Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I know my hon. Friend has taken up and worked very hard on this particular issue. I believe that one of the assistant commissioners from the Metropolitan police gave very clear evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on the fact that the approach to the use of dead children’s names and identities has changed within the Metropolitan police. They are very clear that this should not be happening now, and as I say, they have changed the action they take.

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

20. How many applicants have been granted citizenship over the last 20 years; and what estimate she has made of the number of errors or mistakes made in decisions on citizenship in that period.

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

The published national statistics of British citizenship grants show that there have been more than 2.4 million grants of citizenship over the last 20 years. The recent report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration endorsed decision making in the overwhelming majority of cases examined.

[Mr Turner]

None the less, will my hon. Friend say when errors were made and what the consequence of such changes would have been? Is he able to find out how many such citizenship errors should not have been made?

[James Brokenshire]

The Government are clear that the grant of UK citizenship is a privilege for those who deserve it, not an automatic right for those who do not. Some of the issues identified by the chief inspector relate to a decision in 2007 to grant a large number of people the right to remain here indefinitely even if they did not meet the rules, and we are working through a process on that. We have also tightened the rules so that if someone has a bad immigration history, they are banned from becoming a British citizen for at least 10 years.

Police Recorded Crime Statistics

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Brown]

I understand the recommendation. It is indeed a strong one and one that I support, but it is no longer my function to try to sort out demarcation disputes in this place, so although I have some experience of trying to do so, I will leave that to others, who are perhaps in a better position than I am to give a definitive answer to the point that the right hon. Lady quite rightly raises.

Today’s debate is the culmination of the Public Administration Committee’s work, which has been an effective parliamentary activity, and I congratulate the Chair and the rest of the Committee on their work. The Committee found strong evidence of under-recorded crime, which it attributed to lax compliance with the agreed national standards of victim-focused crime recording. In particular, sexual crimes such as rape were under-recorded as crimes.

The principal underlying cause is the conflict between achievement of targets and core policing values. That is a tremendously important point. The resources available to individual police forces must have a bearing on all this. However, especially in the case of sexual crimes such as rape, the emphasis must be on core policing values. Victims of those crimes must know that the police force is there to protect them, to take their complaint seriously and to be proactive in both recording the complaint as a crime and dealing with it as such.

The report has struck a raw nerve. As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex has already pointed out, the UK Statistics Authority has stripped police-recorded crime data of its quality kitemark. My hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) quite rightly asked in an intervention how serious that is. It is very serious. Decision makers rely on statistical evidence. If we believe in factual, evidence-based decision making, the evidence has to be accurate; if it is not, the decisions that follow will not necessarily be as focused as they should be. It would be important for any public authority, but given the special duties that go with the office of police constable, it is extraordinarily serious for the police.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one problem with regard to sex offences, and particularly with sex offenders under the age of 16, is that there is an assumption that many girls—sometimes boys, as well—get into their own mess? They must be treated as victims in all these cases, and each and every case must be investigated, even if the girls or boys thought it was a nice thing to do.

[Mr Brown]

The hon. Gentleman’s question is about minors. If a minor complains of an offence of that kind, or somebody does so on their behalf, the facts should be recorded and investigated. Children are not playthings for adults to do with as they want. Our whole society should protect children, not leave them exposed to the sort of criminality that has been going on. That is why both the recording and the investigation of that sort of offence are of fundamental importance.

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[Jack Dromey]

The Chair of the Select Committee makes an interesting point. It is true that the police have coped remarkably so far, in the circumstances. There has been some interesting innovation in the use of technology; I mentioned a classic example in the Essex police service. In addition, there remains significant scope to develop the use of technology. For example, the 19 basic technological requirements provide remote access and allow police officers to operate in the field with all necessary support, intelligence and access to intelligence, so that they do not have to go back to police stations. The electronic submission of witness statements is speeding up the criminal justice process, as the Camberwell project has shown. Video-link evidence can allow cases to be brought quickly and effectively to court, particularly domestic violence cases; some interesting experiences have arisen out of the Camberwell project in that regard.

Having said all that, I want to provide one example from the West Midlands police service to illustrate why resources matter. In the west midlands, 40 people have been brought before the courts for serious terrorist crime in the past five years, and there have been 31 convictions. That conviction rate was the result of highly effective and patient building of relationships with communities—all bar one of the defendants were of a Muslim background—and good neighbourhood policing. Year in, year out, the police have patiently built trust and confidence with the community, to the point where the community now comes forward and identifies wrongdoing in its ranks.

With all respect to the Chair of the Select Committee, all over the country neighbourhood policing is being hollowed out; that is eroding the ability of the police to form relationships that are crucial not only to the detection of wrongdoing—in the cases that I have just mentioned, serious wrongdoing—but the prevention of crimes and the diversion of people from crime. I have been conducting a tour of police services all over the country, including Essex. Everywhere I go, I hear that we are getting close to what the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers has called the “tipping point”. The Government must reflect long and hard on the continuing trajectory of significant cuts to our police service.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the benefits on the Isle of Wight is that police officers cannot get away? For them, there is no difference between “during working hours” and “outside working hours”. They are there, and people will collar them in the street and ask them to do things. They cannot pretend that they are not working, because they are there. What can we do about the fact that London’s policemen are brought in from Hampshire, Berkshire and so on?

