Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Home Office
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Damian Green
The right hon. Gentleman is right, and I will address that point later. Some of the measures that we are taking are precisely to promote integration. My colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government have their own strategy for dealing with that on the ground. Of course, immigration policy can contribute to integration by ensuring that those who come here can, for example, speak English. That is one of the changes in the rules that we have introduced in certain parts of the immigration system. It is an absolutely basic point that if someone wants to come and settle in a country, they should wish to integrate to some extent, and they should therefore be able to speak some English. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with that.
As I say, this country has clearly gained huge advantages from immigration, but on the other hand, the people of this country have a right to know that the Government are protecting their jobs, enforcing tough requirements on those who come here, and sending home those who break the rules. That is why three things are essential. First, it is essential to control the overall numbers coming here for long periods. Secondly, and equally importantly, we must establish a system that is properly selective among those who want to come here—one that brings to the country people who can support our development but keeps out those who cannot or will not. Thirdly, the system must properly enforce the rules.
Let me start by talking about the need for a focused, selective immigration system. The system that this Government inherited was not only chaotic but indiscriminate. The previous Government’s approach was about unlimited immigration, with no limits on tier 1 or tier 2 of the points-based system; tier 1 general and tier 1 post-study work for workers with no job offer; large numbers of supposedly the most skilled immigrants ending up in low-skilled jobs; little-used routes for investors and entrepreneurs; and no restriction on the length of stay for intra-company transfers. Since the points-based system was introduced in 2009, student visa numbers went up from 232,000 to a record 320,000. In 2010, the UK Border Agency had to suspend student applications in some regions because of abuse.
Our first task, therefore, was to impose some much-needed rigour. We have already looked at all the migration routes to ensure that they are selective in the ways that we want them to be—through work, study, family, and settlement by workers. We carried out public consultations on each one of those routes. By next April, we will have reformed them all so that they better meet the needs of this country. We have imposed an annual limit of 20,700 sponsored workers with a specific job offer. We have closed the tier 1 general route and replaced it with a smaller, more focused exceptional talent route. We have restricted tier 2 to graduate-level occupations and intermediate-level English speakers. We have restricted intra-company transfers to 12 months unless the person coming is earning £40,000 a year or more.
We have done the same sort of thing on the student routes. We have introduced tougher entry requirements requiring higher language competency and evidence of the ability to pay maintenance. Any educational institutions that want to bring in students from overseas will be highly trusted sponsors and will be vetted by the relevant inspectorate so that there will be proper inspections and proper accreditation in future. Post-study workers will need a skilled job offer under tier 2 if they want to stay in the UK. We have also consulted on reforms to the overseas domestic worker route. Some 15,000 visas are issued to overseas domestic workers each year, and we will restrict this in future. On the family migration route, we have consulted on new measures to tackle abuse of family migration; to promote integration, as I said; and to reduce burdens on the taxpayer. Within the next few months, we will bring forward proposals that will achieve all those aims.
Let me pause for a second on a point about the family route, because I should make it clear that the main benefit of this aspect of our reforms will be better community cohesion. No longer will people, usually young women, be brought half way across the world, with no knowledge of our language or our culture, to live lives cut off from the mainstream of British society. It is not fair on them, and it is particularly not fair on their children, who need mothers who can explain the world in which the children live in the language they use outside the home.
Settling in Britain should be a privilege, not an automatic add-on to a temporary way in. We are therefore going to break the automatic link between work and settlement. Only those who contribute the most economically will be able to stay. The Migration Advisory Committee has given us recommendations on how to achieve this.
Finally—
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I thought that the hon. Gentleman might be going to say a little more about what the Migration Advisory Committee has recommended. It has suggested a lower threshold and a higher threshold, and I wonder which of those two he is aiming for.
Damian Green
I think that that comes under the heading of a nice try. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until we have fully assessed the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee, and the House will be told at the proper time when we have come to a proper decision.
Finally, across the main routes we have raised the level of the English language levels required. Those coming to the UK across these routes must be able to speak sufficient English to play a full role in our society.
In 18 months, we have completely reformed vast tracts of the immigration system, and there are the first small signs—I agree that they are small straws in the wind because of the chaos we inherited—that our policies are starting to make an impact. The most recent published quarterly statistics for June to September 2011 show that student visas issued under tier 4 are down by 13% and main work visas are down by 18% on the same period in 2010. The very latest net migration figures to March 2011 are also encouraging, showing a fall since a recent peak for the year ending September 2010. However, I will not disguise from the House the fact that this is a long and difficult process. Net immigration was rising rapidly in the last three years of the previous Government. That is why we said at the general election that it would take the whole of this Parliament to bring it down to sustainable levels—to the tens of thousands annually that we think appropriate—and why we have been taking the necessary steps since day one of this Government.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I will start with the issues on which I completely and utterly agree with the Minister. First, I agree that this is not an issue we should—[Interruption.] I am sorry, the Minister is wittering something, I think. [Interruption.] He is carrying on.
The Minister said that he believed this House should consider immigration on a regular basis, and he is absolutely right that if serious politicians in the mainstream political parties do not talk about immigration, we vacate the scene and leave it to extremists from other political parties and those who have no desire to foster good community relations.
