Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. Of course this House thought that that is exactly what it had done, as it sent a very clear message to judges about the balance that this House, on behalf of society, had struck to put the rights of the innocent first. Judges have not got the message, which is why we will legislate to make sure that it is reflected in the law.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Given what the Minister has just said, why on earth was the number of foreign criminals deported in 2011 just 4,522, whereas in the last year of the Labour Government it was 5,528? The Government are failing on this, and it is little to do with what he has said. Given that one of the best ways of making sure that suspected criminals are deported from this country is the European arrest warrant, which extradites them elsewhere, why on earth are the Government thinking of withdrawing from it?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman should know that this is about exactly the reason I set out; he will know, if he has done his research, that between 2011 and 2012 there was a significant increase, of more than 1,000, in the number of appeals made by criminals to prevent their deportation. That is exactly why we need to take action, and it is another area we will deal with in the Immigration Bill.

Student Visas

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The disaggregation and further decimation of that information—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Dissemination.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Dissemination, I apologise. I will get my English right eventually. I only arrived here in 1978. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Bryant]

It is a Latin word.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right.

We can do three things to solve this problem. First, we must continue to come down hard on immigration fraud. The Government are right to deal robustly with those who abuse the student route. The fact that we have closed down more than 500 bogus colleges since the election shows how easy it has been to exploit the student visa system in recent years. If we want to carry the public with us, it is vital to maintain public confidence in the integrity of our immigration system.

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[Gavin Barwell]

If I can make progress, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

I will not go into too much detail on students because the previous hon. Members who made speeches set the situation out clearly, but the UK gains four clear benefits from international students, the first of which is economic. We have heard the figures for the UK as a whole, but the Mayor of London’s office tells me that the economic benefit to London, my city, is about £2.5 billion a year.

The second benefit is to the experience of our students when they are at university. I was lucky enough to attend the university of Cambridge, and can attest to the benefit I gained from studying with pupils from around the world.

The third benefit, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) strongly communicated, is to what is frequently referred to as the UK’s soft power. A 2011 Select Committee on Home Affairs report identified that 27 foreign Heads of State had been educated in the UK. That is a difficult benefit to quantify, but an important one to this country.

[Chris Bryant]

Unfortunately, that includes the Head of State of Syria.

[Gavin Barwell]

It does include Syria—clearly, educating Heads of State will not be a benefit universally, but the hon. Gentleman would agree that, in general, having people in leading positions in foreign countries, whether in Governments, the diplomatic service, the military or the business community, is a benefit to the UK.

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[Damian Hinds]

As always, my hon. Friend makes her point clearly and well. I do not have enough knowledge about the interview to comment, but overall, with or without a cap, and whatever happened last year or this year—we know that there is no cap, and we know that the figures look broadly okay—it nevertheless remains the case that, given the intense scrutiny to which immigration numbers will rightly be subjected, how students are treated in those statistics must inevitably affect the extent to which we as a country seize this market opportunity in the years ahead.

In one way it is blindingly obvious, but it is worth saying that not every student adds to immigration. In the steady state, so long as we are reasonably good at counting people leaving as well as those coming—

[Chris Bryant]

That is a big “if”.

[Damian Hinds]

We took over from Labour.

So long as we are reasonably good at that, it is only growth in the numbers that will add to immigration. However, I would ask the Minister to look again and consider counting people towards net immigration only at the point at which they settle. The key counter-argument—in some ways it is quite strong—is that a student is a human being like any other, and if there is a net increase in their numbers, that is an increase in net immigration, which will lead to the same strain on housing, public services and so on as with any other type of immigration. I would argue that that is not quite true. I do not want to sound trivial about it, but one could argue, with some sense, that students do not take up quite as much residential living space as others and, being younger on average, they are—[Interruption.] I do not mean that students are smaller. I myself was thinner as an undergraduate—that is history—but I was thinking more about housing. As younger people, typically, students are probably less likely than the average person to make demands on the national health service, places at primary schools and so on.

[Chris Bryant]

It is an absolute pre-condition of any student visa that that person is unable to make any claims on the taxpayer or, therefore, the NHS.

[Damian Hinds]

I am conscious of the time and I do not want to get into a long debate about this, but any person in this country will be consuming public services to some extent—for example, roads—and is financed by the rest of us. In any case, broadly speaking we are making the same points.

We could also mitigate those effects. Given that housing is a particular issue, we could do that by requiring universities that want to expand to provide additional accommodation. Local areas that want to benefit from such economic growth should also have to be willing to accept the provision of extra accommodation, over and above residential housing.

The truth is that there are downsides—additional strains and calls on public resources and residential accommodation—to having more people in the country. It is not without cost; it is a choice to be made. We have to weigh up the costs and downsides against the benefits that so many people have talked about—the revenues, the export earnings, the jobs that are created, the talent we can bring to this country and the strengthening of our links around the world. If, having made that calculation, we decide that this should be a focus area in contributing to our economic growth—I think the case is very strong —we must be bold in seizing that opportunity.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Let me first pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) and all other Members who signed up to ensure that we had this afternoon’s debate. It is perhaps a sort of irony that the quality of the debate has been high, with an enormous degree of unanimity on the issues. I suspect that if the Chamber had been fuller, the debate might have been more partisan and there might have been less unanimity, but the debate we have had is a tribute to the way in which the argument has been advanced in several Select Committees and through the Select Committee process itself. Sometimes if we just look rationally at the facts, it is easier to reach a cross-party position.

I studied abroad. I did part of my primary education in Spain; I studied theology at the Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos in Argentina; so I understand the complications and difficulties of studying in other countries. I note that the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), of whom I am particularly fond, referred to Erasmus, talking about what has happened since Erasmus came here in the 16th century. It is interesting, because when Erasmus first came here to study at Cambridge university in 1506, he did not complete a whole year so I do not think he would have been included in the net migration target. When he came again, in 1511, staying until 1515, he taught as the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge university. In that case, he would have come here under the tier 2 visa, which would have been completely different and not the subject of this afternoon’s debate.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

Does my hon. Friend think that the Home Office still has Erasmus’s passport?

[Chris Bryant]

That is a point well made.

Another hon. Member—I cannot remember who it was—referred to the fact that many Heads of State from around the world have studied in the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] It was the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who speaks sanely and sensibly on many of these issues. As he said, some studied at Sandhurst, as many have been military leaders as well. It must surely be good, in terms of our soft power, that the Heads of State of Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and many other countries have studied in the United Kingdom.

I would also point to those who have had a more courageous political career, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, and, for that matter, to the large number of people who have come to the United Kingdom, studied here, stayed on and ended up teaching here, gaining Nobel prizes in classic instances such as Sydney Brenner, César Milstein and Aaron Klug. Perhaps most interesting of all, T S Eliot, now thought of as the quintessentially British poet of the 20th century, was originally born in the United States of America, came to study here at the beginning of the first world war and ended up staying here for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was because he had the experience of being a migrant student that he ended up writing so much about travelling and the difficulty of living in other cultures.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just mentioned Sandhurst, and I ask him not to forget the royal naval training college at Darmouth and the RAF training college at Cranwell, which I attended. During my flight officer training we often thought it was the Omani officer, with the overseas costs, who actually funded the training costs of the British RAF officer cadets.

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed, that is an important point. If we look at the number of people from Latin American militaries—air force, navy or army—who have historically had the Prussian tradition of military and then come to the UK to train in a British environment and completely changed their attitude towards democracy and the way in which the military operate in a democratic society, we see another positive aspect of people coming from other parts of the world to study here.

