Future Immigration

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point; my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration was at the Francis Crick Institute this morning, and one of the things she was rightly hearing about was just this issue. In fact the Migration Advisory Committee has identified this issue as well; it has talked also about lab technicians, many of them working in our universities, and many of whom do not earn as much as £30,000. We are taking this point into account.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I find it terribly depressing that the Prime Minister is still sticking with this language of “tens of thousands”. It is completely undeliverable in relation to outside the EU let alone within the EU. In particular I am conscious that the Rhondda would never have been built if it had not been for miners coming from Ireland; we would never have had frothy coffee and ice cream if it had not been for the Italians who came to work in the mines; we would not have doctors keeping us healthy if it had not been for the Indian subcontinent; and today we would not have enough careworkers if it were not for people coming from Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Spain. So I hope the Home Secretary will manage to change the whole rhetoric and tone behind the Government’s approach to this, and can he also just tell us where exactly we have got to on tier 1 investor visas, which the Government announced they were going to suspend two weeks ago and then announced they were suspending the suspension six days later?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not mention in his list pakoras and samosas from India and Pakistan; I would have thought that would have been at the top of his list.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not a fan.

[Sajid Javid]

Well, I am. [Interruption.] And so are those on the Labour Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, however, and I hope that as he has the time to look at the White Paper on the new immigration system he will see that it is still a demonstration of how this country is open to talent from across the world but with more control than we have had before, and of how we can do that in a way that brings net migration down to a more sustainable level, which is good for all our communities. It is important to have public confidence in the level of immigration. The hon. Gentleman also asked about tier 1 visas. They are still available as we speak, but we have set out a number of reforms that we need to put in place to make them more effective.