Sometimes the debate gets heated, although I suspect it is not going to get very heated this evening if the proceedings so far are anything to go by. Some talk about immigration in this country is undoubtedly racist, but I have never subscribed to the view that just because somebody thinks immigration is the single most important political issue facing the country, that makes them racist. If I were to think that, I would probably be telling most of my constituents that they were racists. That is not because the Rhondda is full of people who have come to this country in recent years. In fact, I believe that of all the constituencies in the land it is the one where fewest people were born outside the UK, but that does not mean that my constituents are not directly affected by many of the issues that are enveloped in the whole issue of immigration.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding. Many have confused asylum with immigration, and serious politicians have always wanted to keep those issues apart, as the Minister for Immigration has.
I asked the Minister whether the Government had decided where they were going on the threshold salary that somebody should have if they were to bring in a dependant. He said it was a “good try”, but I asked solely because I thought the Government had an announcement to make today. I suspect that they were originally going to announce something, which was why they decided to hold this debate, but suddenly there were other important matters to be discussed, the announcement disappeared, and with it went the Home Secretary.
It is a simple fact that because world travel is now so much easier for the vast majority of people, there is inevitably more migration. People can physically move around the world and relocate, and many more do so. Occasionally—I am sure all hon. Members have heard of this in their constituency surgeries—people go abroad on holiday, meet somebody and fall in love with them and want to bring them back to this country. For that matter, my parents met not in this country but in Spain—they were both British—and came back to the UK.
Many other things have affected migration in recent years, not least the fact that countries that were once closed to the rest of the world have opened up, Spain being a classic example. Under Franco, Spain was closed to many, and people could not easily get a visa to go there or vice versa. Similarly, most of the eastern bloc of the EU was closed, as were Portugal and many other places.
In addition, the UK, which is primarily a trading nation, has always had much inward and outward migration. In Wales, we are particularly conscious that, at the turn of the 20th century, when there were no jobs in south Wales, many Welsh people went to live in Argentina, which is why there is a large community of Welsh speakers there. Indeed, William Abraham tried to migrate to Argentina but could not get a job there. He ended up coming back here and became the first MP for Rhondda.
The Minister referred to the fact that many British people go abroad, but it strikes me that British people abroad are often far and away the worst at integrating into local communities—one has only to visit Buenos Aires, where there are more piped bands than there are in Stirling and Edinburgh put together, to recognise that enculturation is not the primary focus of British people when they go to other countries.
For that matter, one has only to look at areas of south Wales to see that inward migration has been a vital part of the economic success of the past. Calzaghe is a not-unknown south Walean name, because people came from many places to work in the mines at one time. The English-Welsh word for a coffee shop is “brachi” because many thousands came from Badi in Italy in particular to work in the mines as that was where the work was. Likewise, many came from Ireland and even a few from England.
The problem, of course, is that migration has very many different vectors. It is not, as some have assumed, that migration to this country has been stimulated because we have a supportive welfare system or a strong NHS. In actual fact, the vast majority of migration is caused by elements that push people away from their home country, be that war, famine or political instability, which often leads to asylum. I remember a debate a few weeks ago with the Immigration Minister on migration from north Africa. He was optimistic that the situation developing in the Maghreb would mean that many fewer would come to the UK than were originally expected either for asylum or other reasons, but the most recent figures show that there has been a significant migration to the UK and a significant increase in the number of asylum cases. That issue will inevitably have to be kept under review.
One other potential vector, which other hon. Members have addressed on other occasions, is climate change. If the seas of the world rise because of climate change, there is a strong likelihood that some of the poorest people in the world will not only want to move but have no choice but to do so, because many of their homes are in the most exposed areas.
I agree with the Minister that migration is not always good. Very often, refugees end up extremely disoriented when they arrive in this country, either because their language skills are not brilliant or because they do not understand the system—they might not even understand what side of the road we drive on and things like that. I was struck by that the other day. There was a fight in Tesco Metro and a young man, who had clearly been drinking, was shouting at the shopkeepers, “You have no understanding. I am in this country. I am allowed to be in this country, but I am not allowed to work.” It turned out he was Albanian. Who knows how he will manage to get himself home? The pain of many of those who are forced to travel the world because they are simply seeking a better place for themselves can be writ large.
Often the receiving communities are ill equipped, either financially or culturally, to welcome people. When the number of asylum claimants in the UK was at its highest—not necessarily because of anything that had happened in this country, but because of factors in other parts of the world at a time of particularly unstable international relations—many communities in this country found it genuinely very difficult to take on board the number of people who went to live there, even though they wanted to be welcoming.
In addition—this is what I am most aware of in my constituency because a number of constituents have raised it with me—many feel that there are few jobs out there at the moment as it is, particularly at the lower end of the scale. There are few jobs for manual labourers, and when they get them, they are sometimes turfed out after just three or four months because somebody comes from another EU country and is prepared to do the job more cheaply. A constituent came to me last week. He was delighted when three months ago his son got a job in Gloucester—he travelled there and back every day—but then his son and the five others who were employed were sacked and their jobs taken immediately by people from Poland. The vast majority of my constituents simply do not understand why that should be so and feel that there is a fundamental unfairness in the system.
No hon. Member will today suggest that we should change all the EU’s provisions. Labour Members have already accepted that we should have introduced transitional arrangements for the countries that joined the EU more recently. We should have gone along with countries that did so, and we underestimated the number of people who would come to this country. Of course, two more countries will have full rights in 2014, and it will be interesting to hear the Government’s estimate of the number of people who will come to the UK from them.