Many hon. Members have rightly referred to the economic benefit of international students coming to study in this country. The Government estimate in 2009, produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was that this country’s higher education exports came to a value of some £8 billion and could rise to £16.9 billion by 2025. That is one of the most significant areas of growth potential in the economy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, the University of Sheffield has produced an important report on the economic benefits that can arise from international students coming here. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred to the importance to the north-east of not only people studying and paying for their courses—many British people do not understand that international students pay fully for their course and, indeed, pay over the odds compared with British people, doing so in advance—but all the other benefits that come to the local economy. According to the University of Sheffield’s study, the relevant figure for Sheffield is £120 million a year.

In addition, we need to consider the wide range of subjects studied. Some people want to say, “It is just about the brightest and the best coming to the United Kingdom.” I wholly agree with those who have said that it was absolutely right for the Government to deal with issue of bogus colleges, but it is not just university degrees at Oxford and Cambridge that we should be concerned with; this is also about postgraduate studies at many different universities and the English language. I would prefer people who are learning English around the world to learn about taps, not faucets, and about pavements, not sidewalks, because I would prefer them to have a British understanding of the English language and get it from the horse’s mouth.

Many schools and universities have valued enormously exchange students coming to the United Kingdom, and they are important in relation to the shorter-term student visitor visa. There is not only an economic advantage to consider, but a social advantage, in terms of, the quality of the education students are able to get. If they are studying international politics or history and people come with completely different experiences from elsewhere in the world, that enlivens, informs and improves the quality of the education of British students in universities and colleges. Also, this is about ensuring that we provide the strongest possible opportunity for overseas students to develop their understanding of what it is like to be in Britain and to do business in Britain. We hope that they will then do greater business with us further in the future.

I would also point out that, as many hon. Members have said, this is an area of migration—if we want to term it as such—that is warmly welcomed and accepted by the British public. Leaving aside the matter of bogus colleges, where foreigners were exploited and not given a proper education, and British taxpayers were exploited because proper controls were not in place, it is warmly accepted in this country that international students are important for our economy. If we are to prosper in the future as a country that is in “a global race”, to use the Prime Minister’s term, we have to be able to compete for international students—for that market around the world.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that not only have we had bogus colleges, but quite a lot of colleges have provided relatively low-value courses, be they in business, accounting or IT, where the incentive of being able to work part-time, stay on to work afterwards, bring dependants and potentially stay on has been much of the reason why international students have stayed, and that the Government have been right to crack down on that?

[Chris Bryant]

I want to see more evidence of precisely what the hon. Gentleman mentions. I believe he has been in his Committee all afternoon, so I understand why he has not been able to take part in the whole of this debate, which is a shame. I merely wish to cite the Government’s own Home Office paper from this year, “The Migrant Journey”, which showed that just 1% of students who came here in 2006 were permanently residing here five years later. So those myths that have sometimes grown up of—[Interruption.] There are others who are still studying and who have gone on to study other courses, but according to the Home Office’s own report only 1% are permanently residing. Some of the myths that have been mentioned in previous debates about 20% or 30% of students staying on afterwards are misguided.

I wish briefly to discuss the Government’s record. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) referred to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Its figures showed, contrary to the figures often provided by the Government, that the number of first-year, non-EU, new-entrant students at universities was down by 0.4% in 2011-12. In particular, the number of postgraduate new entrants has gone down from 105,195 to 103,150, which is potentially a worrying trend that we need to examine for the future because it is the first time there has been a fall in those figures for a decade—in effect, for all the time that similar statistics have been available.

As several hon. Members said, the number of students coming from India has fallen by some 8,000. That number may have been made up for by the number coming from China, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said, it was a sign of the Government’s “forked-tonguedness” or two-facedness that the Prime Minister actually had to go to India to say that there is no cap on international students coming to the United Kingdom. There may not be a legal cap, but it certainly feels as if there is a cap, and the Government have to address that. As the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon said, if this is a growing market, we need to be holding our market share, and that means advancing and not stepping backwards. I would like us to increase our market share, because we have a unique and very valuable offer, and this would be good for the British economy. I worry that the way the Government’s immigration target is crafted has made that more difficult for us to achieve.

All the estimates show a significant fall in Britain’s attractiveness as a place for study, while Australia and Canada have seen dramatic improvements in their attractiveness. One Australian who works in this business told me recently, “I am delighted at what your Government are doing, because you are giving us lots of business.” That should really worry the Government.

I wish to raise one other minor point, which a number of hon. Members have mentioned and which relates to the number of overseas students who come to study degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths. That is the area in which we saw the most significant drop—8%—in 2011-12 in the number of non-EU new-entrant students coming to the UK. That must worry us, because it will affect our future competitiveness and productivity.

I now want to ask the Minister about London Metropolitan university. On 3 September 2012, while responding to an urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)— the Minister’s predecessor—said that more than 60% of students at London Met were involved in the “problems” of dubious education and were not proper students. He added:

“It was not a small, isolated number of students; the sampling showed significant systemic problems throughout.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 26.]

I should have thought that if that had been the case, a significant number of people would have been removed from the country.

That one bovver-booted intervention, made at a time of the year—the autumn—when many people were coming to study in the United Kingdom, sent a message around the world that Britain was not open for business. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us precisely how many students from London Metropolitan university were deemed to be “not proper students” and have been removed from the country. If he cannot do so now, perhaps he will write to me.

In his report on tier 4 visas, John Vine said:

“We found a potential risk of non-genuine students opting to apply for Student (Visitor) visas”,

which, he said,

“are not subject to the same stringent rules that are applied to Tier 4… The Agency needs to be alert to this to ensure that this route is not exploited in the future.”

The dramatic increase in the number of people applying to study shorter courses is almost in direct proportion to the fall in the number applying for tier 4 visas. I fear that a displacement activity may be taking place, and I think there is a danger that unless we impose far more significant controls on shorter-term visas, they will be open to abuse.

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[Mr Harper]

The point the right hon. Lady makes about in-country performance is absolutely right; it is true that the performance in the last financial year of what was the UK Border Agency was not good enough, as I know very well from conversations and correspondence with Members. Out-of-country performance has remained very good, however. Part of the reason why the Home Secretary made the changes she has made to the border agency was to fix the problems in the UK visas and immigration part of the business. The good news is that we have put a lot of resource and effort into turning that around, and the performance of the Home Office for in-country operations—which used to be a UKBA responsibility—has got immeasurably better. The latest figures are much better. It has taken some time to do that, but I ask the right hon. Lady to let me know of any specific outstanding cases, and I will look at them and see if there is anything we can do.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister slipped in the words “academic progression”. I fully understand why, in the vast majority of cases, someone would want to go from an undergraduate degree to a postgraduate degree and so on, but there are cases, in particular for vocations and some STEM degrees, where a student who had first done an undergraduate degree in their home country might want to come to the UK to study for another undergraduate degree, which would not count as academic progression. I worry that people might therefore be being excluded who would be perfectly decent and sensible to have studying here.

[Mr Harper]

I was referring to people who, as I have seen when we have removed them, have been in the UK for a decade or more, perpetually renewing a student visa and clearly making no progress. That is an abuse of the system. We were talking about that, not about trying to micromanage someone’s academic career.

Let me do something that I cannot always do and give some positive news to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) about London Metropolitan university. I will not rehearse the past in great detail, but I have put a lot of work into this—it happened just about the time at which I was given this job and at which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) became the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice—and I am absolutely convinced that the UK Border Agency, as it was, took exactly the right decision to revoke London Metropolitan university’s sponsor licence. It was not fulfilling its responsibilities by any measure. Nobody in the sector has defended it and its behaviour was, I am afraid, well known.

