Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and John Glen

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I am indeed so delighted, Mr Speaker, and I beg to move that the Bill be now read a Second time. In so doing, I thank the sponsors of the Bill, my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for Shipley (Philip Davies), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). I am delighted to see that some other colleagues are present and clearly intend to involve themselves in this important debate.

The Bill provides for criminal sanctions against two categories of offender: those who enter, or attempt to enter, the United Kingdom without legal authority, and those who are present in the United Kingdom after 1 July 2016 without legal authority. Clause 2 sets out the penalties for those offences: a fine or a maximum prison sentence of six months, and—this is important—a deportation order, which would take effect unless the Home Secretary deemed it to be against the public interest.

Currently, the United Kingdom is effectively a soft touch for illegal migrants. Very few are caught, and those who are caught are given a slap on the wrist; extremely rarely are they deported. That gives illegal migrants, and their traffickers, a perverse incentive to head for the United Kingdom, and, in the case of those who come here lawfully, to overstay.

I have raised this issue with the Immigration Minister on several occasions, most recently when attempting to add a new clause to the Immigration Bill on Report on 1 December 2015. The Minister told me then that new criminal sanctions were not “necessary or appropriate”. He said:

“there are already criminal sanctions and removal…powers in place…Section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971 in particular sets out criminal sanctions for various types of unlawful migrant behaviour, including illegal entry and overstaying.”

That is, of course, absolutely correct, but my response to the Minister then—and it is the same today—was that in the last year for which figures were available,

“there were only 72 convictions in magistrates and Crown courts for all the offences mentioned in section 24”.—[Official Report, 1 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 230.]

Having been challenged on that point, the Minister went on to explain that the purpose was not to prosecute people, saying:

“Our primary sanctions for immigration non-compliance are removal and civil penalties, which is why, in many respects, prosecution numbers are relatively low.” —[Official Report, 1 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 253.]

What an understatement “relatively low” was! There are fewer than two prosecutions a week for illegal immigration, although we can see on our television screens exactly what is happening just across the channel. Attempts, many of which are successful, are being made every day by hundreds of illegal migrants.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is not a fact that, in the last year for which figures are available, 40,000 people left voluntarily, and that the number has increased by 30% in recent years? It is not all doom and gloom. There is reason to believe that the imperative to recognise their illegal status has led several thousand people to leave the country.

[Mr Chope]

It is hard to establish the exact basis on which those people left voluntarily. I know that the figures given by my hon. Friend have been cited before, and the number does seem to have risen, but I think that the people about whom we are concerned are those who are staying here deliberately, in breach of the law, as illegal migrants. I shall give some examples shortly. People who leave voluntarily are often those who have overstayed and want an opportunity to make a fresh application from overseas without being caught out. They tend—in my constituency case experience, at least—to be good people who have been caught out by the existing rules and who want, as soon as possible, to rectify their legal position, and to be able to return to the country and remain here legally. What concerns me, and what the Bill aims to address, is the very large number of people—there are probably well over a million now—who are here illegally, are intent on staying here illegally, and every now and again ask for some sort of amnesty which would enable them to be legitimised.