Although it is easy to identify some of the problems in relation to immigration, it is not always easy to identify the answers. I have been lobbied quite ferociously by quite a lot of lesbian and gay organisations on what they term “gay asylum”, which is when somebody comes to this country because they will be persecuted for their sexuality in their country. Those organisations believe that nobody should be sent back to their country to face discrimination and a difficult life. Although I wholeheartedly agree that we should not send lesbian and gay people back to Iran to face almost certain imprisonment, it is very difficult to have a simple, straightforward open door for anybody who chooses to claim that they are lesbian or gay. I suspect that the problem is not as simple as people would want it to be.
Similarly, I raised the issue of family members coming to this country. Nobody in the House would believe that somebody bringing a spouse or a member of their family to this country should be able to do so and then put a burden on the state. The question though, as the Migration Advisory Committee has pointed out, is what placing a burden on the state means exactly. Does it mean that someone should not be in receipt of benefits or does it mean that at no stage in the future should that person receive anything from the state? That determines the level at which the threshold would be applied.
Some of the poorer constituencies and communities are of course concerned that the rule will allow rich people to go abroad, fall in love and bring someone back, but poorer people will not be able to do that. The danger is that the rule is unfair.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman referred to being a burden on the state, which also makes me think of problems connected to education and the NHS. It is not just whether migrants are employed; it is also their need for services that we ordinarily expect for our citizens.
Chris Bryant
Indeed, and in a sense that is the conundrum that the Government have to try to resolve. At some point, they will obviously change the threshold from its present low level, but if they go for a significantly higher figure, the danger is that it will introduce an unfairness. The strange thing is that while people might be intrinsically opposed to individuals in general being allowed to bring others into this country, they tend to adopt a slightly different attitude when confronted by individuals that they have got to know.
The NHS also has specific needs in relation to migration. Several hon. Members have approached me about problems that their local accident and emergency units are having, because these days many doctors do not want to work in those units—there can be violence, many people are drunk and there is no ongoing care for patients. Many trusts, and many local health boards in Wales, have been looking to recruit internationally, but it is impossible for them to do so because of the way in which the rules are structured. That is placing a very precise burden on some accident and emergency units. Of course it would be better if we planned better so that we did not have skills shortages, but in some parts of the country they do exist.
Mr Stewart Jackson
We all believe in evidence-based policy making, rather than the anecdotal points that the hon. Gentleman is making. In that case, why did his Government, when they were in power, specifically prevent the publication of information in the form of research by the Department for Communities and Local Government that considered the impact of immigration on local services?
Chris Bryant
I do not have the faintest idea. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me, I will try to give him a better answer. Yes, my point is anecdotal, in that the Government have a figure for certain forms of accident and emergency doctor provision in the whole of the UK, and there is no shortage across the whole country, just in certain areas. That is why we may need some tweaking to ensure that we are able to maintain the services on which we all rely. There are similar issues in relation to nursing, not least because one of the elements of migration that we must bear in mind is that many British nurses—although no statistics have been provided since 2008—are choosing to work in countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It is therefore difficult for us to plan precisely.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
One of the challenges for the NHS is that many of the overseas students who come to study health sciences in our world-leading universities have been built into the staffing plans of our health services. That is partly where the gap comes from. I am concerned about the knock-on effect of our recruiting overseas and the brain drain from developing countries. It is important, however, that we do not pull the rug from under our NHS plans and those elsewhere in our public services.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady makes several fair points. She is right about not wanting to steal lots of doctors from other parts of the world, although people often want to work here for a few years and take their expertise back to developing countries—a positive contribution that we can make. At this very moment, the minor injuries unit in Llwynypia is closed because the accident and emergency unit at the Royal Glamorgan in south Wales is not able to recruit internationally. It has tried to recruit nationally several times, so there is a problem and we need to be able to plan for our services.
Universities face similar issues, because—as the Minister said—it is vital that the brightest and the best come to the UK to study. If they do not, we will not have the best universities and the brain drain will continue and cause long-term productivity problems. That is why some of what the Minister is suggesting in relation to the university route—the right to study in the UK—is right, although I wonder whether some specific elements need tweaking. For instance, it is suggested that someone should be allowed to do a course for only five years, with no extension to six or seven years unless they are already earning £35,000, but junior doctors are on about £29,000 and staff doctors on £34,000. There is therefore a danger in the Government’s proposals.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware of particular concerns in the Indian subcontinent about rules on studying in the UK whereby Indian students have to return immediately after graduation, when many of them would wish to spend a year working here to pay back their fee?
Chris Bryant
Of course there are concerns, but ensuring that students go home once they have completed their courses is an important part of what we need to do if we are to address migration issues. However, this should be based on evidence not on anecdote. My concern is that in some cases the evidence points to the fact that the vast majority of those doing further educational courses have every intention of returning and not of staying illegally.
The Government have fallen for some easy answers and have made a mistaken promise. The Minister rather skirted over the Government’s commitment, which is to cut net migration to tens of thousands—no ifs, no buts, as the Prime Minister said. The Home Secretary also said that the aim was to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament, saying “Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once”, in her best “’Allo, ’Allo” accent. The only problem is that actually the figures have gone up. In the year ending March 2010 the figure for net migration was 222,000, and the year to the end of March 2011 saw an increase to 245,000.