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, and I will say two things in response. First, it was Robert Peel who said:

“The police are the public and the public are the police.”

In the past 25 years, we have seen the importance of the evolution from those principles of neighbourhood policing. The emphasis is on the notion of local policing, local routes, local say, local familiarity and the building of relationships of trust and confidence. The police are entitled to go home, but if they come from the communities that they serve, they are better able to understand the nature of those communities.

Secondly, there is a problem in the Metropolitan police. My view of the police service is different from, and perhaps more positive than, the Government’s view. However, I also believe that there are many things wrong with the police that have to be put right. I remember telling the ACPO conference the maxim:

“The police are the public and the public are the police,”

but saying that the only problem was that they did not look like the public. The Metropolitan police is a classic example of that, because it does not look like the communities that it serves. Frankly, due to housing pressures and the cost of housing, too many Metropolitan police officers live in counties adjacent to London, up to 50 miles away. We can address that in a range of ways, including with affordable housing.

Steps must be taken to widen the pool from which we draw police officers, including in London. Last week I met an impressive chief inspector from Police Now who is doing exactly that by, for example, targeting universities in London—including the old polytechnics in north London, which have diverse student populations—with the notion that students can become a police officer for two years and then have the option of continuing with a career in the police service. Police Now is reaching out and targeting communities within those geographical areas to encourage people to become members of the police service. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) makes a powerful case and, going back to my starting point, I believe in Robert Peel’s maxim, but we must ensure that the police truly reflect the people.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

rose—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I remind Members that this debate is about the recording of crime statistics, rather than a general debate about policing. We have plenty of time for the debate, but we should focus on the content of the Select Committee’s report and the Government’s response.

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[Norman Baker]

That is a very wide question, which goes beyond the reporting of crime statistics, but, as we have made plain through the College of Policing—my colleague the Policing Minister has taken a clear lead on this—we are looking at police integrity. The Home Secretary has not been backward in coming forward in addressing the issue in her speeches. We are determined to drive up performance in the police and to eliminate bad practice. I hope that will reduce the need for whistleblowing, but it does not reduce the need for a proper channel for whistleblowing, as and when it is deemed appropriate by an individual officer exercising his or her conscience genuinely about an issue in the police force.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

In the example mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), which Metropolitan police body was responsible for the treatment of the person involved, leading to his departure?

[Norman Baker]

I am not in a position to go into the case of PC James Patrick in great detail, and I hope Members will understand. Clearly, the commissioner is ultimately responsible for how the Metropolitan police operates. However, I can confirm that we will strengthen protections for police whistleblowers. I can also confirm, as I said a moment ago, that police officers have the right to access the IPCC, should they wish to do so, on matters in their force.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I recognise my hon. Friend’s important point. Asylum seekers cannot travel through safe countries illegally and then choose where to claim asylum. If we have evidence that an asylum seeker has travelled through another European country before claiming asylum in the UK, we will seek to return them under the Dublin regulations. Since those regulations came into force in 2003, 12,000 asylum claimants have been so returned.

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

11. What assessment she has made of the reasons for the rise in immigration from (a) EU and (b) non-EU countries between March 2013 and March 2014.

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

Our reforms have cut net migration by a quarter since the peak under the previous Government and have led to net migration from outside the EU falling to levels close to those last seen in the 1990s. However, the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics show a rise in long-term immigration from EU nationals coming to the UK for work-related reasons.

[Mr Turner]

Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that all immigrants to the United Kingdom, from countries within and outside the EU, must get approval in future from the Home Secretary? Anything else will cause us to be regarded as a soft touch.

[James Brokenshire]

I underline the reforms that the Government have made, which have been effective in cutting net migration from outside the EU. My hon. Friend raises the issue of EU migration and free movement. It is absolutely right that the Prime Minister has underlined the need for reform of free movement, and how, if we are elected as the next Government, that will be at the heart of our renegotiation with the EU.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

That sounds to me like something that is best left between the hon. Gentleman and the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. Prudence suggests that I should move on rather than respond to that.

We have just had a debate on the business motion, in which my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration set out the reason for the timing of this legislation, so I will not go into that in detail, but I will talk about the provisions of the Bill. The Bill is short and narrowly focused and provides a limited response to a set of specific challenges. Clause 1 provides the clear legal basis for us to oblige domestic companies to retain certain types of communications data. Currently, those communications data are retained by communication service providers under the data retention regulations passed by Parliament in 2009, which implemented the EU data retention directive in the UK.

Although we are confident that those regulations remain in force, following the ECJ judgment, we must put beyond doubt the need for CSPs to continue to retain communications data, as they have been doing until now. If we do not do so, we run the risk of losing access to those data, which, as I have said, are vital for day-to-day policing. Our very strong data protection laws mean that, in the absence of a legal duty to retain specific data, companies must delete data that are not required beyond their strict business uses. The loss of those data would be potentially devastating. As I said earlier, it would impact seriously on the ability of the police, law enforcement agencies and our security and intelligence agencies to investigate crime, solve kidnappings, find vulnerable people in danger, uncover terrorist links and protect children.

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

Will my right hon. Friend explain for my benefit why it is legitimate to have the 12-month limit with the approval of Government, but not with the approval of the European Court of Justice?

