work in them. That does not justify an open-door approach. We should welcome those who benefit our society and exclude those who do not.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Could the hon. Gentleman clarify how he proposes to do that if he wants to remain within the European Union?

[Mr Turner]

The Prime Minister is currently negotiating with Europe and Europe must hear what we have to say.

What is a disgrace is the irresponsible manner in which previous Labour Governments allowed immigration to overwhelm our society. When we think of the housing crisis, for instance, we have to look only at past immigration policy to see why it has all gone wrong. The excellent founding chairman of Migration Watch UK, the noble Lord Green of Deddington, made that very point. He said that we simply cannot keep up with the demand for homes required at current levels of immigration. Recently, Fergus Wilson, one of the UK’s biggest buy-to-let landlords, said that the only way to address the housing crisis was to build outwards on to greenfield land. I am not a housing expert, but I take what those people say seriously as evidence of mismanaged immigration policy. The blunt fact is that sooner or later this country will run out of space.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is right that we should discuss and debate such issues, because they are of concern to people outside this House. He mentions the mismanagement of previous Governments. Some of the reports published by the Select Committee on Home Affairs note that it has happened under successive Governments. The coalition however, in the past five years, failed to meet the net migration figure. Why does he think that happened?

[Mr Turner]

That happened because we had a coalition. A coalition cannot deliver what one party or the other wants.

No system is in place to ensure that the UK can cope with the number of people moving here. People are coming from Europe and the rest of the world. Our relationship with the EU has effectively taken away our ability to decide who lives in this country. EU migration inflow is considerably larger than our outflow. In 2013, net EU immigration was, according to the Library, 123,000.

The second aspect of our border controls is how we deal people from the rest of the world. That is something that we should be able to control in pretty quick order, yet in 2013, a net number of 143,000 people came to live here from outside the EU. Until recently, those figures were much larger. Throughout the years of Blair’s Labour Government, around 200,000 non-EU citizens came to live in the UK each and every year. It is only since 2012, under a Conservative-led Government, that have we seen any drop in numbers at all. We still have over 250,000 people in total settling here every year. That is far too high.

From 1997 to 2009, enough people to fill Birmingham two and a half times over arrived on our shores to live here permanently. Now, in 2015, it looks as if we will need three and a half new Birminghams. We have seen the rise of parties such as UKIP, which won 3.5 million votes, even if only one seat. That is evidence of how important the electorate consider this issue to be.

So far, there is no clear plan on how to reduce net EU migration. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s hopes of achieving meaningful change in the EU appear optimistic at best, although we certainly wish him success. Under the last, Conservative-led Government, there were notable successes, as well as one or two notable failures, on non-EU migration. The number of skilled economic migrants from outside Europe was capped at 20,000 per year, but what is happening about others from outside Europe, whose numbers amounted to more than 120,000 in 2013?

There was an outcry when the tier 1 post-study work visa was scrapped. It was said that businesses would not cope, but the sky has not actually fallen in. Foreign graduates must now simply find a graduate-level job to stay here. Before 2012, 50,000 foreign graduates were working in shops and bars and doing other non-graduate work every year. In the first full year after the rules changed, however, only 4,000 found work that qualified them to stay. It was a complete myth that businesses were desperate to employ them all. We also need to clamp down much harder on benefit and health tourism, for EU and non-EU nationals alike.

I have not called the debate simply to complain about the past or to call for the Government to do more. While I applaud the successful efforts of the coalition, and now the Conservative Government, to reduce the number of people coming here from outside Europe, there is still a long way to go. As for EU migrants, little can be done without major constitutional change—and that must come. If it does not, I fear that the numbers coming from the EU will rise inexorably year after year, confounding all efforts to cap immigration at the tens of thousands, which is our aim. That was our manifesto commitment, and now that we are not yoked to the Liberal Democrats, we must act on it.

I know the Government recognise the problem. Putting right years of Labour failure is not easy, but I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will take this opportunity to tell my constituents, and indeed people across the country, what plans he has to make our ambitions a reality.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a huge pleasure after all these years to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Sir Alan, given that we were elected to the House together and that we both represent the east midlands.