The Minister said that there were only some parts of the equation that we could do anything about, but that he none the less remains committed to a net migration target. He can do something about net migration if he wants to persuade more British people to go and live elsewhere, but that is why we have some concerns about the precise way in which the Government have worded their target.
In relation to those who want to come to this country to work, the Government have used rhetoric that makes it seem as though there is a cap of 20,700 in total, but in actual fact, in the 12 months from the third quarter of 2010, 158,180 work visas were issued. Similarly, the number of tier 2 applicants who were successful in obtaining visas is virtually identical to that for the year before. As the Minister said, his cap has not yet cut into the numbers because it is relatively generous, but what is the point of the cap if nobody has yet been refused because of it?
In the first quarter since the new cap was introduced, 37,000 work visas were issued. The number of intra-company transfers, which the Minister condemned when we were in power, has gone up from 26,554 to 30,000 in July. My biggest anxiety about the Government’s record is illegal immigration. Contrary to the figures the Minister gave, the number of removals and voluntary deportations has been going down quite significantly since the general election. Between 2007 and 2010, the number was always above 60,000. In 2008, for example, 67,981 people were removed or voluntarily deported. In the nine months from January to September this year, the number was down to 38,865—a 12% fall on last year’s figures. There was no increase, as the Minister told us earlier, or as the Prime Minister said a few weeks ago. Indeed, the Prime Minister specifically said,
“illegal immigrants, 10% increase in arrests”.—[Official Report, 9 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 278.]
That is completely and utterly factually incorrect. The figures show that in the third quarter of last year, 4,730 people were arrested. This year, the figure is 4,141—a fall of 12%; not an increase.
Similarly, the number of non-asylum cases refused entry at port and removed has fallen from roughly 7,000 a quarter to just 3,822 and a little bit more in each of the subsequent three quarters. In addition, this year the Government have engaged in an ill thought through and unconvincing pilot scheme, which effectively lowered the level at which our security was being guaranteed.
I raise those figures because we need to be careful about the use of statistics by this Government, especially by this Minister. Sir Michael Scholar, who attacked the Minister for releasing inaccurate and deliberately misleading statistics on drug seizures, said:
“The Statistics Authority considers that the fact and manner of the publication of the 4 November press release, in advance of the official statistics, was irregular and inconsistent with the statutory Code of Practice, and also with the Ministerial Code and published guidance on the handling of official statistics issued by the Cabinet Secretary.”
In normal parlance, that means that the Minister has broken the rules and should be sacked. In essence, that is what Sir Michael Scholar is saying. He says quite precisely that the Minister has broken the ministerial code.
When I wrote to Gus O’Donnell about this, he gave this answer in mandarin:
“The Home Office press office has also given assurances to the Department’s Chief Statistician that it will work more closely with statisticians and analysts to ensure that this oversight will not happen again.”
In other words, he is confessing that in the publication of statistics the Minister sought to mislead not this House but elsewhere.
Of the eight named day questions that I tabled at the beginning of November, not one has been answered, despite the fact that it is a full month after the date when they should have been answered.
I have some specific questions for the Minister. First, on family migration, what threshold income are the Government leaning towards for a person bringing in a dependant, and when will they announce it?
Secondly, the NHS has no details of the number of staff coming into this country and being employed by it either from within the EU or from outside the EU. It is difficult to form a coherent strategy on NHS staffing or immigration until such statistics are produced. Will the Government set about doing so as soon as possible?
Thirdly, has the Home Office done any specific analysis of the needs of accident and emergency departments around the country? The Migration Advisory Council is now suggesting that everyone on tier 2 visas should have a visa for only five years and that it should be non-renewable unless they are on £35,000 or more. Is that the view of the Government, and what effect do they think that will have on NHS staffing? Has any analysis been conducted of British nurses emigrating to other countries? Again, that is vital information if we want to ensure that we have proper staffing.
In addition, the Home Office estimates that there will be 70,000 to 80,000 fewer students coming into this country because of the changes in provisions. What estimate has the Minister made of the financial effect on colleges around the country, and when precisely do they expect to be achieving those numbers?
Furthermore, a consultation is under way on tier 5 of the points-based visa system, which proposes shortening visas from 24 months to 12 months. This scheme is largely used under the medical training initiative, which allows doctors from other parts of the world, particularly from developing parts of the world, to train in the NHS for two years. All those involved in the scheme say that if we were to cut the scheme to one year, people would not receive sufficient training to be effective when they go back.
A consultation is under way on the domestic worker visa. As the Minister has said in previous debates, when people come in on this visa, they are tied to an employer; they are terrified and are in virtual domestic servitude. They are treated appallingly with uncertain hours and uncertain pay. If, as the consultation suggests, they are unable to change their employer in future, there is a real danger that we will be consigning more people to domestic servitude and to a more difficult situation. When will the Government announce their policy on that?
My final question is on trafficking. Last year, the Association of Chief Police Officers stated that it was aware of 2,600 women being trafficked for sexual exploitation in this country—a much higher figure than the number dealt with in the system. Is it not time that we have a means of dealing with people once they have been trafficked and once the trafficking has already occurred in this country, and that we do more about using the Department for International Development’s budget and other budgets to ensure that people are not trafficked here in the first place?