[Mrs May]

The European Court of Justice did not say that a 12-month retention period was unlawful. It said that it recognised the need for access to and retention of the data, and it questioned the periods that were set aside. In fact, the data retention directive said that data could be retained for up to 24 months—we had previously used 12 months, rather than 24—but one of the issues was that it was said that requiring the retention of every type of data for the same period of time was not right and proportionate, and that it was necessary to be able to differentiate. We are introducing that differentiation by setting our data retention period at a maximum of 12 months, so that notices issued to CSPs for certain types of data can, if it is felt to be right, ask for retention to be for a shorter period.

As I have said, communications data are used in 95% of serious and organised crime investigations handled by the Crown Prosecution Service and have played a significant role in every Security Service counter-terrorism operation over the last decade. Clauses 1 and 2 will ensure that we can maintain the status quo by replicating our existing data retention regulations. As I have indicated, the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to issue a notice to a communications service provider only if he or she considers the retention to be necessary and proportionate. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and other hon. Members, the data retention notice will specify the duration for which data are to be retained, for up to a maximum of 12 months. If it is not proportionate to retain certain data for a full 12 months, a shorter period can be chosen. The data types that can be retained will be limited to the strict list of data types that are currently specified in the 2009 data retention regulations, and there will be a clear requirement for the Secretary of State to keep any data retention notice under review.

Migration Statistics

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, Mr Walker. The Public Administration Committee report on migration statistics was published before I was appointed by the House to be a member of that Committee, but it is, none the less, excellent. It is a testament to the fine leadership of the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), and to the hard work of current and previous Committee members.

The Committee is tasked with scrutinising good government across all Departments. Many people would argue that after the defence of the realm, the Government’s most important role is to protect and uphold the rights and interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom. In order to do so, they need to know with a high degree of accuracy exactly whose rights and interests they must protect and uphold. That information is necessary to ensure that public services can be properly planned and to enable the Office for National Statistics to produce statistics in which the public and the House can have confidence.

It is absolutely clear that the citizens whose rights and interests the Government should protect are interested in who is in our country, why they are here, what they are doing and when they leave. In order for the Government to fulfil their duties to UK citizens, plan public services, produce accurate statistics and address the legitimate concerns of the people, they must do all they can to ensure that migration statistics are accurate, up to date and fit for purpose.

On the Isle of Wight, UKSA usually refers to the UK Sailing Academy, but it also stands for the UK Statistics Authority. Despite the excellent work of the former organisation on the island, I am speaking today of the latter institution. In 2009, the UKSA said:

“Both users and ONS’ statisticians generally agree that migration statistics are not fit for all of the purposes for which they are currently used and require further improvement.”

Between 2008 and 2012, some improvements were made in the statistical data, which the Public Administration Committee welcomed. Those improvements were not enough, however, to earn the wholehearted support of the Royal Statistical Society, the British Society for Population Studies or the Royal Geographical Society, although the latter body conceded that the ONS is doing a good job with poor data. The international passenger survey, which is used as the primary source for those statistics, was never intended for that purpose, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has said. It is hardly surprising that the survey was not up to a job for which it was never designed, so more needs to be done.

The original recommendation from the Committee was that e-Borders data, due to be fully operational this year, should also be fed into the statistics. That was superseded by the news in March that Labour’s over-ambitious and badly implemented e-Borders scheme had to be scrapped. However, I welcome the Government’s commitment to make much more of the information from the border systems programme available to the ONS to help improve the statistics.

[Keith Vaz]

The e-Borders scheme is a particular concern of the Home Affairs Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that we still do not know why the agreement made between the previous Government and the company that was undertaking e-Borders went wrong? That is still the subject of litigation. When we have massive procurement, as we had with e-Borders, it is extremely important that we know what went wrong before we procure for the future.

[Mr Turner]

That is absolutely right, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing it out.

I also welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Public Administration Committee’s recommendation to use data held by other countries. The Government are hamstrung by EU free movement legislation, which prevents their gathering information on why people from EU countries are coming to the UK and how long they intend to stay.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the normal price for a visa is £83, but for people staying a year or more the price is £300? That is a substantial sum. Surely some of that visa money should be allocated to ensuring that we have proper software and data collection systems in place. I do not apologise for going back to make certain that people are welcomed when they come into the United Kingdom via our airports. We want to ensure that people, particularly tourists, are not kept unduly in long queues while we collect the data that are necessary for us to have accurate information.

[Mr Turner]

We should be able to collect the data rapidly, as we all recognise. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering what can be done. In the meantime, I urge the Minister to make all possible information available to the ONS to help it improve its statistical analysis of migration figures. I ask him to keep in mind possible sources of information that might help the ONS and make those sources of information available, and to do so even when he is not being held directly to account by the Public Administration Committee, the Home Affairs Committee, the whole House or even those who sit in another place. I hope he is able to assure me that he will do so.

People across the UK, whatever their political persuasion, welcome the Government’s aim to cut immigration. In 2003, I made it clear that growing immigration levels would have an effect on the already overstretched jobs market, as well as on the public services to which immigrants would become entitled. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) echoed my statement. There is huge demand for housing in our cities and larger towns, with consequent movement into more rural towns, which was called “white flight.” My statement followed the admission of the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), that he “hadn’t a clue” about the number of illegal immigrants in the UK.