The positive news, which shows that the system works, is that we have worked closely with London Metropolitan university and it has made significant improvements to its system and to the administration of how it delivers on its requirements. It has now been awarded an A-rated sponsor licence, which means it can sponsor international students, and it has 12 months to build up a track record and apply again for highly trusted sponsor status. That is very positive. The Home Office has worked very closely with the university—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Rhondda is asking how many students there are. The university can recruit only 15% of the number it could originally have while it is an A-rated sponsor.

The hon. Member for Islington North asked me about this subject first. I do not have the specific details of all the students that were there and what has happened to them, but we have those data because we wrote to every single one. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, since the university is in his constituency, and I will put a copy of my reply in the Library—[Interruption.] I will also send a copy to the hon. Member for Rhondda and I will include the details of how many have left the country.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because he prematurely comes on to points that I will raise later, when I will be happy to address his specific question.

The Deputy Prime Minister rightly pointed out in a recent speech that

“in order to remain an open and tolerant Britain, we need an immigration system that is zero-tolerant towards abuse.”

He is right—the British are tolerant, but they are also intolerant of abuse of all kinds. That is one of the great hybrid virtues of Britishness. That said, I reject our junior partner’s idea for a security bond. It is neither practical nor—probably—administratively workable, and it may also discriminate against those who are genuinely seeking to stay a short time in Britain, but who do not have access to support funding. There should be no penalising of legitimate visa applicants.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman understands the Liberal Democrat policy better than I do, because it was not clear exactly what the bond was meant to relate to—to family visit visas or to spouse migration into this country, similar to the situation in Australia, where anybody, such as a church, an organisation, or somebody else, can put down a financial assurance that somebody who is coming as the spouse of an Australian citizen will not be claiming on the taxpayer. Does the hon. Gentleman see the two in the same or a different light?

[Mark Pritchard]

We will have to wait and see the detail. In general, I do not support the policy, but in terms of the specifics and details of particular categories, it may well apply. There may be a case for a bond relating to higher risk work visas, where either the employee or the employer puts up the bond, but that does not make the case for a general catch-all policy. I hope that that, in part, answers the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Mark Pritchard]

That is right, but I take the Deputy Prime Minister’s words on bonds seriously. Clearly, I would not want to break the bond in the coalition, and I welcome his abandonment of the Liberal Democrat policy of an amnesty for illegal overstayers who have been in Britain illegally for more than 10 years. That would have given the green light for even more abuse—perhaps it is a welcome case of the dog wagging the tail.

As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs will know—I understand that he is on his way to this debate—the sheer number of overstayers is a real challenge. According to his Committee, the backlog could take a quarter of a century to clear. It is a shame that he is not here yet, because I suspect that he will be Lord Speaker, the Speaker in the House of Lords, by then; he will have to check Hansard. That is why new and innovative thinking is needed.

My own view is that new immigration enforcement will never have the level of information, resource or manpower to clear that backlog sufficiently. That is why I think that the Government should consider new policies and perhaps even the following suggestion. Anyone who is an overstayer on any visa—work, tourist, student, family and so on—who does not declare themselves to authorities by 1 April 2014, or a date to be agreed, and regularise their visa status, and is subsequently caught, will be banned from re-entering the United Kingdom for 20 years or an agreed tenure. Those who do declare themselves will be asked to leave, but could reapply to return to the UK on a future visa after a period of 12 months, or a similar period to be agreed. Those who regularise their status will be rewarded; those who continue to abuse the system will receive a sanction.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman did not say, but I presume that he means non-EU nationals, because if he means, and includes, EU nationals, he has to make the same deal for British citizens.

[Mark Pritchard]

In my preamble, I said that I would be speaking about non-EU immigrants before coming on to the particular—[Interruption.] Giving contextualisation I called it—giving context. If the hon. Gentleman will just be a little more patient, the narrative of the debate will become a little clearer. I have answered the point: it is non-EU specifically.

The system that I have set out incentivises people to declare themselves to the authorities and, I believe, would reduce the number of overstayers and the challenge that the authorities face to apprehend them. This is not an amnesty. These are hard-headed sanctions for those who abuse the system and for whom the system is inadequately equipped, given the huge—mountainous—legacy left by the last Labour Administration.

Similarly, UK Visas and Immigration as it is now called should ensure that all new applicants applying for visas are aware of the penalties for overstaying. Those could be financial and, similarly, the visa sanctions that I have just outlined. The Government might also consider further financial penalties for sponsors of visas who knowingly mislead authorities. As the Deputy Prime Minister has rightly said:

“The challenge isn’t just stopping people coming into Britain illegally, it’s about dealing with individuals who come…legitimately but then become illegal once they’re already here.”

However, there is good news: things are, finally, being turned around. This Government have cut net migration by one third. In real terms, that means that over the last three years 250,000 fewer immigrants have come into the UK than would have been the case under the last Government. This Government deserve much credit for their record, not least for rooting out 600-plus bogus language schools and colleges and for doubling fines for unscrupulous employers—a subject that was touched on earlier—for hiring illegal workers. Often, they are hired for less than the minimum wage and exploited, with their rights suspended. I hope that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) will welcome the doubling of those fines.

I would now like to narrow the debate, answering the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—

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[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend makes a very helpful contribution to the debate, as he always does. I am grateful for his analysis, which he has obviously done over the last few hours since the poll came out. I come back to the point that it is a significant amount. Whether it is 1%, 1.5% or 4%, it is a significant amount of people for communities to absorb and public services to serve.

We hear that Germany is toughening up its rules, finding ways around EU strictures. Coupled with Spain’s high unemployment rate and comparatively low benefits, that makes the UK an increasingly attractive option for many where poverty is still widespread and the minimum wage is one third of what it is in the UK. I do not question the integrity of the BBC poll, but I do question its interpretation.

EU migration affects schools as well. I am sure that colleagues know examples of how demand for school places has meant that some parents cannot send their children to their school of choice because of the influx of EU migrants. Some families have had to place siblings in different schools as a result. Of course, that can also happen because of other, unrelated demographic changes, but it is certainly the case that a lot of this is happening because of demands from immigration.

There is also the impact from teachers and classroom assistants giving special attention to children who do not speak English. That can be disruptive to the rest of the classroom. It is disruptive to school life and a distraction for other pupils. There is also the cost to local education authorities and school budgets of translation and interpretation.

Similarly, EU migration has an impact on local GP services, acute hospital trusts and wider primary care demand, which is why the Government are right to try to recoup millions from other European economic area Governments when their citizens use the NHS. It should have been happening for years, but it has not been. Hospitals might be required, through statute, to do their bit, perhaps with financial incentives for trusts to co-operate with the Government on the legal status of the patients they look after. Surely NHS trust boards should have a duty to ensure that those they treat, save in emergencies, are those who have the first right to be treated. That is not lacking compassion, but recognising that the NHS, even with record funding under the Conservative-led Government, has finite and scarce resources—it is the national health service, not the international health service. Britain must remain an open and tolerant society, but we cannot be the hospital for the world. Health tourism must end, and health trusts, not only the Government, have a major role to play in delivering fairness in treatment.

[Chris Bryant]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s point about people from other countries using the NHS, though we have always had bilateral agreements with many countries, so there is a process of recompense. A lot of British people, many of whom are older, are based in Spain and have a problem getting NHS treatment there, so many of them come back to the UK to use the service here. The real issue is that the NHS here, unlike everywhere else, is non-contributory, but he would not want to change that, would he?

[Mark Pritchard]

No, not at all, but the hon. Gentleman’s point is a bit of a red herring. He is right: 1.4 million UK citizens live in the other 27—26 plus one—EU states, several hundred thousand of whom live in Spain, as he points out. But I think he knows full well that my point is that the previous Labour Government, over 13 years, failed to recoup any funds, which, as he alluded to, they could have done and which this Government are doing. I hope he will support that policy.