Damian Green
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way after his long list of questions. I asked him one, and in half an hour he has not even addressed the central issue. Does he think that immigration is too high at the moment?
Chris Bryant
The Minister has not said whether he thinks the figures are too high. As the Prime Minister is all too happy to say on very many occasions, it is for him to answer questions; it is not for us to do so.
We will support the Government on many things, but not on everything. We will support them when they seek to tighten the system against illegal immigration, international criminality and trafficking. We will also support them when they seek to ensure a robust and fair set of migration rules that do not undermine our economic prosperity or communal support for the system.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
It is a huge pleasure and honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), who has spoken out on this issue again and again, including when abuse was heaped on anyone who tried to do so. I also praise my hon. Friend the Minister, who has brought great energy to one of the most difficult briefs in Government. What I am about to say will be pretty bleak, frankly, but not one word of it should be taken as a criticism of the huge amount of energy and intellect that he has brought to his job.
It is curious, looking through one’s postbag, how many of the pressing issues facing Britain today—housing shortages, congestion on roads and public transport, water shortages, pressures on public infrastructure of every kind—derive largely from a single, common factor: population growth, to which my right hon. Friend referred. We are one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 255 people per square kilometre. During the time of the last Labour Government, immigration policies encouraged an unprecedented influx from EU and non-EU countries, which has boosted populations in some urban areas to near crisis point. Between 1997 and 2009, after deducting the number of those leaving, more than 2 million extra people were recorded as settling in the UK, a surge that is unprecedented. However, for the first time, those figures were calculated without using embarkation records, so the true figure may be much higher. The ONS projections to which my right hon. Friend referred have been upgraded again and again. For example, in 2004 they indicated that by the middle of this century our population would reach 67 million. In just three years that projection was increased to 77 million, and it continues to rise.
I believe we need to look at gross rather than net migration figures, for several reasons. First, many of those leaving are elderly people, looking to spend their retirement abroad in the sun. In contrast, the vast majority of immigrants are young. First-generation immigrants typically have large families compared with indigenous families. There is a further, obvious point, which was well understood in this country until the middle of the last century, which is that because we are basically overcrowded we always used to have more people leaving, precisely to find homes in emptier lands. Today, housing pressures are caused by domestic factors, such as family breakdown, increased longevity and so on, which have led to smaller household sizes, so if we do not have a degree of net emigration, we will have to keep building more and more.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman’s last comment—that the reason many British people have gone around the world and settled elsewhere is because Britain is overcrowded—is factually wrong. The parts of the country from which many people left—Scotland and Wales—are the least crowded. In fact, they mostly went because there were no jobs in this country or, originally, because of religious persecution. It is nothing to do with overcrowding.
Mr Brazier
One can go back quite a long way, into religious persecution and earlier history, but we were very keen to encourage, for example, the Australians to keep an assisted package programme going for nearly two thirds of the last century. Much of that was precisely to reduce overcrowding. There was also a degree of internal re-location—for example, with the setting up of new towns outside London—but we encouraged movement abroad, as well as out of our major cities.
Everybody agrees that previous generations of immigrants have brought huge benefits, in such fields as business, science, sports and the arts. We all have friends from a variety of different communities. My family has particularly benefited from a doctor, without whom two of my sons would not be alive today, who is a recent immigrant. However, few people recognise the sheer impact of population growth on our country today, and I want to focus on two issues: housing and infrastructure.
The most serious social and economic issue facing middle and lower middle-income families in Britain today is the shortage of housing, and not just in the south-east where land is at the highest premium. The huge inflows of population that took place under the last Government are going to require very large releases of land, much of it countryside, even without any further population growth. Our house prices today, despite some fall from the peak during the recession, remain very high by international standards and, crucially, in relation to our falling incomes.
As the Prime Minister pointed out the other day, the average age of first-time buyers has risen to 37. Many families are now burdened for much longer than ever before with heavy mortgages, so adults have to work longer hours and for more years in an attempt to service those mortgages. An OECD survey showed a few years ago that a higher proportion of people in this country feel they are working more hours than are good for their family life than people in any other major country in the developed world.
Shelter paints an equally bleak picture of the rental market. More than half of local authorities in England have a median private rent for a two-bedroom house that costs more than 35% of median take-home pay. Families are forced to cut their spending on essentials—food, heating or whatever—to pay the cost of rent or the mortgage.
The Government have set out plans to revive building, which was at an all-time low at the end of the last Government, but that will have the knock-on effect of causing huge problems for infrastructure. The Environment Agency, for example, estimates that 5 million people live in flood-risk areas in England and Wales, and as climate change accelerates, that number will no doubt rise. Yet in a county such as mine—Kent—the majority of all land that does not fall into a protected category is now on floodplains, so much of the building we are going to have to provide to cope with our existing population, including the rise caused by the bulge in immigration, will have to be built on precious protected land or else more communities will have to be exposed to the dangers of flooding.
Water supplies in many parts of the country are under strain, too. In fact, our national average per capita is now lower than that of Spain and Portugal. As more water is abstracted from aquifers and rivers, the flow in rivers falls, killing wildlife and scarring the countryside.
