Immigration

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for arranging this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it. For the first time, as Members of Parliament, we can have an open and frank discussion about the levels of immigration in this country, and that is long overdue.

During the general election and long before, the high levels of immigration allowed by the previous Government were—and they remain—one of the biggest issues for my constituents in Kingswood. Yet, as has been mentioned in the excellent contributions so far in this debate, people have been afraid to discuss this crucial issue, which, happily, we are now beginning to address. Why is that? It is because people have been concerned about being viewed as intolerant—as bigots, even—if they raise the issue of immigration publicly. We all know that Britain is not a bigoted nation. The British people are not and have never been bigots.

It is not bigoted to be genuinely concerned about how our local schools might cope with increasing school rolls or about how teachers can keep discipline with several different languages being spoken in the classroom. It is not bigoted to be genuinely concerned about the pressures being placed on the NHS by population expansion and how local hospital services will cope with the increased demands placed on them. Nor is it bigoted to be genuinely concerned about how all our local services—our infrastructure—might be able to cope with an increased population.

As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead illustrated well, that is where the heart of the debate lies. How can we as a nation cope with the additional pressures that mass immigration might bring? It is clear to me that we can no longer cope in the current financial circumstances.

[Andrew Selous]

I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said, but will he add to the list of good reasons for having this debate? If the mainstream parties do not debate this issue in a sensible and moderate manner, we feed the extremists. If our constituents do not see us discussing the issue sensibly, they will go to the extreme parties that we all dislike.

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[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. The lesson that all three parties learned from the general election was that the issue needed to be debated. Happily, it was debated at the end of the general election, although it should have been brought forward sooner. It is clear to me that it is only right and responsible for us to act now to protect our public services and local infrastructure. It is clear that we can no longer go on as we were, with a policy of uncontrolled immigration and net migration reaching almost 200,000.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is entirely right that we need to look at limiting immigration. In my constituency, particularly in Goole, the biggest influx has come from eastern Europe. Does he agree that the failure of the previous Government to limit EU immigration, as they could and should have done, has helped to fuel national concerns about immigration?

[Chris Skidmore]

I certainly recognise that, back in 2004, the previous Government failed to address the problem of transitional controls when negotiating with the EU. If the EU is to expand, the current Government will ensure that those controls are put in place, as is absolutely necessary.

I certainly welcome the current plans to halve the net migration figure—currently 200,000—by 2015 and also the cap on annual non-EU immigration. We can have a debate today on what the figure for the cap should be, but I believe that it must be in the tens of thousands, drastically lower than the hundreds of thousands that we were witnessing until recently.

Above all, as a Government and a Parliament, we must send out a clear message. My constituents in Kingswood want a Government who are finally in control of their immigration policy—a Government who are policing their borders and standing up for the British people.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an argument for controlling immigration that would be obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of mathematics? It is that we are an island of limited resources. The more people there are in the country, the less, on average, every single one of us will get.

[Chris Skidmore]

I certainly agree that our circumstances as an island place us in an unusual situation compared with the rest of Europe.

[Martin Horwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank, which has said that

“what often gives the public the impression that immigration is out of control is politicians making promises to ‘clamp down’ on immigration that they then cannot deliver”?

Was not that the lesson of the whole era of new Labour? The Labour Government promised to be tough on immigration but, because they continually wanted to appease the Daily Mail, they had to keep on trying to produce different immigration and nationality Acts that damaged this country in terms of fairness and its sensitivity to people of different colours and different races?

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[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. As individual Members of Parliament we each have a responsibility to our constituents to ensure that we have a fair but firm, and responsible, debate here and in the literature that we put out in our constituencies. I cannot comment on the recent case, but it obviously reflects that.

I talked about the British people, and I want to press this point. We must stand up for the interests of British people who have invested in this country—who have paid their taxes for years and funded our schools, our hospitals and our roads. We must fight on behalf of our constituents who go about their day-to-day business, getting on with their lives, and paying for our local services—indeed, paying for our salaries. That is our duty as legislators in this House and as constituency MPs.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt agree that the migrant community has also contributed effectively for the past many years. I am not talking about general immigration, but people from the south-east Asian countries.