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[Chris Bryant]

All that would allow Britain to do would be to enforce the rules we currently have because we do not subscribe to the whole of Schengen. Furthermore, the situations in which it has been used in other countries, such as in the discussions about the borders with Greece, show that it is used in truly exceptional circumstances and expressly forbids merely migratory transition.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am not saying that there is a legal route, but as a politician I do not subscribe to the view that “We have always done it this way” is the best way to answer every question. I take the view: “This is the challenge; this is where we are. Let us explore every avenue to get over the challenge.” It is incumbent on me, albeit as a minor legislator and a Back Bencher, to represent my constituents and to try to find a way, and I believe that where there is political will, a way will always be found.

On the control of our borders, I would like to see Britain ultimately take back full control. As more countries from the Balkans accede to the European Union, EU migration will become more, not less, of a political, social and economic challenge. I hope that taking back sovereign control of our borders, while avoiding pulling up the drawbridge, will be integral to the Government’s review of EU competences, on which my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) has done a huge amount of work. It is in our national economic and security interests to ensure that our borders are secure and that we regain the sovereign right to close them or, when necessary, to limit the numbers of those transiting them.

[Chris Bryant]

Based on our existing treaty obligations, the only way in which the hon. Gentleman could do that would be to leave the European Union. Is that not true?

[Mark Pritchard]

No, not at all, but on the issue of leaving the EU, thank goodness that at last, because of the Conservative-led coalition Government, the British people will have a say with an in-or-out referendum in 2017-18. The hon. Gentleman is falling into the trap of saying “We have always done it this way. There can be no change because we know no other way.” What I am calling for today is for border controls to be within the review of EU competences. Is it now the policy of Her Majesty’s Opposition to wish not even to discuss regaining some sovereignty over British borders? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to answer that.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is being absolutely preposterous in his argument. He knows perfectly well that if he wants to completely and utterly “have the right to close our borders”—his words, I think—to anyone from other European Union countries, we either force those countries to leave the union, or we leave it ourselves. We have treaty obligations to those people and, in fact, there was not even a vote in the House on the question of whether Bulgaria and Romania should join the European Union, because there was unanimity that they should do so, under the terms of the treaty as was provided.

[Mark Pritchard]

We will wait and see—we do not know whether what I have said will happen in the short term—but, as a highly intelligent man, the hon. Gentleman knows that all treaties can, at least in principle, be subject to amendment and change. I rest my case on that point of fact.

In conclusion, Britain has benefited much from EU migration and immigration, but there have also been disbenefits. Figures from the previous Government, following the last influx of European migrants in 2004, showed that their estimates had been spectacularly wrong. I pay credit to Migration Watch UK, which arguably has the best and most consistent record on immigration data. It estimates that 250,000 Bulgarians and Romanians will move to the UK between 2014 and 2019 and, as we heard earlier, the figure could be higher. Such an influx will reshape communities, affect public services and strain social cohesion.

We need to bear down on racism and xenophobia, but one of the best ways of doing that, as policy makers, is not through reactive policies but through preventive and proactive ones that make a difference to people’s lives, and a balanced immigration system that works. The British people are tolerant people, but they want an immigration system they can trust, that is fair and that helps the most vulnerable, not one that takes advantage of British generosity of heart and British hospitality. The Government are making genuine progress in achieving that, but there is still much to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

At the end of the day, although one wants to big oneself up as Minister for Europe, the decision was finally made at a much higher level, and I am not trying to pass on responsibility. However, the fact is that we should have looked at that and at the reasons why these things happened. That is why I hope we can learn from the mistakes that were made and ensure that proper research is commissioned, but the Government have categorically refused to do that.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Christopher Bryant.

[Chris Bryant]

Only my mother calls me Christopher, Mr Walker. However, while reading recently, I was struck by the fact that the person who produced the original report for the then Government claims that, if we read all 85 pages, it was remarkably accurate on probable EU migration from the A8 countries to the UK. Unfortunately, all the different political classes at the time relied only on a headline, which was wholly inaccurate. I suspect that it is possible to map out the numbers rather better than has been done in relation to next year.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend was my successor as Minister for Europe, and I do not know whether he had the chance to look at any other documents, but whatever the debates and the arguments were, we were where we were. Bearing in mind that we were in that position, let us not repeat the same mistake.

The estimates of the number of people coming here after 31 December range from 10,000, according to the Romanian ambassador and research commissioned in Romania, to 50,000, according to Migration Watch, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin correctly said. That is a big difference—about 40,000 people. We need to look at that as the central part of our debate about Romania and Bulgaria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and to speak in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing it and allowing us to have what has been a well tempered and well argued debate on possibly the most important subject of the day.

I speak as someone who quite likes the multicultural nature of Great Britain and who has benefited from it in many ways in my previous life outside this place and then as a Member of the European Parliament, when I came to experience and know some of the wonderful institutions with which the Minister now deals regularly to solve the problem we have. Immigration is probably the thorniest political issue of our time, if not of all time. We only need to look at the United States of America to see Republicans and Democrats working on a solution to how they can deal with those people in the United States who should not be there, whether with an amnesty process or whatever. It is a tough topic across the globe.

The Government are beginning to get some things right, with net migration down a third since May 2010. In June 2011, the number of people coming in was 247,000 to 250,000, but in June 2012, 163,000—a fall of a third, welcome to my constituents. It is also interesting to see where immigration comes from: pre 31 December this year, 55% consists of nationals from outside the European economic area, 30% EU nationals and 15% Brits returning from abroad, where the sun on the costas might not be as nice as it used to be, with other issues elsewhere. The net migration statistics are welcome because they show that the Government are looking at immigration seriously—the first time in a long time for a British Government. I come with some heart to the debate, therefore, because the Minister completely understands that my constituents and those of all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken before me, on either side of the political divide, are truly concerned about what might happen after 31 December this year with potential migration from Romania and Bulgaria.

When I knock on the door of a constituent, the first thing that he or she has to say to me when I ask about their concerns is, “I am not a racist but”, and I hate that, because such people have genuine concerns about what their country looks like and how it feels. They are not racist at all and welcome the fact, as I do, that we have a much more multicultural Britain nowadays than we did before. Nevertheless, they feel that a big issue is coming down the line: Romanian and Bulgarian migration. We are talking not about the stuff, discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), that the far right is trying to engender—I saw leaflets circulated during the county council elections that were unpleasant to say the least, as well as factually impossible or incorrect—but about concerns in relation to all sorts of things, public services being among the main ones.

Some members of the Public Accounts Committee are present, and not so long ago a number of us went on a Committee visit to our Chair’s constituency in Barking. We were examining pressure on primary school places, and we went to the fantastic Gascoigne primary school—now the largest in the country, they believe—where a huge number of languages is spoken, some of which I have never heard of. The school is situated beside the Gascoigne estate, which includes a number—nine, I think—of large, horrible tower blocks, which were due to be taken down not so long ago. If someone migrates to this country, legally or otherwise, or crosses the border and registers with the authorities, one of the places that they will put people—most of whom come to London to start with, which is completely understandable—is the Gascoigne estate. The Gascoigne primary school, therefore, has at least eight to 10 pupils coming in new and eight to 10 pupils leaving every week throughout the school year, according to the head teacher, an excellent gentleman; one class last year had an 82% turnover in pupils.