Immigration is putting considerable pressure on our schools, too. A report by London Councils stated that on current projections, London is 18,000 places short. It is not just London. Between 1998 and 2010, the proportion of children in primary schools in England for whom English is not the first language very nearly doubled to 16%, and in inner London native English-speaking children are in the minority. The noble Lord Knight, until recently a Labour Education Minister, admitted that
“undoubtedly there can be problems”
in schools with large numbers of non-English speakers. That is massively to understate the handicap suffered by all the other children in those schools.
The number of arrivals from overseas registering with a GP has increased dramatically. One of the hardest hit NHS specialties has been midwifery, as birth rates have risen most sharply in areas where numbers of immigrants are high. When Labour came to power in 1997, one baby in eight was born to a foreign-born mother. That has now risen to one in four.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration has put it well: the real questions are how Britain can benefit most from immigration and what controls do we need to maximise those benefits and minimise the strains. The last Labour Government—we still have not had an answer from the shadow Minister as to whether he believes immigration is too high—maintained that immigration was good for Britain and the British economy as a whole since immigrants boosted GDP. Of course it is true that on average immigrants pay more tax than they receive in benefits or consume in public services. Many, especially the kind of immigrants who came through in generations before Labour opened the borders, make a gigantic contribution, but taking an average disguises the bottom end of the spectrum.
Many of those who arrived in Britain under the last Government, particularly from the Asian subcontinent, were unskilled and joined often insular communities in which incomes were already low and in some cases the unemployment rate was near to 50%. Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, for example, were those most likely to enter the UK through the family route after the primary purpose rule was dropped.
Baroness Flather, the first Asian woman to receive a peerage, caused outrage when she made a brave speech in the House of Lords. She said:
“The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child.”
She went on to say:
“Nobody likes to accept that or to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 September 2011; Vol. 730, c. 706.]
Of course it is true here as in countries all over the world that the trend is for birth rates in ethnic groups that integrate to go towards the national average. The problem, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has pointed out, is that under the last Government we grew significant numbers of communities where there was no integration and no trend in birth rates or anything else towards the national norm. The whole economic argument has largely ignored the costs to the overburdened public purse in infrastructure and the loss of quality of life to the population, as overcrowding worsens.
There are powerful voices that welcome continued heavy immigration. Big business benefits from the arrival of large numbers of people willing to work, since they drive down the cost of labour at the expense of the living standards of the indigenous workforce; and the wives of the better-off are able to get help in the home at a fraction of a living wage for local people, but then they and their families are not usually struggling to pay their mortgages and watching their children’s education being destroyed in schools with dozens of languages.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds). He was perfectly right to draw attention to the time lag and the failure of funding formulae to adjust to cope with a different local demographic locally—a point that both our parties used to raise in opposition, and rightly so.
I do not want to prolong the debate about schools—the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has just left the Chamber—but I benefited from an education in a French state school, where half the pupils spoke a foreign language, so I think that it is not the number of children with a mother tongue, per se, but the level of investment that is relevant.
I welcome today’s debate. The Liberal Democrats have not been scared of debating immigration. In the past, that has perhaps worked to our disadvantage and it might have been advantageous had we not debated the matter quite so openly. A number of Members highlighted the fact that the mainstream parties’ failure to be willing to debate such matters created a vacuum that others occupied. We are collectively reclaiming that ground and enabling measured debates to take place.
I shall not criticise Labour Members as I know that there are many demands on their time, but I am a little surprised by the rather sparse attendance on the Opposition Benches for this critical debate.
Tom Brake
I am not going to prolong the debate that I am having with the hon. Gentleman from his sedentary position—he can calculate the percentages in respect of the parties represented here tonight.
I welcome the fact that almost the Minister’s first words pointed out the benefits that immigrants bring to this country, as in a measured debate the benefits and disbenefits of immigration are discussed. I welcome the action the coalition Government have taken to close down some of the illegal routes used to get into the UK jobs market, especially the action taken to speed up the asylum process. It works to everybody’s advantage, including asylum seekers here, if that process deals with cases rapidly rather than allowing things to drag on for years. At the risk of offending my coalition partners, I must point out that that issue was not particularly linked to the previous Labour Government and that, historically, there have been issues with addressing asylum claims swiftly. Soon after I was elected in 1997—other Members who were elected at that time will remember this—I found that I was hearing about cases that had been under review for a number of years. I am pleased that we are now on top of that process.
I do not want to make general points about immigration, but I have a couple of specific points. Appropriately, the Minister mentioned the Lille issue and the attempts to enter the UK without the appropriate documentation. I hope that the Government have looked at whether other routes are being used in that way and whether, as new transport links are set up, other routes might suffer from that problem. I hope that we are addressing that issue.
The Minister pointed out that the coalition Government have dealt significantly with a blot on Labour’s record—the number of children being detained. We have largely addressed the detention of children pre-departure, but there might still be an issue with reducing the number of children detained on entry to the UK and the length of time for which they are detained. Some organisations have suggested that there should be no detention of children on entry, but that would mean operating an open border policy, which the Government, rightly, are not doing. If that policy were adopted, it might lead to children being trafficked here by people who were not their parents. The Government should aim to minimise the number of children detained on arrival in the UK who have to be returned.
The biggest challenge for the Government is, perhaps, that of overstayers and people who are already here illegally. The Minister has set out a number of measures that the Government are taking in that respect. There is still a major issue regarding the number of employers being prosecuted. As long as employers are willing to employ people illegally, that will act as a magnet, so any other activities that the Government can undertake in that area would be very welcome.
