Immigration

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No.

Turning to legal migration, through the plans in our immigration White Paper, we will deliver a system that supports our efforts to reduce net migration and backs British talent. As the Home Secretary set out in the House last week, our approach is founded on five core principles: first, that net migration must come down; secondly, that the migration system should be linked to skills and training domestically, so that no industry or sector can rely solely on overseas recruitment—a major failure of the last Government’s 14 years in office; thirdly, that the system must be fair and effective, with clearer rules in areas such as respect for family life and stronger safeguards against perverse outcomes that undermine public confidence; fourthly, that this country’s laws must be respected and enforced, from cracking down on illegal working to deporting foreign criminals; and fifthly, that the system must support integration and community cohesion.

This is not a task that can be completed overnight. Clearing up the Opposition’s legacy will not be easy because of the chaos that we inherited from the Conservative party. We saw record net migration, record small boat arrivals and record numbers of asylum hotels, criminal smugglers left to run amok for years, and public confidence shaken by past failures, expensive gimmicks and broken promises. It has been left to this Government to clear up the mess and turn the page on the chaos and failures of the past. That work has begun.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, I wish to make it clear that there will be a five-minute time limit for Back-Bench speeches.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I have to say that I was amazed to see a Conservative motion on immigration on today’s Order Paper. I think all that most of us in the House require from the Conservatives is a full and sincere apology for the mess and chaos that they left behind, and then for them to go away for a long period of self-ordained silence. They thought that they were reducing immigration, but what they did was quadruple it. They did not even understand their own immigration policy. They were letting hundreds of thousands of people come into this country. So please, do not get to your feet and have the temerity to lecture this House about immigration after the mess that you made.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman did rather incite me to get to my feet, and I am somewhat stunned at his allegation that I have played any part in this.

[Pete Wishart]

That was not like me, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was very lax, and I apologise.

The Conservatives are currently languishing in fourth place in the opinion polls, and it is a well-deserved position.

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[Pete Wishart]

I cannot give way—I have no time.

Ordinary Labour voters have good, liberal values, but just now they have a party that is not representing their views. That is why they are moving on.

In Scotland, we take on Reform. We are one of the few parties across the United Kingdom that has steadied its own position, and we have even improved it slightly. There is a big gap between us and Reform. That is because we take on Reform’s arguments and we do not appease the party or go on to its agenda. I encourage Labour colleagues to think about that.

We now have an immigration policy that is the exact opposite of what we need in Scotland, and it is contrary to our national interest. Scotland is in the early stages of the population and demography crisis, and it will only get worse because of what this Government are going to impose on us. We will soon have too few working-age people available to look after an ever-increasing older population.

For all three parties—Labour, the Conservatives and Reform—immigration is a burden and is out of control. For us in Scotland, it is essential to the health of our workforce and our economy. That is why we will never stop calling for a separate Scottish visa. We need the tools in our country to face up to our crisis. I will leave the Government to get on with their grotesque race to the bottom and to pander to Reform in a vain attempt to get some votes, but Scotland does not need their new “island of strangers” policy. It is contrary to what we want, so please leave us right out of it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We will now have an immediate four-minute time limit.

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[Mr Brash]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman can address the point I made in my speech. Repeatedly, Conservative Members, including him, have said, “If we had only waited a little bit longer, Rwanda would have worked.” Why do you think the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) called the general election—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I don’t.

[Mr Brash]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why does the hon. Member think the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton called the general election when he did, when he was apparently so close to the Rwanda scheme working?

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[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)]

The Opposition motion, which I will not be supporting, uses the word “regret” an awful lot, but it omits any regret on their part for their complete failure to properly secure our borders during 14 years in government. The Conservatives ran an experiment in this country, and they will never be forgiven for it—especially for facing both ways on the immigration question for such a long time.

In 2010, the Tories pledged to get immigration down to the tens of thousands, and over the next five years they failed. In 2015, the Tories said they would get net migration down to the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, and they failed. In 2017, they said they would get migration to the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, and they failed. In 2019, they said the “numbers will come down”—at that point, they had panicked slightly about the whole affair.

At the time the Tories were leaving office, net migration was nearly 1 million. Time after time, over 14 years, they told the British people they would tackle net migration and bring the numbers down, but they did not—and now, after 10 months, they have the bottle to stand in front of this Government and ask, “Why are the numbers not down yet?”. We are taking action to bring the numbers closer to the approximately 200,000 that they were when Labour left office in 2010. There is this rhetoric that immigration has been an issue for 30 or 40 years, but the numbers have been sky high over the past 10—since Brexit, really. And the Tories wonder why people think they are irrelevant.

There is mention in the motion of a cap, but—as always with this Opposition—there is a history lesson here. I am old enough to remember 2013 to 2015, and the cap that was announced by the coalition Government. [Hon. Members: “Surely not!”] I was a very junior councillor. A cap was mentioned by the coalition then—a complete chocolate fireguard. They got the headlines when they announced it, but it failed to do the job, so they ditched it. In the end, it was not worth the press release it was written on. It was game playing of the highest order.

We are seeing the same thing again now; history is repeating itself. In the past four years, net migration quadrupled and our asylum system was completely destroyed. The processing of asylum claims took so long and numbers increased by so much that the previous Government were spending £9 million a day on hotel stays across more than 400 hotels. Hotel stays for my constituents are a treat, and not something to be doled out to people coming off boats in the channel—but unfortunately that is what the Conservatives did for the best part of five years. My constituents do not begrudge genuine asylum seekers, but that system was broken and they have told me that that is just not on.

Boats over the channel were basically invented by the previous Government. Indeed, 13,500 people crossed the channel in small boats in the shadow Home Secretary’s last five months as Minister for Immigration, and 260 boats crossed in his last two. The same number of boats have crossed the channel in the last six months of this Government. I would say that that is progress.

If a person is here in this country illegally—and illegal is illegal—they will be removed. That is not in contention; I do not see how it can be. In contrast to those years of open borders, this Government have secured agreements with France, Germany, Italy, Iraq and more. The arrangements with France and Germany in particular are game-changing, and I want to see French boats in the water stopping those asylum seekers in the months to come. I will finish there, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I am very short on time, but thank you very much for calling me to speak.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Minister.