Even some of those on the Opposition Benches now decry Labour’s disastrous policy of opening this country’s doors to all comers—a policy with no mandate, implemented in secret. Andrew Neather, a former Government adviser, suggested that Labour’s policy was

“to rub the Right’s nose in diversity.”

Labour conducted its affairs privately so that, by encouraging mass migration, it would not alienate its core working-class vote. Such actions are neither acceptable nor beneficial to the country in any way.

The Labour Government brought two and a half cities the size of Birmingham—a total of almost 3 million people—to this country without breathing a word. There is little doubt that we have made significant progress in putting better controls in place and repairing some of the damage, but we need accurate statistics that demonstrate that our policies are working. So as well as knowing who is coming in, we need to know who is leaving. I hope the Home Secretary’s expectation that full exit checks will be in place by next year is met.

I will draw my remarks to a close by saying that I understand how difficult a job my hon. Friend the Minister and his Conservative predecessors have had. They inherited a right old muddle, and sorting it out was never going to be easy or quick, but if people are to have confidence in migration statistics, those statistics need to chime with the reality of people’s day-to-day experiences. At present, the statistics simply do not do that, so I particularly welcome the Government’s sensible and positive response to the Committee’s recommendations on communicating the statistics to the public better. These are complex issues, but improvements in communicating the data will help the public to understand them better and lead to more informed debate, which is something we will all welcome.

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[Adam Afriyie]

That is absolutely right. Clear, accurate and granular information, data and statistics will enable groups with a view on each category of immigration to take a reasoned view.

I often think that politicians’ use of statistics—I confess that this may include me in my early days—is like a drunk’s leaning on a lamp post, less for illumination and more for support. I do not mean to criticise the ONS or even the passenger survey, which is doing what it is told to do in the best way it can, but the danger of the Government’s or any politician’s leaning on the immigration data and statistics is that they are weak and will just fall over. Yet the public animosity and disharmony that can be created by the misuse or misrepresentation of the data are all too well known.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £2 million, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said the Government are not willing to spend, is a tiny amount when it is considered that the same sum is proposed to be spent on a quarter of a mile of A road in my constituency? Why cannot the Home Office find the £2 million?

[Adam Afriyie]

The Home Office is doing difficult work in difficult circumstances of coalition. I agree with my hon. Friend. It would seem that spending £1 million or £2 million—or even £5 million or £10 million —to deal with such a vital issue at the heart of a current national debate, which could unsettle an entire nation, is a small sum, if that is what is required to put this matter right.

I suspect that only small sums and adaptations in how we use existing data and how we conduct the passenger surveys would be needed, and that those would assist enormously, in addition to the exit checks.

If we are to plan our public services, we need to have a good idea about what the immigration statistics and data are. It is interesting that the ONS said that the data at the moment

“should not be used as a proxy for flows of foreign migrants into the UK”.

The Oxford Migration Observatory stated:

“sampling errors are too large to measure with a reasonable degree of accuracy the number of migrants to a single region”

within

“the UK, or from a single country of origin”.

Yet if we listen to the public debate, including in my constituency, assumptions are already being made about particular areas and the effect of immigration. I have to admit that sometimes assumptions are presented by Departments, senior politicians and political leaders on the level of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration, for example, although the data just are not there to justify the statements.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) made it clear on “Newsnight” a few weeks ago that, when looking at current data collection, a handful of Romanians or Bulgarians—four, five or six—making a certain statement could lead to a difference of 4,000 in our estimate of the number of Romanians or Bulgarians coming into the country. It is clear that the data are currently insufficient to draw conclusions or create policies from.

The current data are vague and self-selecting. People who go to another country wanting to stay there, knowing that there were no exit checks and that they could probably get away with it—not that I would do this—would, if they were desperate, answer appropriately to a question in a passenger survey about how long they intended to stay, to ensure that it looked okay. There is a lot of self-selection in who answers the survey and there will clearly be, if we are all reasonable human beings, an understanding that people will answer questions to serve their purpose, although I would hope that everyone is honest.

Although we want to get immigration levels down to tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, with the data and statistics that have been available for the past four years our current estimates could be 200,000 or 250,000, one way or the other: these numbers are enormous and the statistical significance of the data really needs to be examined and reined in as soon as possible.

Public Administration Select Committee

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Our recommendation is that MOPAC should abandon targets. If it has slogans, they should be aspirations, not targets. The hon. Gentleman, who is on the Committee and for whose work I am grateful, is right that there are aspects of this that raise very serious questions about the ethics and values of the leadership of the police, particularly the Metropolitan police.

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on this matter. May I draw Members’ attention to paragraph 39 which says that

“misrecording of sexual offences is deplorable, but especially so if this has been brought about by means of improperly persuading or pressurising victims into withdrawing or downgrading their report.”?

That particularly affects children.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments.

Asylum Seekers (Support)

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have said, we see an important and valuable role for the voluntary and non-governmental sector. Indeed, many fantastic organisations provide support services to migrants and asylum seekers, which I want to encourage and to see supported. It is important that the system delivers effective services and, ultimately, value for money.

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

Very few direct links exist between asylum sources and this country, yet we seem to be a temporary home for many asylum seekers from all over the world. Why is that?