The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said that we need a flexible system of immigration to ensure that we have the skills we need coming into the UK. The Minister might be aware of some recent research by the London chamber of commerce and industry, which found that nearly a quarter of the companies that responded to the survey had looked outside the EU for staff because they believed that employing a non-EU migrant would help them to grow into markets beyond the EU. It will be to the advantage of the UK and our export-led recovery if, on occasion, we allow people with appropriate skills from non-EU countries to enter the UK jobs market.
The Government are looking at safeguards for overseas domestic workers. Members might be aware that it is often very difficult for domestic workers who are brought here and, in different ways, abused by an employer to get out of what sometimes amounts to unpaid servitude. I welcome the fact that the Government are looking at this, and I hope that we will be given some information tonight or later about the safeguards that the Government are looking at introducing for overseas domestic workers who experience abuse from their employer.
Chris Bryant
There are two suggestions on the table: that the visa should be completely abolished, and that an employee would be tied to the employer who brought them in and would not be able to change employer. Surely the second of those suggestions would make it more likely that people would be caught in servitude.
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his pertinent intervention. The Government need to explain what safeguards will be in place for a worker who comes here, is linked to one employer and has no alternative but to work for them.
We need an immigration system that is flexible, fair and secure, and the coalition Government are moving swiftly in that direction. Our ability to sell to the wider population the benefits of immigration that is helpful to the UK depends on the coalition Government being able to demonstrate that we, and not the people traffickers, are deciding who comes to the United Kingdom.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). Much of the discussion in the debate tonight is based on anecdote. One of the problems is that we have not had an opportunity recently to look at fact-based evidence. We can all unite around the idea that if we do not debate these issues in a moderate and mainstream way, the extremists will polarise people and drive wedges between our communities. They would like nothing better than to propagate violence, hatred and dislike among communities of different ethnic groups, religions, creeds and so on.
Not since the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs undertook a proper analysis in 2008 has there been such a study enabling us to identify the costs and benefits of large-scale immigration. It would be remiss of those on the Government Benches not to mention the lamentable policy of the previous Government. I hope the shadow Minister or his hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) will come to the Dispatch Box to ask the philosophical question that will inform Labour’s view, if it is developing policy to be a future Government—whether it believes that immigration is too high or not. That is a question that voters are entitled to ask and to which they are entitled to receive an answer.
I pay tribute to the work of the cross-party group on balanced migration and the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who have done a great job, ably supported by Migrationwatch. For nine years Migrationwatch has ploughed a lonely furrow, having been traduced as racist and as having some kind of hidden agenda to propagate community discord. Nevertheless, it has concentrated on the facts and more often than not been right in raising the tenor of the debate and allowing mainstream politicians to debate in a meaningful way based on facts.
The facts have not been good for the previous Government. It has fallen to the present Government to clear up the mess and the legacy of uncontrolled, unrestricted immigration. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, 2.2 million people net entered the country between 1997 and 2009. We have not yet had a proper analysis of that, although in fairness the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) was honest enough to say after the general election, about the immigration from eastern Europe, that
“there has also been a direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people . . . in communities ill-prepared to deal with the reality of globalisation, including the one I represent. . . As Labour seeks to rebuild trust with the British people, it is important we are honest about what we got wrong.”
If I was a cynic, I would say that is because the Opposition lost the election, but people now look to them to put flesh on the bones and to develop the mea culpa of the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood.
Chris Bryant
Having heard many confessions in my time, I am not going to give a lengthy mea culpa. We have already said that immigration was too high, which was in part because we got the element resulting from countries joining the European Union wrong and did not introduce a points-based system soon enough. In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, yes of course we think that immigration has been too high and that it should be lower.
Mr Jackson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, but there is a more insidious element to Labour’s proposals and its record in office, which was articulated by Mr Andrew Neather, a speech writer for Tony Blair, who was famously quoted as saying that the idea was to rub the right’s nose in mass immigration in order to make a political point. It was a systematic policy of mass migration pursued by the previous two Prime Ministers and the Labour Administration.
Mr Jackson
I will make some further progress.
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee found in its report on immigration, the most comprehensive such report brought before Parliament in the past 10 years, that
“we have found no evidence for the argument… that net immigration… generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population… The overall fiscal impact of immigration is likely to be small”.
That might be true, but we do not know because there has not been a sufficiently robust analysis, which would be interesting, by either the Government or other academic bodies. What is certainly not in doubt is the public support we have for pursuing a robust, fair and transparent immigration policy. Last month YouGov polled the British public and found that, on a proposal to restrict net migration to 40,000 a year, which would prevent this country’s population growing to 70 million by 2027, 69% supported the idea and only 12% opposed it.
I support the range of policies pursued by the Minister, who has been open and collaborative on the concerns that hon. Members have in their constituencies, for example on student visas, family migration, income thresholds, language proficiency, temporary workers and promoted integration. However, I wish to speak in a similar vein to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), who in a measured, well-argued and intellectually coherent contribution identified the issues we have in Peterborough, although I will not reiterate his points exactly.
