Immigration Bill

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I can refer the hon. Gentleman to it. It is research carried out over a number of years by Imperial College, and I will be happy to send it to him. I suggest that he should perhaps spend more time looking at the evidence about immigration, rather than resorting to rhetoric, as I know he is wont to do.

All of that having been said at the beginning, the nature and scale of immigration to the UK has changed in the past decade, particularly since the expansion of the European Union into eastern Europe. Anyone who spent any length of time on doorsteps in the first half of this year cannot dispute the fact that immigration remains one of the highest concerns of the public, and the truth is that public and political debate has failed to keep pace with public concern, resulting in a feeling that the political class is out of touch.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

That would be a good point at which to bring in the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Jackson]

May I take the shadow Home Secretary back to academic evidence about the impact of immigration? Given that the labour force survey by the ONS in July found that 75% of eastern European migrants were in poorly paid work and that they were more likely to access benefits, can he point to any specific empirical data which support the concept that east European migrants do not have an impact on low wages, depressing them or pushing them down?

[Andy Burnham]

I shall come on to that. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] It is a fair point and I shall come on to it. May I again refer the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to the research? The UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration talks about the positive economic benefit of migration overall. He needs to concern himself with the evidence before he intervenes in the House.

As I said a moment ago, the House has not kept pace with public concern, and as I said in my speech to the Labour conference, I want to change that. People listening to debates in the Chamber or in the media will often hear politicians and business leaders make the point that I made at the beginning—that immigration provides an overall net benefit. Although this is true, and to take the hon. Gentleman’s point on board, what such broad statements fail adequately to acknowledge is that the effect of immigration is not uniform across the country, but that it has a differential impact in different areas.

Some of the most rapid changes have been felt in the poorest areas and former industrial areas away from the big urban centres. In my constituency, immigration has had an impact on job security, wages, access to housing and public services, but Parliament has been far too slow to acknowledge and act on those concerns. The danger is that that creates a vacuum and allows myths to flourish.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The Conservatives are fond of saying that we did not fix the roof when the sun was shining, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we did fix the leaking roofs of hospitals and GP surgeries that they left behind, and we had to invest a significant amount to do so. When we came to office in 1997, more than half the NHS estate predated the NHS itself, and people remember those days. We had to put that right: we had to rebuild substantial portions of the NHS simultaneously by means of the PFI, which, I might add, was inherited from the Major Government.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has clearly forgotten the patient records IT project—at £12 billion, it is officially the most disastrous white elephant IT project in British political and Government history—and the £250 million spent on independent sector treatment centres and on higher tariffs to private providers for operations not done, and the £63 billion on the private finance initiative. That is the record of the Government of which he was a part. Has he forgotten that voters made their decision on that record on 7 May?

[Andy Burnham]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I remember: I remember NHS waiting lists in 2010 being at their lowest ever level; I remember public satisfaction with the NHS being at its highest ever level; and I also remember leaving behind a financially solvent national health service. Let us look at it today: NHS waiting lists at a six-year high; cancer patients waiting longer for their treatment to start; A&E in crisis; and, as I said, a £1 billion deficit, and rising, at the heart of the NHS. That is the Secretary of State’s record, and a little more humility might not go amiss.

Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Andy Burnham and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts it well. Let us get to the facts. Those schools were told in the summer that they were unaffected. We can work out what “unaffected” means to most people, but the effect of what the Secretary of State has done by coming back for another bite is that he is asking schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency to abandon their ambitions for their children so that the right hon. Gentleman can fulfil his ideological ambitions to give funding to whichever schools come asking for it because it ticks the box—it comes forward with the structural form of which he approves.

That is very wrong. Today, if nothing else, I want the Secretary of State to come to the Dispatch Box and honour a moral obligation, as he has just heard, to the 600 schools that he approved as unaffected. That must mean what it says. Let them get on without the requirement to make unwelcome savings. Instead, the phone calls from his officials have made them scrabble round for cuts. I heard that one school was thinking of stopping the purchase of all new furniture. Is that what the Secretary of State really wants schools to do? It is mean-spirited. I hope he will honour the commitments that he has made and let them get on and build a better future.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House of any academic or empirical study which directly links the capital expenditure under Building Schools for the Future with enhanced educational attainment? If not, why does he think that that is the case?

[Andy Burnham]

It is depressing to hear such nonsense from the Government Benches after all these years. Is the hon. Gentleman saying to me that it is acceptable for a school to have leaking roofs or to have no playing field? Is he saying that office blocks are fine for schools? I disagree. I believe that we can do better for our children. If that is a call to cut off the funding to deprived authorities, he should be utterly ashamed of himself.