[James Brokenshire]

In 2013, the number of asylum applications in the EU was the highest since 2002. The UK has experienced a rise, but countries such as Germany and France saw increases of 164% and 37% respectively between 2010 and 2013. We are committed to resolving cases more quickly, and we provide direct assistance to regions in crisis, such as Syria, so that people do not need to travel to the UK or elsewhere to seek that assistance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree very much with my right hon. Friend. The specials do a great job anyway, and their recruitment is particularly important, both as a way of increasing the diversity of forces, and as an entry route to full-time paid policing. Specials bring a degree of expertise from outside the traditional policing route, but many find it such a satisfactory career that they wish to pursue it full time.

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

Do the words “disadvantaged groups” in the question suggest that white working-class people should also gain from any measures?

[Damian Green]

It is not for me to anticipate what the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) was thinking when she tabled the question, but I have made the point that the Metropolitan police is offering interest-free loans; as I say, they will be made on the basis of residency in London—because the commissioner of the Met is keen that policing in London be done increasingly by people who live in the Metropolitan police area—and on the basis of means-testing. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) can be reassured on that point.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills]

I agree with what my hon. Friend says. He leads us to a fundamental tension. Can we allow freedom of movement when there are such disparities of wealth between the new nations joining the EU and others, and when the attractiveness of our benefit system means that it is very different from what people experience in their country? There is a tension between the welfare system that we would like and the impact that it has when there is free movement of people, and we must resolve that, one way or another.

It would be far better for the European Court not to produce such ludicrous decisions. Those of us on the Eurosceptic side of the debate probably welcome perverse decisions that further lower the reputation of the EU and the UK, but if I were in the Court’s shoes, I am not sure that I would be quite so creative.

The NHS is attractive to people coming here, and there are also concerns about whether we have enough housing to accommodate large influxes of migrants over the next five years. Those of us who are experiencing great discomfort due to local plans to comply with existing housing targets probably do not fancy adding a few more hundred thousand people throughout the country, and seeing how many more houses we will have to find on our green belt. There are also impacts on other public services, notably schools, in areas where there is high pressure from immigration.

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

Does my hon. Friend not agree that 2 million new people in this country over the past 10 years is far too many? We must find out what the Government foresee in future.

[Nigel Mills]

I think there is general agreement that the level of migration over the past decade was clearly higher than the country could cope with. Members of the previous Government are now recognising that they made mistakes, especially relating to the accession of the A8 countries a decade ago. It is worth reminding ourselves that 5,000 to 13,000 people a year were predicted to come from those countries, and more than 1 million actually came. That was a spectacularly bad prediction.

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[Nigel Mills]

My hon. Friend is clearly right. However, sadly, I do not think that we can convince the Government to pull us out of the EU in the next fortnight, and so we probably need to take some different measures in the meantime. He may have noticed that the five-year period I am proposing for keeping the restrictions will take us well past the referendum that we hope will take place on our EU membership. At that point, the people will have been able to choose whether they want to stay in and have unrestricted migration or to leave and reintroduce our border controls. I hope he would agree that a five-year time frame for keeping the restrictions would be one way of helping to meet his aspirations in that situation.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

My hon. Friend said that the Bulgarians and Romanians have not joined the Schengen agreement, although that had been expected. Is that an agreement that they made but have subsequently decided not to stick with, or an agreement that they made with the rest of Europe in which we were not involved?

[Nigel Mills]

As I understand it, Schengen is an agreement between nations rather than a treaty, and, fortunately, one that we are outside as we were thankfully not required to join. Having had a pleasant meeting with the Bulgarian ambassador in a TV studio not that long ago, I know that there is some annoyance among those nations because they feel that they have met the criteria for Schengen but are not being permitted to join it. There were some strong quotes from Mr Barroso on why that was not to be the case; he used language that I would not want to use in a debate in immigration, but there we go.

I am a little over the time that I promised I would take with my remarks, so I will conclude. I do not think that any other measure has been trailed or announced that can tackle this matter in the right time frame. There is widespread concern, as anyone who reads almost any of the newspapers can see. I have already mentioned the Daily Express petition with 150,000 signatures; yesterday we saw a campaign in The Sun and today there is an editorial on the issue in The Daily Telegraph. It is an issue of great concern. The Government need either to give us convincing reassurance that the problem will not arise or to take some action to protect our employment market and protect those people in our constituencies who are struggling to find work. The only realistic answer is to keep proportionate restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians in place for a further period. I urge the Government to act before those restrictions are lifted on 1 January.

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[Mr Bone]

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has prejudged my position on the referendum; I want entirely to hear what our Prime Minister achieves.

I am delighted that the excellent Minister for Immigration is here. The only thing I have to say about that is that we know that the Government have decided to give that Member of Parliament the most difficult area to deal with—the one that they are in trouble on. It is good to see him here, but it is a worry that the Government are relying not on getting the problem sorted out, but on having a very able Minister defend an absolutely impossible position.

One of the cornerstones and key strengths of the coalition is its tough stance on cutting immigration, which Labour allowed to soar to eye-watering levels. In 2010, we pledged to

“take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s—tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.”

That is a common-sense policy, with overwhelming support. After a decade of Labour incompetence on the issue, it is long overdue.

The progress that we have made on cutting immigration to date is testament to the efforts of the Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I strongly believe that lifting the restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants would jeopardise all the good work we have done, not only on getting immigration down, but on building new homes, improving public services and lowering unemployment.