Let me tell hon. Members a little about education. I secured a debate in Westminster Hall, to which the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) replied, in which I proposed incorporating the number of pupils for whom English is an additional language as a key factor in the pupil premium. In those areas where there are pressures specifically as a result of eastern European migration—there are probably fewer than two dozen such areas—the need for extra resources as a result of language difficulties should be factored in. For example, in the academic year 2010, of the 528 pupils at Beeches primary school in the central ward of Peterborough, only six spoke English as their first language. There are many such schools in Peterborough, although not necessarily at that level, but close to it. That will inevitably have a massive impact on educational attainment simply because the resources needed to bring all those children up to the appropriate standard will be significant.
Another concern relating to education that we must not forget is churn. Many of the low-wage and low-skilled people who work in horticulture, agriculture and food processing and packaging in Boston and Peterborough come here for short periods, which disrupts their children’s education. For instance, overall in Peterborough, 4,767 pupils—31%—did not have English as their first language. Of 2,103 pupils with key stage 2 results, 21% were not in the city at the beginning of their school year, and 22%, or 450 pupils, were in the foundation stage but were not put in for key stage 2 SATs. That one simple example is important in terms of the training, expertise, skills and knowledge of the teachers required to teach those children.
I shall draw the Minister’s attention to some specific issues. On the A2 accession of Bulgaria and Romania and, particularly, the moratorium on the free movement of labour, it would not be appropriate to change in 2013 our policy on that restriction. It is an extremely important issue, because the potential mass migration of large numbers of low-wage and low-skilled people from Romania and Bulgaria would have a significantly negative effect on the UK labour market in 2013, and I welcome the preliminary findings of the Migration Advisory Committee in making that clear to Ministers. Serious consideration should be given to derogation for a further period—perhaps to 2015 or 2017.
On the interrelationship between the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions, we must clarify the issue of the right to reside and the habitual residence test, particularly the operation of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006. The House of Lords Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, in its 26th report, found that the DWP had done insufficient work in looking at the impact and ramifications of the end of the workers registration scheme, and that is important in terms of people’s access to benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance, pension credit and child tax credit.
I am concerned, too, about the European Commission infringement proceedings and its reasoned opinion, which essentially breaks the social contract, established over many years in this country, that one does not receive benefits unless one has a demonstrable link to this country and has paid taxes to this country. I draw the House’s attention in particular to the case of Mrs Patmalniece, a Latvian woman who claimed pension credit, having never worked a single day in this country. That cannot be right for my constituents or for the constituents of any hon. Member.
I am concerned also about criminal records data in the European Union, because in respect of sharing such data we are not properly using regulation 19(1B), which came into effect in June 2009 as an amendment to the 2006 regulations. If we are using it, we are doing so reactively. It is not right that someone with a criminal record can get on a coach in Lithuania and turn up in Boston, Peterborough or any other urban or rural centre in the United Kingdom.
Gavin Barwell
I would give way to the hon. Gentleman, but a number of other Members wish to speak, so I am going to restrict my remarks to seven or eight minutes.
Also under the Labour Government, net migration increased fivefold to 250,000 by 2010. That gave rise to two major concerns. The first was about population growth and pressure on services, and Members have spoken a lot about that in the debate. This morning I visited a project called the Well in my constituency. It is run by the Salvation Army, but a number of different public agencies are involved in it. It deals with people who are either sleeping rough, sofa-surfing or have profound housing difficulties. They often have mental health, alcohol or drug problems as well. It was interesting to see both at that project and at the Nightwatch scheme in Croydon, which provides food parcels to people who are in profound housing difficulties, that there were a significant number of people from eastern Europe in need of those services. They came to the UK looking for a better economic future but have not found it, but they are unable or unwilling to return.
Immigration has given rise to a second concern, which has not really been referred to in the debate because it is not part of the polite political discourse. If we are honest, there are people in this country who feel that their local community has changed demographically during the course of their lifetime and is not the place that it used to be. That is not my view of my local community, but when I canvassed door to door in the run-up to the election, I found that there were people who felt like that and we need to recognise that.
Both those effects are increased by the fact that the impact of migration in our country is particularly pronounced in certain parts of the country. About 12% of the UK population as a whole were born abroad, but in Greater London that figure rises to about 36%, and in some London boroughs it is even higher than that.
That concern about migration led to one particularly damaging effect in some of our communities. When the Conservative Government left office in 1997 there was not a single British National party councillor in this country but, as a result of the huge increase in migration, a number of extremists were elected to public office. Thankfully, the number is now declining again.
Before I touch on a couple of further measures that I should like the Government to take, I wish to set out my views, because it is important for a Conservative representing a demographically highly mixed part of London to recognise that in the past the Conservative party has been perceived, to some degree rightly, as unwelcoming to people from overseas who have tried to settle in this country.
My view is very much that immigration is a good and necessary thing. If we examine our population, we see that the baby boomer generation is ageing and that if we do not bring in some people of working age, we will have fewer working people supporting more pensioners. If we believe in the UK as a global trader, we clearly need to have links with countries around the world and people need to be able to come here and set up businesses. I sit on the Select Committee on Science and Technology and am very passionate about our best universities having the ability to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world. I also see in my home town the vibrancy that migration can bring.
It is possible, however, to have too much of a good thing, which is what I contend we have had. Government policy needs to pass seven tests, the first of which is tone. It is so important that we do not demonise migrants. They are doing what any Member of the House would do in the equivalent situation.