Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I apologise to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and to other hon. Members present that I was not here at the beginning of the eloquent opening speech. I and other parliamentary colleagues were attending the 20th anniversary memorial service for Stephen Lawrence at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which was still going on when I left.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and the thousands of people who signed the e-petition. He put his case in his usual elegant and eloquent way, and very robustly. Although I do not think that we will get a solution in this Chamber today to the problems he has raised, I hope that by having the debate we can show the public and those who signed the e-petition that Parliament is prepared to discuss this very important issue openly and transparently, and not leave it to fringe parties that are not represented in Parliament to take control of the debate.

As the hon. Gentleman said, there are now eight months to go before the lifting of transitional arrangements, which, broken down, is 6,072 hours, 253 days or 36 weeks. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said that we are a Parliament that welcomes enlargement—the enlargement arrangements went through the House with no one voting against them. I declare my interest as Minister for Europe when the enlargement of the EU began in earnest, and I well remember visiting Bucharest and Sofia, and the other eastern European countries, and telling them that Government and Opposition were united in ensuring that Romania and Bulgaria, and indeed the other countries, should enter the EU, so that for the first time in many decades we would have a united Europe.

I welcome enlargement. It has provided enormous benefits for our country, and in a discussion of this kind we should recognise that it has been an essential part of the European policy of successive Governments. However, there is a clear national feeling, the depth and scale of which is shown by the number of people—some 145,462—who had signed the e-petition by 2 pm today, and unless we discuss the matter, and unless the Government are prepared to come up with some solutions to the issues that have been raised, I fear that this will become a dominant issue as we approach the next general election. It is therefore important that we have this debate.

Tomorrow, the Home Affairs Committee will take evidence from not only the Romanian and Bulgarian ambassadors—it is important that we hear their side in Parliament—but the Minister, and I will listen to his speech and those of other hon. Members so that I can prepare my notes for his session before us tomorrow.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin was absolutely right: at the heart of this debate is the issue of numbers—the estimates. Over many months, at Home Office questions and through written parliamentary questions, I have pressed the Home Secretary and the Minister on the need for estimates. On 21 October 2008, the then shadow Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), said that one of the greatest failures of the last Government was the failure to predict the consequences of enlargement in 2004. That is why it is vital that we get proper estimates of how many people will come here on 1 January next year.

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

I do not say this in a tongue in cheek way, but the right hon. Gentleman was the Minister for Europe at the time the first accessions were happening, so what advice can he give the Government about getting the right estimates? The last Labour Government’s estimates were truly, wholly and completely inaccurate, and he would have been in receipt of them. Based on his experience, what questions should the Minister ask his officials?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for my memoirs to get all the information, but he is right that critical questions should have been asked. The headlong rush to try to enlarge the EU, which was supported by the Government and the Opposition, did not really take into consideration the numbers who would eventually come. The question was never really put properly and never really answered, which is why, with the benefit of hindsight, I hope Ministers will learn from the mistakes that were made, and mistakes were made, because research should have been commissioned. I hope he will learn from the mistakes made by myself and others, who did not ask the right questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

That is absolutely right. In addition, of course, a number of other countries will also lift their restrictions on 31 December—a point the Home Secretary made to the Select Committee. Even given that, however, it is still important to have the information at hand so that we can have an informed debate and make an informed judgment. We need that information when we look at local services, which I think are at the kernel of local people’s criticisms when they sign this petition; indeed, the second part of it is all about benefits, housing shortages and, indeed, access to medical care. If we do not have the information, our services will be under enormous pressure.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

We need to learn the lessons of the past properly. Three members of the Public Accounts Committee are here today—my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) and myself—and we see only too regularly examples of Departments operating in silos and the inability of the best of our civil service to understand the reports they provide to Ministers. I therefore wonder whether there was much cross-departmental working on reports in the right hon. Gentleman’s time and the time of the shadow Minister. The right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned a number of Departments, and I wonder whether the Minister can talk about the cross-departmental working that is going on now to deal with these issues.

[Keith Vaz]

It is important that the matter should cross Departments. Yes, there was some work—I cannot remember all of it, because it was 13 years ago—but I am worried, knowing that there are three members of the Public Accounts Committee present, that it might call me to give evidence. I cannot remember anything very much, so it would be better to call my successors as Minister for Europe. They might be able to help.

On the point about benefits, it is worth noting that at the time of the A8 enlargement, the number of Poles claiming JSA was less than 7,000 out of the 500,000 who came here. However, I recall a parliamentary reply about the number of people from EU countries who claim benefits for children who are not resident here; I think that that came to £50 million a year. I think that it is not so much the right of people to claim benefits if they pay taxes and contribute to the economy, as the fact that some people claim benefits when their children are not even resident, that upsets the British people, who, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin has said, are a very tolerant and understanding lot. However, they will not stand for abuse of the system, and people taking advantage of a system to which they have not contributed.

I accept the point made by the hon. Member for The Wrekin, whom I have known for many years, that there are jobs that are difficult to fill, such as fruit-picking—I cannot quite imagine him picking strawberries in Shropshire, but am trying to fix that in my mind—but the Romanian and Bulgarian communities in this country are making a contribution to the economy and paying tax, even though the majority of them are self-employed. We have 6,000 students; we have doctors, nurses, professionals and people in all walks of life. The hon. Gentleman need only go to certain parts of north and west London to see the contribution that those people make. Of course there are certain jobs that cannot be filled, but those people already contribute to the operation of the country.