As I said in my intervention, I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on securing the debate. It is extremely important that the House discusses immigration. We should not be afraid to do so and we should do it openly and transparently. It was good to hear his thoughts about this important subject. After the economy, immigration is the second or third most important issue in all the opinion polls. If we do not discuss it openly and transparently in the House, others will discuss it outside and accuse us of being afraid to do so.

Let me also say how pleased I am that some things never change. Before the election, the Minister was the Minister for Immigration; the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), was the shadow Minister for Immigration; and I was the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—it seems that nothing changes in this place. I congratulate both on their reappointments, and particularly the Minister, who has been the Immigration Minister for five years. It is rare that an Immigration Minister comes back after a general election, but he was obviously doing something that impressed the Prime Minister, so congratulations to him on being back.

Among other colleagues, I am also pleased to see the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who is the newest member of the Home Affairs Committee. His membership is just a few hours old, because the names of the Committee’s members went through the House only at 7 pm last night. As a former immigration solicitor, he will, I am sure, make a huge contribution to the Committee’s work.

I wanted to take part in the debate to remind the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, and the House, that the Committee takes a keen interest in immigration. Even though immigration policy is a hot and controversial subject, we have made it our business to ensure that at least a quarter of our work looks at it. Given the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised, I want briefly to set out those we intend to look at, and I hope he will be pleased to hear that Parliament, through the Committee, is eager to explore them all carefully.

Indeed, the Committee’s first evidence session will take place next Tuesday, even though the names of its members went before the House only yesterday. Our first star and principal witness is the Minister for Immigration. One issue we will look at immediately is Calais. I was there last Saturday, when I saw for myself the sense of crisis gripping the town. During my trip, I also saw the worry that is felt by many people, including those who run Eurotunnel, those involved in the road haulage industry, the police and the people of Kent.

My sympathy is also with the people of Calais. They did not ask to have a large number of migrants, but those migrants are there, and they have just one ambition: to cross the channel and to live and work in the United Kingdom. Nobody mentioned the Isle of Wight to me, so the hon. Gentleman does not need to be quite so worried. However, all the migrants said they were in Calais to come to this country. The authorities there believe they are coming here to participate in our generous benefits system, so, in the few conversations I had with migrants, I told them they were in for a shock—and that, of course, was before yesterday’s Budget.

These are important issues. Illegal migration is partly to do with economic migration, but it is also to do with people being desperate to escape the conflicts in the middle east. A week before going to Calais, I was in Rome because another issue that will confront the Committee, and into which we will shortly announce an inquiry, is the migration crisis gripping the Mediterranean. People are prepared to risk dying in the Mediterranean to get from north Africa to mainland Europe, but the members of the European Union seem unable to act together to deal with this serious problem.

In the migrants’ camp in Rome, which is just near the main railway station, I met Ali, who told me he had paid $5,000 to a person who trafficked him from Eritrea right across north Africa to Libya, where he was put on a boat at gunpoint. Even though he had paid the money, he did not want to get into that particular boat, but he was forced. The boat went to Lampedusa, and Ali eventually ended up in Rome. Criminal gangs operating in north Africa are forcing people at gunpoint to put their lives at risk. People have a choice: they either try to cross the Mediterranean, and perhaps die there, or they stay in north Africa and get shot by the people traffickers. What they are clear about is that they do not want to stay in their countries, because their countries are ravaged by war.

There is not a simple answer to the question how we are to deal with the issue. It is not as simple as saying, “We just don’t let them in,” because the fact is once they arrive at Calais people will do everything they can to get to Britain. I saw the footage of 150 migrants who ran across the tracks to get into freight lorries as they set out at the channel tunnel. I heard, as I am sure other Members did, about the young man who died only two days ago while jumping on to a freight train as it left Coquelles. I heard about the 14 individuals found in a refrigerated container, who had made the journey from Somalia—some had come from Nigeria and some from Afghanistan. They were about to set off from Calais when someone shouted “Hurray!” because they heard the train moving. It was stopped and the container was opened, and those 14 people were found. They had been given a few coats, but some of them clearly would not have made it through their journey across the channel because it was so cold in there.