Bulgaria’s new ambassador to the UK has claimed that hardly any Bulgarians want to move to the UK once restrictions are lifted, and that, more than anything, the change will hurt their economy. If that is the case, he should welcome continued restrictions. Government figures show that although overall immigration is down, eastern European immigration is bucking the trend, and is increasing. The number of people from Romania and Bulgaria settling in the UK has risen sharply, up from 37 in 2011 to 2,177 in 2012. Clearly, if the restrictions are lifted, those figures will increase dramatically, making them completely incompatible with the Government’s aim to reduce immigration.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to interrupt him. The number that we wish to control is the number of people from outside Europe. It is true, of course, that until now, we have got the figures for migration from within Europe down as well, but there is no promise from the Government that that will continue.

[Mr Bone]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There is no guarantee at all. I am arguing that because of the removal of the restrictions, we will break that important promise.

It is common sense for us as a country to continue the restrictions, and the only obstacle to that is the European Union. That, however, is not an arrangement that the British people signed up to. The last time the people had a vote on the European Economic Community was in 1975. Needless to say, we now have an EU. When the EEC was in existence, it was a small group of prosperous western European countries. Now, the EU takes in poorer countries in central Europe that were formerly in the communist bloc. Old EU regulations and laws that applied to the European Economic Community have become seriously out of date; as a result, the EU is forcing on us a wave of immigration that the British public do not want and did not vote for, and that will have negative repercussions for our economy and our people.

This is the time when we need to stand up to the European Union and say, “Enough is enough.” Parliament is answerable to the British people, and therefore has sovereignty over the UK’s borders. We do not need to be told by a post-democratic body what our immigration policy is. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister stated that our country should welcome only those who came here to work hard. Relaxing the current arrangements and deregulating immigration from these two countries would do exactly the opposite.

I thoroughly welcome the Government’s Immigration Bill, and the proposals to restrict the access that immigrants have to the wealth of benefits that we offer. One such proposal is for an initial three-month period before benefits can be claimed. Migration Watch UK concludes that there are “very strong financial incentives” for Bulgarians and Romanians to move to the UK, partly due to the much higher wages and living standards in the United Kingdom.

Immigration

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

I asked for the debate today because of public concern about immigration levels. We all know, not least because Members now in opposition have admitted it, that the previous Government had a deliberate policy of encouraging uncontrolled immigration. The right hon. Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw), for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) have been queuing up to blow the whistle on the Labour record. Lord Mandelson told us in May that they even sent out search parties to find people to come and live in this country, seeking to fulfil their key political aim of making the UK truly multicultural, by encouraging mass migration.

The annual net immigration figure under Labour rose from 48,000 in 1997 to 198,000 by 2009. Between 1997 and 2010, net migration into Great Britain totalled 2.2 million people—more than twice the population of Birmingham. It is no wonder we had a crisis. Members on both sides of the House know that immigration is not just a population problem; it is also an NHS, education and welfare problem. Government figures cited in The Sunday Telegraph last week show that, on average, each immigrant costs the taxpayer more than £8,000 a year in health care, education and benefits. That applies whether they come from inside or outside the European Union.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman lists the downsides of immigration. Does he accept that there are also huge benefits and that immigrants contribute substantially to the economy, the NHS and many other aspects of the life we enjoy in Britain?

[Mr Turner]

If the hon. Gentleman listens a moment or two longer, he will find that I come to those points.

No one ever thought to ask the British people whether they wanted what happened. Plans and policies were concealed, and mass immigration happened by stealth. One can only speculate whether Tony Blair would have been swept to power had he gone into the 1997 general election saying, “I will oversee an unprecedented increase in immigration.” Perhaps not—but now we must deal with the consequences of his policy.

Other hon. Members and I sit in our surgeries listening to tales of people living in overcrowded social housing or being on the waiting list for years with no hope of ever getting a home. It is no coincidence that with high net migration, from 2002, there was an increase of more than 60% in social housing waiting lists. Foreign nationals now occupy 8.4% of the housing stock, and among those aged 16 to 40 the figure is 12.6%. On the Isle of Wight we have a relatively small immigrant population, and overwhelmingly those residents work hard and make an important contribution to the community—indeed, they are an important and integral part of it. However, that is not the case everywhere.

I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that they moved to the Isle of Wight because they no longer recognised the places where they grew up; that now, in streets where their grandparents lived, no one appears to speak English; and that they moved to get away from ghettos where they felt they no longer belonged. The effects of mass immigration, mostly into our cities, are felt even in rural areas such as the Isle of Wight. We must recognise that.

I am thankful that the Government have begun to make a difference. They have made progress in cutting immigration from outside the EU. They cracked down on the abuse of student visas, unjustified family visas and—I am glad to say—bogus marriages. However, they have been unable to close our borders to a huge influx of EU nationals who can come whether or not there are jobs and homes for them, schools for their children or doctors and hospitals to care for them. Many British people believe that that must come to an end.

I have recently, in the words of one of my staff, joined the 21st century: I have signed up to Twitter and exchanged views with the intriguingly named Wight Car Tipper. I tweeted that we should extend transitional arrangements for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals and that our Government should have control of our borders. Wight Car Tipper asked me whether I thought his daughter, who has a French passport, should be able to live in the UK and retain the rights she currently has. I replied that it depends on the circumstances. Presumably, with the fine name of Mr Wight Car Tipper, her father is British, and in that case I think that she should be able to come and live here. However, I do not believe that foreign nationals from the EU or elsewhere should have the same rights as a British citizen, and I strongly believe that our Government must have the right to decide who can live and work here.