One way in which we can deal with the issue is by beginning an effective dialogue with the Governments of Romania and Bulgaria. For some reason known only to the Home Secretary, for six months she resisted telling me whether she had ever visited Romania. Eventually, when she gave evidence last Thursday to the Home Affairs Committee, she admitted that she had not; it is all right—we shall not ask the Minister the same question tomorrow. I can suggest a way of dealing with the issue, with a friendly EU country with which we do business every day, and with which we want to keep friendly relations, not least because we have begun our negotiation process with countries such as Romania and Bulgaria to try to put a package towards the British people for the referendum that is going to come—and as the hon. Member for The Wrekin and other hon. Members know, I fully support a referendum on whether we stay in the EU or come out. It would be helpful if the Home Secretary or the Minister for Immigration would go to Bucharest or Sophia and speak to their opposite numbers to see what can be done to make the transition as smooth as possible, and find out the root causes of migration from those countries—and not just rely on a BBC poll, helpful though that is—and I am sure that “Newsnight” will present a good programme tonight—it is such personal contacts that are important. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to do that in the next few months.

The Home Affairs Committee is, as I have said, conducting an inquiry on the matter. We are also considering the effect of the European arrest warrant and the Government’s proposals. We tagged on a visit to Romania before our visit to Poland, and we shall produce a report, thanks to work done by the hon. Members for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who have driven the issue in the Committee. We hope that we can come up with a balanced report that will take into consideration the views that have been expressed in the debate today, but also the views of outside groups, including the embassies and, indeed, Migration Watch UK.

Let us not lose sight of one important fact: we have good relations with Romania and Bulgaria. I pay tribute to the Romanian ambassador, Ion Jinga, and to Ambassador Konstantin Dimitrov, who throughout the debate have been balanced in what they have said. I pay tribute also to Martin Harris, our ambassador in Bucharest, who recently won an award for excellence in communication in the relationship between our two countries. What I have to say is directed not at hon. Members, who are not those responsible, but at those in other political parties not represented in Parliament, who put out election leaflets that are simply not true. Let us have a debate about the issue, and a report based on facts. More than anything else, let us have the estimates and predictions. It will make our task, at the beginning of next year, much easier.

--- 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.

[Mr Ward]

I want to add a note of balance. I came to the London marathon to watch my son run, and it was difficult in bars and restaurants, on public transport and everywhere I went to find anyone serving me or working in those establishments whom I believed was born in this country. Much immigration is about not benefits but employment, and we should remember that.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

When we talk to people on the doorstep, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does regularly, they generally say that they do not mind people coming to this country to work, but that they worry about those who might choose to come here not to work.

The last Labour Government made some fundamental mistakes with reciprocal benefits back in 2004-05. As a Member of the European Parliament, I corresponded with a then Minister, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). A constituent had written to me asking exactly the question that an hon. Member here raised earlier about the number of children for whom child benefit is available but who are not resident in this country even when the parent is working here. The hon. Lady wrote back in her forthright way saying that that should not be a matter of concern, that it would not happen often, and that the checks to find out how many children are living abroad are expensive so the Government were just going to hand out money to those who claimed. That fundamentally upsets fair-natured taxpayers in this country, and I am sure that the Government can do something about it.

We want to maintain fairness in the system. I do not want to knock on doors in my constituency and hear people say, “I am not a racist, but.” They are absolutely not, and they are genuinely worried about the future look, feel and wealth of their country. They understand that globalisation has altered the state of many countries throughout the world and that migration of workers is common and generally welcome.

I want to raise one final point with the Minister about the freedom of movement changes for Romanians and Bulgarians on 31 December. I am wary of those who police this, not as in Governments, but as in lofty EU commissionaire types who look down on European countries and think that everything is going fantastically well and everyone can police everything adequately so third-country access to the European Union can be loosened or extended. I know that the Minister is well aware of the draft EU directive on entry and residence of third-country nationals which is coming down the line. The Government have some issues with that. We do not participate in the previous directives that it is changing, but it will expand the base of third-country nationals who can come to the European Union as volunteers, au pairs and so on.

My worry is that more people will come into the European Union—not our part of it, but the EU in general—where unemployment is already high and displace people from other EU countries. If we have not sorted out our benefits system and the changes that many hon. Members have referred to today, one place where they will want to come if they are displaced from work by future expansion of the EU work force by third-country nationals might be the United Kingdom. I hope that the Minister will engage in those negotiations. They do not concern us de facto, but they do concern us greatly.

I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin. There is so much we could and should learn from the past. The last Government, unbelievably, whether it had a report or not, did not know how many people might head to this country following European accession. We should learn from that, and we should try to put numbers on that. Government predictions are constantly wrong and, rather like predicting the weather, no one can do it properly from day to day. A long-term prediction of the number of people who might come to this country without knowing the economic circumstances of where they are coming from, where they travel through or where they are coming to must be very difficult, but other organisations do that. The European Commission presents statistics and we have heard that Migration Watch has provided some numbers. It would be good to be able to make correct decisions, based on numbers that some people have confidence in, about how we can deal proportionately with any problems coming forward.