Those are true stories, about real people. Parliament, with our commitment to a fair and firm immigration policy, but also with our international obligations, needs to find the right balance, and those with the responsibility to stop illegal migration need to take on that responsibility. I firmly believe that we can do that only with the support of the countries of the Maghreb. The Home Secretary announced a taskforce. When I was in Rome, I was informed that that would begin only in November, because several agencies were being brought together. By the time it is put together I am afraid the people traffickers—the criminal gangs—will have found another way. According to the Greek authorities the passage for Syrians is through the Greek islands of Kos and Lesbos into mainland Greece. The United Nations gave me the figure that 60% of those who travel from Syria into Kos have university education. They pay to go there because they want to flee the dangers of Syria.

We also need to realise that we should be careful with our foreign policy. We are very good at phase 1 but pretty awful at phase 2. Phase 1 was to get rid of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. However, 92% of the people who cross the Mediterranean—there were 170,000 last year—crossed through Libya. There is no stable Government there, so applications cannot even be processed before people leave. I know that people require simple answers to the humanitarian crisis and the immigration system. We would all like simple answers but it is very complicated. The solutions that UKIP comes forward with are simplistic and in many cases nonsense. They cannot be put into effect.

The second area that the Select Committee will look at is legal migration. One of the issues is that we try to stop illegals coming in, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I do not know whether the Mayor of London has changed his view since giving his estimates when he last spoke on the subject, but he said that half a million illegal migrants were working and living in London and he was in favour—a few years ago—of an amnesty to allow them the right to remain in this country. However, when legal routes are cut off, people tend to come here illegally. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has been open, transparent and articulate in talking about the importance of legal migration to this country.

The Committee will consider skills shortages. If the hon. Member for Isle of Wight goes to his high street and speaks to the owners of south Asian restaurants, he will hear complaints about their inability to get specialist chefs into the country. At the conference of the Royal College of Nursing there were complaints that, because of the Government’s policy on skills and the tiers of the immigration rules, nurses would not be able to come. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the people who have come to contribute to this country as my parents and the parents of other first-generation immigrants did. The fact is that cutting off the legal route and making it more difficult leads to people finding other routes to come in. I am all for ensuring that the legal routes are robust, but they should also be fair.

That is relevant to our policy on students. The Minister will say that we always attract the best and brightest, but all Ministers say that. Why would we want people who were not? Why would we want to encourage people who were stupid, and who were not the best—who were the worst? All Ministers have said the same for my 28 years in the House. I am afraid that as a result of the student policy, the number of students coming from India has declined considerably, even though the number of Chinese students has increased.

[Mr Turner]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is fair—to use his word—that the EU should control who comes into this country from the whole of Europe, but that everyone from outside the EU is our responsibility?

[Keith Vaz]

Perhaps I am being unkind to the hon. Gentleman. I do not know his position on the EU. I have never believed that enlargement was wrong. That is partly because, of course, I was Minister for Europe at the time. I do not believe that we should constantly say “mea culpa”, and I signed some of the documents that allowed people from Poland, Hungary and other countries in. I think that the arrival of the eastern Europeans helped our economy. It boosted it enormously. It was different from migration from south Asia, because people from eastern Europe tend not to stay. They tend to want to go back—it is only two hours to Warsaw—but people from the subcontinent wanted to stay longer and put down roots. That does not apply to the eastern Europeans.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I have only a couple of minutes left, but I am sure that we will return to the subject on another day. We have seen increases in the number of Chinese students, but I look forward to continuing the debate another time.

We will introduce a new immigration Bill to clamp down on illegal immigration and to protect our public services, ensuring that we have the right emphasis. The Bill will tighten up access to public services and protect them against abuse by people who are here illegally. It will build on the provisions in the Immigration Act 2014. The reforms will, for example, speed up the removal process by extending the power to require individuals to leave the UK before bringing an appeal against a decision in all human rights cases, unless there is a real risk of serious, irreversible harm as a result of the overseas appeal. As I have indicated, that power is already making a significant difference.