There is a fine British principle of fair play—of not getting something for nothing, and of making a contribution to society before being entitled to benefit from it. That principle must be applied to those who come to the UK. Someone who has only just arrived cannot have contributed to society. Some people claim that we need more immigrants to pay the pensions of an ageing population. That, of course, glosses over what happens when the immigrants get old—it is simply an argument for an endless influx of new migrants.

I am grateful to see the Minister here to respond to the debate, and extremely pleased that the Home Secretary has recognised at least part of the problem. She has suggested that free movement for future accession countries could be controlled, and that future member states should reach a certain economic threshold before full free movement is allowed. However, that would not deal with the current treaties that we have signed, or the issues that we will face in only a few weeks.

The Government are seeking to deal with some of the problems—the things that attract those who want to come to the UK to take advantage of our generous welfare system—but that approach does not deal with the basic right of so many foreign nationals to live and work here. They have those rights regardless of how overcrowded our island becomes, or how many of our own people are unemployed.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

How many British citizens live and work in Europe at the moment, and how many of them would be affected by the proposals that the hon. Gentleman contemplates?

[Mr Turner]

I do not know the figure, but it is certainly substantial.

[Mr Hanson]

What would happen to those individuals if the policy that the hon. Gentleman suggests—of immigrants not having the right to live and work in this country—were applied to British citizens in France, Spain or elsewhere in Europe?

[Mr Turner]

That is entirely up to the Governments of those countries. I feel that they should have the right to determine that issue for themselves, just as we should for our country.

The Government must try to deal with the concerns of many British people and, indeed, many settled and integrated migrant communities—those who recognise that we simply cannot retain an open-door policy for all current EU citizens. We need a more nuanced policy that is controlled by our elected Government and that works in the interests of the British nation.

In 1973, we signed up to the treaty of Rome, which established the free movement of people across the then common market. Let me be frank: it was a rich man’s club, and the number of people coming to the UK was small. In 1975, net migration was 3,000. Since then, the club has expanded to places such as Croatia, where the average wage is a 10th of that in the UK. It is hardly surprising that people there want to move to the more prosperous parts of the EU.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, which I am following closely and enjoying immensely. Is he as concerned as I am that large numbers of non-EU citizens are now entitled to EU passports and therefore entitled to come to this country? Up to 3 million people from Moldova, for example, can access Romanian passports and will be able to come here from 1 January.

[Mr Turner]

I did not know about that, but I certainly believe it.

Figures published just last week show that net migration unexpectedly jumped to 182,000 in the year to June 2013, due in part to a rise in prospective workers coming from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

People cannot be blamed for wanting a better life. Let me be clear that I do not blame them; I blame the outdated rules of the EU and the previous Labour Government, who sent out the message that anybody and everybody could and should come to the UK if they want. Britain, however, simply cannot provide a better life for everyone who wants to come here. We do not have the infrastructure or jobs to do that.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this timely debate. Has he received or been able to obtain any estimate of the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who are likely to come to the UK when the labour market restrictions are lifted on 1 January?

[Mr Turner]

I have not seen any information from the Government. I do not blame them, because they cannot guess. How could they? There is a range of figures that go all over the place. I am interested in sorting these things out once and for all. Whether we get the changes through by January or later, we continue to work on the matter.

I want to pay tribute to the role that so many foreign people have played in our history and still play in our society today. In 1942, the Polish destroyer ORP Blyskawica saved Cowes from Luftwaffe bombs; every year, we from the island commemorate that event and the brave Polish crew. The NHS employs many EU-born and non-EU-born doctors and nurses across the UK—indeed, it could not function without them.

Those are just two of many examples, but shared history and our reliance on skilled workers cannot mean that everybody in the EU has the right to live here. We cannot provide places for people from overseas while less-educated people from the UK cannot find a job. The treaty of Rome was a product of its time. The unfettered, free movement of people is no longer appropriate and polls show that, for the majority of people, it is no longer acceptable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) recently suggested a five-year extension to the restrictions. That would be a good start, but there is an even better answer: the one recently proposed by the European Scrutiny Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash).With unanimous support, the Committee believes, as I do, that we should legislate to restore our country’s sovereignty. We should make provision for the British Parliament to disapply EU laws and give British courts the duty to uphold British laws.

The time is overdue for us to stand up to the EU and tell it that this Parliament takes precedence and that we will make our own decisions about who can live here, work here and benefit from our welfare state. The time is fast approaching when the calls for change will be so many and so loud that they can no longer be denied.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on allowing us one and a half hours of parliamentary time to debate a very important issue. You will have seen, Mr Howarth, that it is clearly a complex and multilayered issue. We have had discussions about the importance of integration and of the impact of European migration, but we have also heard very strong contributions about the need for business, for students and for tourism. We need to reflect on all those in any positive response to the debate that we are having today.

I start by echoing what the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) said in what I thought was—I hope I will not upset him by saying this—an excellent contribution: that immigration has benefited the United Kingdom over many centuries. People have come here to build our biggest companies, to create our national health service and to win our sports prizes. I am struck by the fact that we are meeting just off Westminster Hall, which was built by William Rufus, the son of an immigrant, in 1098. I say to the hon. Gentleman that we have a proud history of contribution from immigration, but I also say that we need to examine the fact that real concerns and tensions are caused by some of the issues that have been raised and accepted here today.