Dealing with such a flow is difficult for any teaching establishment, and in the Gascoigne school it was all down to migration, some of which is good, with people coming to this country to work as hard as they can. The current pressure on our public services in general, however—on that school, or the hospitals around it—cannot be overestimated, and my constituents are concerned that, as of 1 January next year, the pressures on our public services will get greater and we need to plan for that. We cannot blame people—anyone—for wanting to come to this fantastic country of ours to work, to study or to do anything, because it is a wonderful place to do all those things. If I were in the situation of a Bulgarian person struggling to find work in my home country and with mouths to feed, I would absolutely up sticks and try to find work elsewhere. We cannot blame individuals for doing that, but we need a policy whereby it is slightly more difficult for mass migration to take place in future circumstances.

We should therefore look at how to predict better because, as many Members have said, we have some issues on numbers. The Minister has formed a cross-departmental committee to look at that and some of the other issues mentioned in the debate, and I would like to hear how that committee is going. As we have recognised in our contributions so far, the subject is of interest not only to people interested in Europe or in the wonderful Home Department but for its effect on education, the health service, transport networks and the whole works. I would like to hear from the Minister what we are doing with what he described as the “pull factors” for people coming to the United Kingdom.

I understand that benefits available to EU migrants in the UK are being compared with migrant benefits in other EU member states. EU law requires that people who move from one member state to another, with a right of residence in the host state, should not be discriminated against in their access to benefits simply on the basis of nationality. The provisions of EU law, however, do not harmonise the rules governing entitlement to each type of benefit throughout the member states. Anyone who has travelled in the EU knows that each individual country has different types of benefit: some have generous out-of-work benefits, some limited ones. Reciprocal arrangements are agreed, therefore—probably across the political divide—but the type of benefit is not agreed.

[Chris Bryant]

I think the biggest difference that matters legally in the EU is whether a benefit is contributory or non-contributory. If it is non-contributory, everyone—Belgian, French, Romanian and so on—must be treated exactly the same as a Brit, but if it is contributory, different British people are treated differently. My worry is that the UK is moving further down a route towards non-contributory benefits which might have significant financial implications for us in relation to other countries.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I understand exactly what he is saying. I was coming to the specific point about contributory benefits. In the United Kingdom, most people’s worries, founded or unfounded, are that a group of people will head here and, without contributing anything to our society, take a lot from it. Everyone is trying to articulate those fears as generously as possible, and I know that the Minister understands them. To fix the issue beyond doubt, we need to change the way this country gives benefits in general. That is a bigger debate than today’s, but we must head more down the contributory route. That will cause political issues elsewhere across the political spectrum, but if we stay within EU rules and deal with the potential problem of migration from Romania and Bulgaria, the basis of contributory benefits and enlarging that portfolio is one solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a great delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. It is something I have never done before. This is also a great opportunity to commend the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). I prefer his speeches when he is attacking the Prime Minister rather than the Opposition, but he put his argument very well and, although I hate to embarrass him, I agree with quite a lot of what he said.

I agree also with a lot of what the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said, and I will go through some of the issues line by line. His last sentence, however, slightly antagonised me, because although he commended the staff working in the local services in Peterborough who, he said, did not foresee the deluge that was coming, I think that quite a lot of the people who came ended up working in those same public services. It is not, therefore, quite a dichotomy between them and lots of people from outside the UK who have ended up doing nothing for this country because, in many cases, those are the people who have worked the hardest.

One thing that I think everyone who has spoken thus far has said—and I am sure the Minister will do the same—is that migration and migrants have brought a great deal to this country, economically and culturally, and not just in the generations that we have been part of but in many before. The Rhondda would certainly not be the constituency it is today, with rugby players with surnames such as Sidoli, if it were not for migration from Italy in the 19th century when people came to work in the mines. We actually allowed an awful lot of people to come from England too, which was a moral dilemma for us but, seriously, migration has affected every element of our country.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

May I just set the record straight? I represent a constituency which has had, in no particular order, Irish, Italian, Polish and Pakistani immigrants, and I do not have a problem with the essential integral concept of immigration. It is just the speed and the scale that is the issue.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. All that is very interesting, but I am afraid it needs to lead towards Bulgaria and Romania at some point soon.

[Chris Bryant]

Exactly, and Bulgarians and Romanians will be grateful to have heard precisely that point.

Just because someone is concerned about the levels of or the pace of migration, does not make them a racist. There might be some people who want to engage in the debate who have prejudiced views, but the vast majority of ordinary decent people in this country who have expressed concern do so from a position of no prejudice at all but simply because they are worried about the society in which they live. Let us face it, because of the now different travelling opportunities around the world, many countries have had to face a complete change. Italy was always a country that sent people abroad, and now it has had Bulgarians and Romanians coming in in significant numbers. Greece is exactly the same. It invented the word diaspora for all the Greeks who had gone all around the world, but in the past 10 years it has been a country of immigration, not emigration, completely changing the concept of what it is to be Greek.

I used to be a curate in High Wycombe, and there was a very large community of Poles there, who had arrived during and after the second world war and had become an integral part of the community. Similarly, there are more people from St Vincent living in High Wycombe than there are in St Vincent itself. They were deliberately brought to the United Kingdom after the second world war because we did not have enough people to make the chairs and keep the economy growing in such places. I believe, therefore, that a hermetically sealed country would be a mistake, leaving aside the fact that many British people have always wanted to go elsewhere in the world to make their fortunes. One thing that extending the European Union should have done is give British business and British individuals a greater opportunity to make their way in the world, in other countries, and many of them have done so in Spain, France and Italy, and also in Bulgaria and Romania. I hope that British industry will seize the opportunity of Bulgaria and Romania as a means of making money and advancing British business.

I note that there was unanimous support for enlargement when the proposal came to the House of Commons in 2004. The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) is not in his place at the moment, but the one thing I would say to him is that he could have made the point in 2004 if he had really believed that the Government had completely and utterly got their figures on migration from eastern bloc countries wrong. He could have tabled an amendment to the Act that implemented the treaty to say that there should be further transitional controls. He could have made a speech about it. He could have argued that Bulgaria and Romania should not be allowed to join the European Union and he could have forced a vote on the treaty. But he did not—no one did. We have to bear in mind sometimes that hindsight is a political sin and not a political virtue.

I agree with the hon. Members who said that migration must be controlled and sustainable, because otherwise local communities simply cannot cope. It is about infrastructure, schools, the health service and so many different things. I willingly accept that Labour was wrong not to have put in place the transitional controls for the maximum period that was allowed under the treaty when the A8 countries joined the European Union. As probably one of the most ludicrously pro-European Members of the House, I would say that we were not pro-European enough. The irony was that while France, Germany, Italy and Spain were saying, “Polish people, Estonians and Latvians, you can come here to live but not to work until seven years are over,” we decided to go it alone, and that made the problem infinitely worse because there was only one place where people could go. Talk about a pull issue! That was almost a push issue. I willingly accept, therefore, that we got some things wrong.

It is worth bearing in mind what has happened in relation to Bulgarians and Romanians in member states that have removed transitional controls ahead of us. For instance, in Germany, the numbers went from 158,000 in 2009 to 272,000 in 2012. It is worth pointing out, of course, that Germany is now actively promoting immigration, because it believes it needs it. One of its Ministers recently said:

“While our population is ageing, we have a low birth rate. Currently, of the total population of 80 million in Germany, 41 million are employed. Over the next 15 years, we could lose about six million workers just for demographic reasons”.

The Germans therefore want to encourage more people to come to their country.

[Mark Pritchard]

The hon. Gentleman is usually well informed, and I am sure this was an oversight, but Germany, although not sealing its borders, is looking at reducing the pull factors for the new accession countries. He may not have heard about that yet.