Separately from that Bill, as the Prime Minister has said, we are going to get better at training our own people. To support that, we will consult on helping to fund businesses that use foreign labour through a new visa levy. That will address the skills issue, which a number of Members have touched on today. By improving the training of British workers, we should be able to lower the number of skilled workers we bring in from elsewhere. We have touched on the shortage occupation list, for example, which is set by the Migration Advisory Committee. I emphasise that a separate list applies in Scotland, reflecting some of the different circumstances. However, I draw Members’ attention to the fact that we have asked the committee to advise on significantly reducing economic migration from outside the EU—should an occupation always stay on the list? How can we reskill? Do we have a long-term, sustainable approach to the policy?

[Mr Turner]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I only have one minute left if I am to give my hon. Friend some time at the end.

I note that the right hon. Member for Leicester East has indicated that the Home Affairs Committee will take evidence on the Mediterranean issue and that there will be separate consideration of the pressures at Calais, which we will no doubt discuss next week, so perhaps I will save my comments for when I appear before the Committee. However, we are making a contribution in the Mediterranean to prevent those deaths. No doubt we will come back to the issue of resettlement. We believe that we are making a clear contribution through existing schemes and the vulnerable persons relocation scheme.

I emphasise that uncontrolled immigration makes it difficult to maintain social cohesion, puts pressure on public services and can drive down wages for people on low incomes. That is why our new immigration Bill and our EU renegotiations will control immigration. Our approach is based on being tougher, fairer and faster.

[Mr Turner]

I want to raise two issues that I think I have mentioned already but which the Minister did not touch on in his response. First, what are we going to do to control immigration from within the European Community? How much of that will we do ourselves, and how much will be done on our behalf, but effectively? We do not want 120,000 people coming here unless everyone approves. I want to know more about that.

Secondly, I see that the cap on skilled economic migrants from outside Europe will be maintained at 20,700 during this Parliament. Therefore, 100,000 are being admitted who are not part of the skilled economic migration cap. What are their qualifications for coming to this country?

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister will respond to that in writing—we have run out of time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Of course, this has not just arisen in relation to what has happened in Rotherham; we have also seen, as a result of the child sexual abuse inquiry that I have announced, larger numbers of people coming forward to a number of organisations dealing with child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation. The Government announced before Christmas that £7 million was being made available for a number of types of organisation dealing with these issues, and that process is now open for bids to be received.

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

17. What assessment she has made of the likelihood of terrorist attacks in rural areas of the UK.

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

It is clear that the UK faces a serious and enduring threat from terrorism. I cannot comment on intelligence matters or specific threat assessments, but I can confirm that specialist joint police, ambulance and fire teams are in place with the capability to respond to terrorist attacks in the country.

[Mr Turner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many potential targets in rural areas, including reservoirs, sewage plants, communication masts and electrical substations? Rural populations would face enormous difficulties if such sites were attacked. Will he assure me that such infrastructure is included in anti-terrorism planning?

[James Brokenshire]

Yes. We have a longstanding programme in place to ensure that the country’s most critical infrastructure is protected against terrorist threats. I cannot comment on the details, but our priority is to ensure the continuity of essential services such as water, energy and telecommunications, which were referenced by my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the concerns that many people have about that type of crime. I am pleased to say that we have taken action on cybercrime, and we have set up the national cyber crime unit in the National Crime Agency. Both actions were taken by this Government. The unit has already had some success in looking at those crimes, particularly the ones that involve defrauding elderly people who are taking calls and responding to them. We have seen some success, but of course this is an area in which we clearly have more to do.

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

T2. May I take this opportunity to welcome the Government’s Serious Crime Bill? Among other measures, it will improve the safety of my constituents on the Isle of Wight and in other coastal communities by giving police and others the powers they need to really go after the Mr Bigs and organised crime gangs, including those that import illegal drugs?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support for the Serious Crime Bill, which contains a number of important measures to tackle those Messrs Bigs about whom he talks, including the ability to seize their assets. If we can deprive criminals of their assets, they are much less likely to be able to carry on with their criminal lives.