Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I misinterpreted his “Great”; he was saying that I am great rather than that the number is great. That is good.

It is an extraordinary thing: 1 million people. The problem with immigration is not that immigrants are different from us, but that they are exactly the same. They need homes to live in, medical facilities, schools and everything else. We have not got enough for the existing population, so we ought to be thinking very clearly: is it wise to issue 1 million visas for people to come and live in this country?

Finally, it is constantly asserted that migration is good for economic growth. In the last decade and a half, we have had the highest rate of immigration to this country in our history and the slowest growth in productivity. I rest my case.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I want to briefly make some observations about the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and ask the Minister one or two questions of clarification. Before I do, I point to my interests in the register and make it clear that I am speaking in a personal capacity.

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[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I apologise; I am still a new boy, really.

In addition, I was not including overstayers in any of the numbers that I mentioned, so they are in addition to all those numbers.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

The noble Lord is quite right, but they add to all the pressures he was talking about. Perhaps if we had a more rigorous method of knowing who was actually here, and by what route they came, we would be able to ascertain more clearly—and certainly more fairly—whether they should stay or not.

My final point to the Minister is related to but, I admit, slightly removed from this debate. The Home Office has announced that it is to do away with the golden visa route into the country, which is how kleptocrats arrive here. When we think of people coming here—documented or undocumented, but particularly those who have legal documentation—it is not particularly fair that there are people who buy themselves a route into the country by having millions, whereas those who are genuinely in distress and concerned for their lives must go through hurdles such as those identified by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I have some sympathy with the comments of the noble Baroness on the subject of people overstaying and on the right to remain here. In particular, she made the point that, very often, students overstay—that after their two-year period here they stay on, and so forth. She made the point that neither the coalition Government nor the Conservative Governments have gone along with the idea of having personal identification cards of any kind. She is right about that—but, with respect, that is rather a sledge- hammer to crack a nut. To some extent, it is a responsibility on people who sponsor students to come to this country, for example, to find out whether they have complied with the rules and go back to the country or overstay. There is some personal responsibility on organisations—companies, the NHS and public organisations—to follow that up. That would be simpler than having such an expensive solution. I think personal identification cards for the whole population were calculated as costing about £20 billion.

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[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

Very briefly, I was also referring to undocumented people who overstay tourist visas and stay on here. If the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, needs any proof of that, he needs to go to—I should not single out any particular nationality —a fine ethnic minority restaurant in Birmingham and go into the back rooms. He will see plenty of those. Then there are Deliveroo drivers, for instance.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I take that point.

On the main point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I sympathise with his point about the changes in the Immigration Rules. They have been extensive; there has been a huge number of changes—almost every few months, frankly—and they are practically incomprehensible. It is a paradise for lawyers; the detail they go into and the language they use is virtually incomprehensible. The noble Lord who spoke for the Opposition is nodding with some feeling on that. It is incredibly difficult to understand what is going on half the time. For heaven’s sake, there must be some way of simplifying all this for the ordinary person in the street.

I wish, more than anything else, for some transparency. I am in favour of a transparent framework for asylum seekers and economic migrants of all kinds, which would be debated in the House of Commons annually. You would have a cap for a year; it would be looked at, people would understand where it came from and particular interest groups would be consulted. We could do that for the year and then look at it again to see what had happened—what had gone wrong, what had gone right and so on. We could have an annual debate, like the Budget debate—although perhaps not as long; maybe a day’s debate—in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so that everyone could have their say about this. It would be a much more transparent and sensible way, and it could deal with some of the ignorance and myths, which, as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, surround this whole subject of immigration and asylum seeking.

Having said that, I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on his point in his Motion. The fact is that there is a huge problem here of human trafficking—we all know that; it is an international business. The smugglers—they are smugglers in effect—started off with drugs and tobacco and so forth, and now they deal in human beings. It is an international trade and all western European countries are facing this difficulty. It is completely illegal and to deal with it you really have to make a differentiation in law. You cannot deal simultaneously, in the same breath, with people who abide by the rules and who come here under acknowledged schemes, such as the Ukrainians, the Hong Kong people, the Afghans and so forth—they are large in number and we admit them freely and gladly to this country—and people from Albania who pay someone £2,000 to illegally enter this country. You cannot treat those people on the same basis; it is impossible to deal with the human trafficking and have the same legal basis for both activities.

Secondly, on safe routes, again, my noble friend Lord Lilley made the point that there is quite a large number of safe routes into this country. How far can you really expand them, realistically? Even now, Manston camp is taking in 3,000 asylum-seeking people, and it is really capable of taking only 1,000. With hotels in the north of England and the Midlands full of asylum seekers, we are now getting to the point where the hotels can no longer take them, because they want to do ordinary tourist business, so local authorities will be asked to take more. That means that council properties will be consumed by asylum seekers and will not therefore be available to local people. Of course, inevitably, it is the poorer parts of the country where all these people end up; they do not go to the Cotswolds or Hampstead because of the house prices. They end up in Blackpool, Middlesbrough or Darlington. Therefore, ordinary people—very often the poorest people—suffer the consequences. In all conscience, we have to consider that, as well as our natural and understandable concern about the position of genuine asylum seekers.

My final point is that, however many safe routes you have, there will still be trafficking across the channel, and people saying to those in Albania, Afghanistan or wherever, “We can get you into England—if you pay us a couple of thousand quid, we will get you across the channel.” However many safe routes you have and however much you expand that—I do not think that it can be expanded too far, for all the other reasons I have given—it will happen none the less. Therefore, there must be some system of deterrence, and I believe that the Government’s proposals—which have not yet come into practice of course because of all the legal objections—are the only answer to deterring people totally.

We are already seeing that some Albanians have decided not to apply for asylum in this country because they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda. They have been sent within 24 hours back to Albania under the agreement that we have with the Albanian Government. In a small way, even despite all the legal problems and judicial reviews and so on, you can see a deterrent factor working. The Government are pursuing the right angle here; it is not working in practice at the moment because of all the judicial reviews and legal difficulties, which is a great pity.

We are in a democratic society, where there is a clear public will to deal with illegal immigration. The Government—the major party—have voted it through the Commons and we have voted the Bill through the House of Lords. For it then to be stopped, potentially for months and months, by judicial activity, makes it seem that democracy is not working properly. That should not be allowed to happen in a functioning country such as ours. On that basis, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, despite understanding his desire for the whole issue to be treated with great humanity, with which I would agree.