I hope that I can help to assuage the fears raised by the hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), for Braintree and for Isle of Wight by saying that, yes, mistakes were made by the previous Labour Government. If I may say so, however, I do not think that it was as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said. There was no mass plan for increasing multi- culturalism, but I think that there was a willingness and a wish to ensure that we had a positive approach to eastern Europe.

Under the communist yoke, that part of Europe was not free, not engaged in free-market economies, not trading with us and not developing some of the economies in which we are going to invest resources for the future. That was the case for many years, so I think that there was a willingness. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others have said that there was a lack of transitional controls that should have been, potentially, put in place, and that that has created some community tension. But let us not say that it was in total a bad thing, because I think that we do have some very positive benefits from migration generally.

I can look at my own constituency. The biggest employer there makes aeroplane wings with contributions from French, Spanish, German and British workers. Only last week, there was a £30 billion order for aeroplanes for my constituency. The neighbouring constituency has the site of the Toyota factory—a Japanese factory managed in my area by Japanese staff, creating employment for people in my constituency. Kimberly-Clark in my constituency is also a major employer in my area. That is an American-based company with American staff helping to invest in that company. Immigration brings wealth, prosperity and businesses, but it also brings challenges, as has been expressed.

Particularly in view of the potential for Romanian and Bulgarian immigration from 1 January—like the Minister, I do not know what that figure will be—we must look at labour market issues associated with the exploitation of those who come to this country to work. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) touched on those issues as being important.

I want the minimum wage to be strengthened to stop exploitation. I want local authorities to step up enforcement, and I want fines for non-compliance to be increased. The Prime Minister and the Minister have alluded to the potential for a move in that direction. It is not acceptable for wages to be forced down in this country by immigration from eastern Europe. I want gangmaster legislation to be strengthened and extended to areas such as catering and tourism, which it does not cover at the moment.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some fair points. The question that he has not yet answered—he has another five minutes in which to do so—is whether those decisions should be made here in the UK or there in Europe.

[Mr Hanson]

I am a believer in a wider Europe, and I do not think we should retrench into the position that the hon. Gentleman has set out. We might look at what changes are needed, but our position in the European Community is a strong one for our markets. We may disagree on the matter, but that is my view.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central mentioned recruitment agencies. As we discussed in the Immigration Bill Committee, there are websites on which people try, in contravention of the Equality Act 2010, to recruit staff solely from eastern Europe or, increasingly, from southern Italy. I do not think that that is fair or right, and we should look at measures to outlaw such recruitment. In my constituency, local people cannot access vacancies in certain factories because staff are recruited solely from eastern Europe. That has to be wrong, and we should deal with that labour market issue.

We must strengthen and enforce housing legislation. I believe that the Minister agrees, because he has mentioned beds in sheds. We need to end the practice of shifts of people in the same accommodation sleeping for eight hours, working for eight hours and spending eight hours on the street, as happens in my constituency and in many others. We must take action to tackle that, because it undercuts the UK labour market and exploits those who come here legitimately for work.

We must also focus on the positive aspects of immigration. I have had representations from businesses—I even met some this morning—through London First and others. They tell me that, as the hon. Member for Cambridge and my hon. Friend have said, we need to attract people from the student community abroad, to ensure that they not only bring fees and spending power to the country but carry the good will of this country with them into their future work. The Prime Minister of Malaysia, or the future chairmen or chief executives of businesses abroad, will look back on their time in the UK with fond memories. That is an unseen export that we should contribute towards.

In addition to attracting students, we must also focus on tourism. I discovered last week that Chinese tourism is worth £103 billion to the rest of the world, but in this country we benefit from only £300 million of that amount. We need to increase our share of that market. To give credit where it is due—I try to be fair—the Prime Minister has tried to do just that. We must not ignore the fact that immigration is not only about eastern Europe; it is about opening our borders to allow people to get in for tourism purposes and to spend their money. I agree that we also need to look at business issues, which are important. If someone wants to come here to invest £1 million or £2 million in creating a business, we must allow them to.

I share the view of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes that integration is extremely important. In many of our towns and cities, including my constituency, the sudden influx of people speaking different languages in supermarkets and on the streets has created tensions, which I hope will ease with time. We must look at how we can maximise the benefits of Europe while having fair and appropriate immigration controls.

That leads me to say that we must ensure that we have strong borders. The report “The Border Force: securing the border”, published yesterday by the Public Accounts Committee, raised some criticism. No one says that the problem is easy to deal with; it was not easy when we were in charge and it is not easy now. We need to look at strong border controls. We need to ensure that those who have been through the system and have failed the residency test are removed from the United Kingdom in a fair way. We need to ensure that people who come here integrate and speak English and that we have a proper and effective immigration system.

I do not think, however, with due respect to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight and some others who have spoken today, that closing our borders in the way they have described by repatriating powers would be a good thing. I do not think that putting up a “Britain is shut” sign will help the economy or the residents of the country, however long they have been here, in the long term.

We have had a useful debate, and discussion of the matter will continue. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to the points I have raised. There are real steps that the Government could take, but are not taking, to deal with labour market issues, which would assuage some of the concerns that have been raised today.