[Chris Bryant]

It is actively campaigning at the moment to encourage inward migration, and particularly skilled migrants. [Interruption.] I see the civil servant shaking his head, but we will doubtless hear from the Minister when he is inspired by his civil servant to correct me.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House, and he knows that he should not refer to those who are not within the confines of the Chamber.

[Chris Bryant]

My inexperience shows itself so frequently that it is a delight to have your experience in the Chair, Mr Howarth—[Interruption.] However, since you are talking to me while I am speaking, I cannot hear you. Spain removed the transitional controls much earlier and put some of them back in place in 2011. [Interruption.] I am so sorry; I am not sure where that comment came from, Mr Howarth. There are more than 1 million Bulgarians and Romanians in Spain, and similar numbers in Italy, which has also withdrawn the transitional controls.

It is important that we consider what drives where an EU migrant might go, although I might reach a slightly different conclusion from some others. Among the most likely things to decide what country an EU migrant, such as one from Bulgaria or Romania, goes to are, first, the law—whether they are allowed to migrate there—which explains the situation we have at the moment. Secondly, there are personal connections. If a person already knows somebody in a country, they are more likely to go there than to another country.

Thirdly, there is language. Several Members have referred to the fact that English is a key factor. Short of persuading Britons not to speak English any more, I am not quite sure what we can do about the fact that English has become the language of business around the world. However, it is also true that one reason many Bulgarians and Romanians have gone to Italy and Spain is that Italian and Spanish are still taught in schools in Bulgaria and Romania, and other Romance languages are a more easy fit; it is much easier for a Bulgarian or a Romanian to learn Italian or Spanish than English.

The fourth factor is where there is work; that is absolutely vital. That is why Germany is still the No. 1 destination for Bulgarians and Romanians. Interestingly, a couple of Members have referred to the “Newsnight” report coming out today and the different ways it has been reported. We could read the figures in many different ways, as hon. Members have, but one figure was quite interesting. When asked whether the benefits system would make a difference to the country they went to, 72% answered, “Not at all”, 8% said it would to a small extent, 5% said it would to a great extent and 3% said it would to a very great extent. We therefore need to be cautious about stating that the benefits system drives whether somebody comes to the United Kingdom, although, as several hon. Members have said, there is a significant difficulty with family benefits provided on a non-contributory basis. Those are tightly regulated by the EU, which is very keen to enforce its directives and case law. That is something we need to look at.

[Keith Vaz]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s arguments carefully. Would it be a good idea for the Government to commission research so that we know the approximate numbers of people who might come here? He is talking about opinion polls, which are always useful, and we, as politicians, like them. However, would it not be a good idea to have a detailed piece of research on this subject?

[Chris Bryant]

We tend to like opinion polls when we agree with them; if they do not quite agree with us, we dismiss them or we try to reread them in a different way that concurs with our opinion. Sometimes, of course, people ask questions in opinion polls in such a way as to get the answer they want. I am pretty certain the Government have done significant research on this issue. The Foreign Office has already admitted as much in response to a freedom of information request from me, although it said that it is not yet prepared to publish that research. The only reason it is not prepared to give it to me under freedom of information provisions is that it will publish it in the future. That is a somewhat bizarre way of proceeding. Different Ministers have articulated their views about this, but it is a shame that we are not all being treated as the adults we are and that we cannot, therefore, see this material, as Ministers can.

Let me refer to a couple of other issues. First, there is the Labour market.

[Stephen Barclay]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because we have to hear the Minister, and we do not have many Ministers—sorry, many minutes left. We have plenty of Ministers left, but not many minutes.

On unscrupulous employers, we know there are employers who will bring people from countries where labour is cheap, take exorbitant amounts from their wages for substandard accommodation and transport—their daily transport in the UK or their transport from another place in the EU—and still not even pay them the national minimum wage. Those workers are financially bound to their employers and feel they cannot complain, which is one of the problems we have with enforcing the national minimum wage. If there is one issue we could tackle that would most dramatically affect that situation, it is accommodation. Nobody should be living in substandard accommodation. Such a situation leads to the exploitation of workers who come here, and it unfairly undercuts workers here, who have no choice about how much their housing costs will be. The hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) was absolutely right that we need to address the issue of houses in multiple occupation, but I think we should have a licensing system for all landlords. We should also extend gangmaster legislation to other areas of employment.

Finally, the national health service was created by British people for British people. It should, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin said, be primarily a national health service for those who have contributed. However, we have to have certain exceptions. Obviously, one is emergencies. Another is notifiable diseases; otherwise, we could have a real problem in some parts of the country with tuberculosis and other diseases. Thirdly, there is mental health. In London, in particular, there is a problem.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. I call the Minister.

[Chris Bryant]

I will finish there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is right. We committed to reducing net migration from the unsustainable hundreds of thousands that it was under Labour to tens of thousands, which is much more sustainable. That is supported by the vast majority of British people, whomever they vote for. I am glad my hon. Friend also supports that policy.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the Minister could help me to spot the difference. Currently regulations and Department for Work and Pensions guidance for jobcentres state that EU migrants cannot claim benefits after six months unless they are

“genuinely seeking work, and have a reasonable chance of being engaged”.

The Prime Minister today, in what is supposedly a new announcement, said that migrants can claim after six months only if they

“can prove not just that you are genuinely seeking employment…but also that you have a genuine chance of getting a job.”

Is that not exactly the same? There is no difference at all—it is not a new announcement. How many people exactly does the Minister believe will be affected by this supposed change?

[Mr Harper]

The Prime Minister set out a number of changes today. The one the hon. Gentleman mentions ensures that there is a statutory presumption in the system, which does not exist today, that, after six months, people have to demonstrate that they are taking all possible steps to seek work and that they have a reasonable prospect of getting it. At the moment, there is no presumption that they must do so. That is a weakness in the system, which is why we will strengthen it.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme No. 2)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This has been a complete and utter shambles. It is outrageous that the programme motion was only tabled at the very last moment last night. Indeed, there was a Government Whip wandering around the corridors, saying that the Whips were about to call for the House to sit in private so that they could get an extra 20 minutes, because they still had not decided what the programme motion should be. That makes it very difficult for ordinary Members of the House to know whether they support the business for the following day, and whether they want to amend it

This is a Christmas tree Bill, and Christmas tree Bills have a terrible habit of gaining not only an awful lot of baubles and tinsel but a fairy on the top as well. There are 29 pages of Government amendments—29—covering very substantial issues, let alone all the other specific issues that ordinary Back-Bench Members on both sides of the House would like to debate. So it is good that we are getting an extra day, but it is therefore incumbent on the Government to make sure that there is an opportunity for key issues in relation to the Leveson inquiry—which have already been debated in the House of Lords—to be debated in the democratic Chamber, which is here.

I say to the Government that it felt very much yesterday—I am not entirely convinced that this has changed—as if the Government were doing everything in their power to rig the system so that there could be no debate at all on Leveson on Monday. That is basically what the programme motion before us does—it makes sure that that and, for that matter, other issues will not be debated on Monday.

I just think it is time we learned that there is a better way of doing politics. I fully accept that not everyone agrees with me about how we should implement Leveson; there is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had. But how on earth could we go back to our voters and say that, yes, we all wanted an inquiry to happen; we wanted millions of pounds of public money to be spent on an inquiry; we were gutted and we all poured out our soul when we heard the stories of Milly Dowler and all the rest, and the way they had been treated by the press; and we all stood up and made wonderful speeches about how there had to be change; and then we voted to make sure that we could not even debate it? That is essentially what the programme motion does.