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead made very effectively. We are not here to criticise what happened decades before. There are many people who have arrived in this country, paid their taxes and who are British citizens. We are also standing up for and defending their rights when we debate how to control immigration.

It is not bigoted to be genuinely concerned about the future of our nation and its future generation—those young people who are in desperate need of jobs and employment. The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) raised the issue of business. We need to listen to the voice of business if we are to succeed in bringing about an economic recovery, especially those in international industries who choose Britain as their base. That is why, when a cap is placed on immigration next year, we must be sure that those who are allowed into this country are only those whom this country needs and who have expertise from which we will benefit.

[Andrew Percy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that through our membership of the European Union we are now in the strange position whereby we are putting limits on people coming here from nations such as Canada and Australia, where the skills base is the same and the qualifications are equally recognised, but we are completely unable to control immigration from countries across eastern Europe, where there are different cultures, skills bases and qualifications?

[Chris Skidmore]

We have certainly been left with a legacy, and we have to play the cards that we have been dealt. I might like things to have been different, if that were possible. However, we must accept that the European Union covers 47% of our trade and is therefore a major player that we have to deal with, and we need to operate within that framework in terms of border controls.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about the future, but we also need to look at the existing system. Before coming to this place, I practised as a barrister and prosecuted cases for a number of years. An illegal immigrant or an immigrant who had committed an offence would be served with an IM3, an order for deportation, and a judge then made a recommendation. From that point to the point of deportation—and in the time it took to put that into practice—the left arm of the Home Office did not know what its right arm was doing, and in the meantime the taxpayer was paying for it. Before looking to the future, we need to ensure that the problems with the previous system, which has been in place for several years, are put right.

[Chris Skidmore]

I defer to my hon. Friend’s expertise on this matter, but thank him for raising that valuable point.

I want to return to the issue of employment. While hundreds of thousands of British citizens are still seeking a job, and when 10% of recent British graduates are still looking for jobs, the economic recovery must begin here. Although it is important that low-skilled jobs are filled in order to encourage growth in the economy, there are hundreds of thousands of British citizens who can fill them. If we are to build an economic recovery, it must be on the back of the talents of the British people.

[Martin Horwood]

One of the reasons the IPPR, which I quoted earlier, and others, such as the British Chambers of Commerce, are opposing the cap, or certainly opposing its being imposed too rigidly, is that they have identified that immigration is very good for the economy in many respects—that it is the source of great entrepreneurial spirit. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that immigrants have contributed a huge amount to this country, and specifically to its economy and prosperity?

[Chris Skidmore]

I would never deny that fact. However, the simple fact remains that we are not accountable to the IPPR, but to our constituents. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, and every Member here—not during the election but on every weekend when we are back in our constituencies knocking on doors—has found that this is the single biggest issue that is raised in the nation at large.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very compelling argument. This goes back to a point that was made earlier. It does not matter what the ethnic background of people happens to be. I have found on the doorsteps of Crawley that, regardless of other people’s backgrounds, people are concerned about jobs, schools, and pressure on the health service. Those are universal concerns.

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which returns to the question of population pressure and infrastructure. That must be the crucial message of this debate.

I want to end by raising what is, for me, another vital concern—that we cannot begin to tackle immigration effectively without looking clearly at the process of integration. For too long, Government and local authorities have acquiesced in allowing parallel communities to exist—communities and neighbourhoods speaking different languages, yet never really speaking to each other. In every council, thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, in some cases nearly half a million pounds, are spent on translators and interpreters, and on leaflets produced in every language imaginable. If we want to create an integrated society, this must change. We cannot allow any policy on immigration to be implemented without addressing what I believe to be the paramount concern: that the English language must be upheld, and that any person who enters this country must expect—indeed, be expected—to learn and speak English if they are to co-exist and play a responsible role in British society.

As I have said, the British people are not bigots. Britain is a tolerant nation that looks outwards rather than inwards, a nation that is proud of our international heritage and responsibilities. That, in part, is what made us great in the first place. But the time has now come, in this debate and moving on, for us to take a firm stance on immigration. I know for my constituents in Kingswood that this cannot come soon enough.