The Minister is looking querulous, and I hope that does not mean that he is going to undermine what he said earlier, because I take very seriously what he said. As I understand it, he gave a complete guarantee that, for the second day of debate, there will be a new programme motion, whenever that second day is; and that that programme motion will expressly make provision for the House to be able to make up its mind on Leveson and associated matters to do with press conduct. To be honest, if we do not do that, we should be ashamed of ourselves as a House, because we will just have allowed the Executive—a small part of the Executive, I suggest—to prevent public debate, and I do not think our voters would thank us for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

There are two parts to our deliberation: first, whether the House should programme business at all; and secondly, a specific set of points about provision for discussion of Leveson. On the first part, within about a minute, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) went from describing me as a great democrat, which is extremely flattering, to suggesting that I was an exponent of Stalinist central control. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), however, said that we had a benign Government, so we need to discuss whether Stalinism can be benign. I hope that we are on the benign end of the scale.

There was a vote only a few months ago not to reduce the number of hours, but to adjust Tuesday sitting hours and other provisions, so that we would finish, apart from in exceptional circumstances, at 7 o’clock on Tuesday evening, rather than at 10 o’clock. The majority of Members who voted in that Division favoured the earlier finish on Tuesday. I was not one of them, but the majority made that decision. I do not detect—but I am not responsible for these matters—a groundswell of support for the proposal routinely to sit late into the night to deliberate on Bills, as most Members find it helpful to timetable our business, as long as the Executive make reasonable provision for those deliberations. As I have tried to explain, we are doing precisely that with the Bill.

On the new dimension of Leveson and the points made by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), for the benefit of the House, may I underline the crucial point? The Government will bring forward a supplementary programme motion if the cross-party talks have concluded, whether that is with or without agreement. If those talks have concluded, we will introduce a supplementary programme motion. With that assurance, the Opposition amendment is not necessary. If those talks have not concluded, we can proceed as we are currently proceeding, and if they have concluded, the Government have given an undertaking—I have given that undertaking on behalf of the Government—that we would in those circumstances introduce a supplementary programme motion. As for the question of when we will introduce that motion, which was raised by the right hon. Member for Delyn, the answer is that we will do so when the cross-party talks have concluded, either with or without agreement.

[Chris Bryant]

There are two issues that the Minister has not addressed. First, we do not know what “concluded” means. It could mean “came to a conclusion with which everybody agreed”, which might not be the view of the whole House, or it could mean “came to an end” because those talks collapsed. I should be grateful if the Minister provided clarification. Secondly, he has not told us which day has been chosen for the second day. If it is still next Monday, it will be virtually impossible for Members to table amendments that could be selected for Monday, unless there is an announcement today.

[Mr Browne]

On the first point, on when something can be said to have concluded, I had not realised that that was something on which I would be called to judge. It is when it has finished, I suppose: when there is no more left to discuss, or when the cross-party talks have concluded—[Interruption]—as I said, with or without agreement. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked what would happen if they had come to an end but there was no agreement. In that case, they would conclude without agreement. When the process of cross-party talks has been exhausted, that is the point at which a supplementary programme motion will be—

Asylum Support (Children and Young People)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a great delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.

I congratulate my three hon. Friends who spoke in today’s debate and all hon. Members who took part in putting the report together. I also congratulate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has just done, the various charities and organisations that work with refugees—including those whose primary work is not with refugees, such as the Red Cross—on the diligence that they have brought to the work, to try to make Parliament and the wider public understand the situation faced by many refugees in this country. Of course, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for the work she has done in bringing the issues together, for getting the report published and for how she presented her case today.

Different parts of the country will make different responses to the issue of asylum, because some parts have more refugees and a longer history of refugee communities than others. I used to be a curate in High Wycombe. Many refugees had come from Poland to High Wycombe in the 1940s, and it was an accepted part of Buckinghamshire society that there was a strong support for asylum and for refugees individually.

A respect for asylum and a desire to protect refugees are essential parts of our British decency. They are things we feel proud of because of our response not only in the 1930s and 1940s, but after that. People in the United Kingdom looked at oppressive dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and parts of eastern Europe and were proud when we were able to provide others greater freedom and liberty than they were able to have in their own countries.

The hon. Member for Brent Central was absolutely right in saying—though this is not often the version portrayed in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent or just about any national newspaper—that there is little evidence to suggest that asylum seekers choose a country because of its benefits system or whether they would be able to work. That, incidentally, is also true of other forms of migration.

It is important that we keep asylum and immigration separate and that Government rules do so, too. If someone has suddenly to leave their country, it is far more common for them to go to a country where they already know someone; that stands to reason. If this country suddenly had a dictatorial Government and people suddenly had to leave, they would probably go somewhere where they had family or friends, whose house they might be able to stay in. Alternatively, people might go to a country whose operation of the rule of law they truly respected. Our historical respect for the rule of law is another reason why Britain has sometimes been a place where people seek refuge.

The hon. Lady was also right in saying that being a refugee is tough.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

I arrived in this country many years ago, but in different circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when people leave their country, they go to a country where there is a history and tradition of tolerance and where they feel they will get a sense of justice? That is also part of why they move—not the benefits.

[Chris Bryant]

I absolutely agree. That does not mean that we should throw out all the rules on benefits in this country. It is a simple point to make—the vectors of asylum are oppression and dictatorial regimes, not the attraction of some kind of benefits system in this country. That is not to say that we should build palaces for every single person who comes to this country—no refugee expects that—but it is important to realise why people come.

It is also important to realise that no one wants to be a refugee; everyone prefers to live in their own country. The whole Old Testament is about people who are refugees because they had to leave their own country and the oppression that they lived under. The Israelites went off into the desert because of the oppression they were suffering under the Egyptians. That is a fundamental—theological, if one likes—understanding of the role of the refugee.

We need to do a great deal more, where we can, to ensure that our aid budget is deployed to try to ensure that fewer people around the world have to seek refuge. The number of people seeking asylum in this country and in many other parts of the world rose dramatically in the 1990s for the simple reason that there were many more dangerous places from which people had to flee.

We were hideously ill-prepared—in 1994, 1995 and 1996 there were only 50 people to deal with asylum seekers’ applications in this country—and it took a considerable period to put the situation in order. There were something like 170,000 applications a year; we are now talking about something in the region of 19,000, 20,000 or 21,000.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that the number of asylum seekers increased because more places around the world were dangerous. Is it not also the case—this is not a harsh point, just one for balance—that many people who came here claiming that they were asylum seekers came for other reasons? In fact, the attraction of easier travel and better media meant that, in addition to the rising numbers, understanding whether the basis for asylum was valid or invalid become more important in the 1990s and the last decade.

[Chris Bryant]

That may be true, but part of my critique is that we have been very ill-prepared to make such decisions over the past 20 years. If a long time is taken to decide on someone’s asylum application—that happened under Labour, but also in the early 1990s—the danger is that we end up with people who have become stateless and without any real existence.

Among people coming to my surgery recently, one young gentleman—he is not young any more; he came here some 25 years ago—has never had an asylum decision and has simply being living here. He has not been living off the state. He lives with his wife, and he is the house husband. Sorry—not his wife, but his partner: he has decided to come clean because he wants to marry, and he cannot marry without regularising his position.

It is vital that we make swift decisions, and it is important that the Government do whatever they can to reach the target of all asylum decisions being made within six months. In some cases, we have to be very careful. In particular, I hope that the Minister will look at the new evidence about Sri Lanka. When we return people to Sri Lanka, where they face oppression and persecution, we need to be careful in our relations with the Sri Lankan Government, let alone with others. There can be no greater instance of the trauma involved in someone’s having to leave their country as a refugee than the case of the 92 Burmese refugees who died after being at sea for 25 days off the coast of Thailand.

I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of the British people would be scandalised, upset and shocked by many of the stories told and much of the evidence presented to the group, especially about those for whom no decision has yet been made. The warmth of feeling of the British people, however, is somewhat diminished for those on section 4 support, when it has already been decided that people should go home.

I also think, as I know from an e-mail I had from a constituent yesterday—about a story in the Daily Mail, which makes me slightly hesitant—that there is less support for those in this country who decide to take on further family responsibilities after it has been determined that their asylum claim will not be accepted. I merely note that five of the people we have talked about are women who became pregnant after their appeal had been rejected.

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that his hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe said that, under section 4, people cannot buy condoms.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

Yes they can.

[Chris Bryant]

That is perhaps a point for the Minister. I want to say to some religious organisations that it is time they understood the reality of the modern world and abandoned their views about procreation.

[Sarah Teather]

That is not relevant to the point I just made.

[Chris Bryant]

I hear what the hon. Lady says. I do not know whether what she has reported is true or not, which is why I hope that the Minister can reply. He said from a sedentary position that it was not true.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to refer to the hideous conditions in which many people live. We need to do far more in this country to crack down on unscrupulous and poor landlords, who put people into housing that, frankly, is not fit for living. It has been a disgrace that successive Governments have not concentrated enough on that. Multiple removals are a waste of time, money and energy for the organisations involved, leaving aside the effect on families, and particularly on children who have to change school. I have already referred to slow decision making, and to how important it is that decisions are made swiftly so that people can organise their lives accordingly.

I want to ask the Minister what impact the bedroom tax will have—

[Richard Fuller]

It is not a tax.

[Chris Bryant]

I have heard the Prime Minister say that the bedroom tax is not a tax, which rather seems to give the game away.

[Richard Fuller]

Stop misleading people. It is not a tax.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Chris Bryant]

The point is that neither will that measure redistribute scarce resources from the over-supplied to the under-supplied. I assure the hon. Member for Bedford that it is not a form of socialism. Child asylum seekers, if they come here under the age of 18, are normally fostered. As I understand it, the Government have admitted today that foster carers’ additional rooms will be counted as additional to their requirements. I fear that that will again crack down on families who want to provide legitimate support for people. What assessment has the Minister made of that?

I hear everything that my hon. Friends have said about the Azure card and section 4 support. I will not declare a new Labour party policy, I am afraid. Of course, the Government have to keep the concept of the card under review, because if it is genuinely more expensive to provide than the savings it brings, that is obviously to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. I will not make a new financial commitment today. The Government must, of course, review the amounts, and it is time that they got on with that this year.

I want to make a point about paperless children. A significant number of children who come to this country as asylum seekers say that they are 15, but the system says, “No, you aren’t 15; you are 18 or 19. You are an adult and should go through the adult process.” One difficulty is that many people destroy their papers the moment they get on an aeroplane. I wonder whether there is any means of ensuring that airlines scan the documents required to be shown before people can get on an aeroplane, so that if the documents are destroyed on the aeroplane, they are not entirely lost to the system, and people cannot thereafter claim that they are completely and utterly paperless and therefore stateless.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent Central on advancing this issue. Having seen, when Labour was in government, several ex-Ministers find conviction about policies that they did not necessarily exhibit when they were in office, I hope that she will retain her commitment when she returns to office, which I am sure the Prime Minister will want to enable very swiftly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. Last Thursday morning, at an unearthly hour, the Minister for Housing and I accompanied UK Border Agency officers and housing officials from the London borough of Ealing on a raid to deal with exactly such landlords with houses in multiple occupation. It was a successful operation and we detained a number of people who had no right to be in the country. Such partnership working between the London borough of Ealing and central Government is working well, and it is the kind of activity that we will continue.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am delighted that the Minister is tackling that one element, which has already been referred to, but last week the Attorney-General admitted that in 2011 and 2012 there was not a single prosecution of those breaching the national minimum wage. Would it not be a good idea, first, to impose the national minimum wage—enforce it properly—so that unscrupulous landlords could not turn people into virtual slaves in this country and, secondly, to double the fine?

[Mr Harper]

I am not quite sure what landlords have to do with the national minimum wage, but I think I answered the other part of the hon. Gentleman’s question in responding to one of his colleagues. The hon. Gentleman needs to explain why all those problems were singularly not dealt with when Labour was in power. Labour made mistakes on immigration and failed to apologise. Until it does, no one will take it seriously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

That is indeed the case. The MAC report will look both at providing labour to the sector and at how the scheme functions in meeting the Government’s commitments on controlling immigration. Both aspects will be important when the Government take the decision later this year.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On 17 October 2011, the former Immigration Minister, now the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), said:

“I believe in free movement. The Government believe in free movement.”—[Official Report, European Committee B, 17 October 2911; c. 18.]

On 21 November 2011 he said:

“Free movement has been, and is, one of the great achievements of the EU.”—[Official Report, European Committee B, 21 November 2011; c. 14.]

Does the Minister agree?

[Mr Harper]

I do not demur from anything that my right hon. Friend has said, but that does not mean that we will not look at how that operates in our balance of competence reviews. Abuses do take place under free movement throughout Europe. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has discussed the issues at Justice and Home Affairs Councils and has found a lot of support from colleagues there. A road map has been set out by Justice Ministers throughout Europe to deal with the abuses that took place and were not dealt with by the Labour party when it was in power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. We have started to do some interviewing in some high-risk countries, which has been very successful and has demonstrated the value of interviewing in certain locations, which allows us to drive out some clear abuse. Where that makes sense, we will continue to do it and will increase our ability to do so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister told students in Dubai—he has a habit of answering questions when he is abroad, if not when he is in this country—that there is no limit on international students in the UK, and the Minister has repeated that this afternoon. However, the Migration Advisory Committee states that there will have to be 86,600 fewer students over the next three years if the Government are to meet their target. Who is right? Is Boris Johnson right to say that we are losing a massive business opportunity? Is the director general of the CBI right to say that it is putting people off? Or is the Minister just confused?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman should understand that we have a net migration target, so those students who come to the UK, study and leave make no contribution to the net migration statistics. Our universities can go out, recruit smart students and educate them and they will make no difference at all to net migration. The Prime Minister is absolutely spot on and I think that it is the hon. Gentleman who is confused, as someone who does not believe in having a net migration target at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and he will know that I have now taken over the lead in the Home Office on combating human trafficking and related matters. We have already tackled the issue he raised to some extent, and now that he has raised it with me, I will look to see if more can be done to tackle this important issue.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, wholeheartedly support the comments you made, Mr Speaker, about Malcolm Wicks and Sir Stuart Bell. On the Opposition Benches we all feel that we have lost two great gentlemen from amongst our ranks. They were both intelligent men who brought a keen intelligence to the way in which they debated issues. As it happens, they were both ardent pro-Europeans, who might have had a word or two to put to the Home Secretary later this afternoon. We pay tribute to them both.

I understand that the main reason why the Minister has introduced these recent changes to the family route provisions on immigration is to cut net migration, as the Prime Minister promised before the general election, to the tens of thousands. Will he confirm, however, that the Office for National Statistics has said that since 2010 there has been no statistically significant difference in the number of migrants to this country?

[Mr Harper]

I have seen that comment, but with a fall in net migration from 252,000 to 216,000—a fall of 15%—I will leave it to other Members and the public to judge whether they view that as significant. I know that the hon. Gentleman either tweeted or said at the Labour conference that he thought having a net migration target was “ludicrous”, but was then forced to unsay it when he was told to do so by his boss. We think having a net migration target is sensible: we mean to implement it, and I think the House will support it.