Immigration

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I must admit that I was planning not to take part in this debate because very little has been said with which I disagree, but I decided not to let that stop me, so I shall continue and make some generic points as briefly as I can. It is unfortunate and ironic that so few Members are present for this important debate, which is of concern to many of our constituents, but I put that down to what one might call statement fatigue. I trust that it in no way reflects on the stellar cast of speakers on both Front Benches from whom we have heard and will hear during the course of the evening.

We all know that this is a very important debate. When we speak to our constituents on the doorstep or on the phone, or meet them in our surgeries, we know that they are concerned about immigration. I recently ran a survey in my constituency, and I would say that about seven in 10 people mentioned immigration as one of their top five concerns. It is an issue that our constituents talk about, but for a very long time we in this place have not talked about it. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), and to organisations such as Migrationwatch UK for wresting this issue from the arms of extreme, unsavoury voices and bringing it back into the mainstream, where it should properly be debated. I hope that we shall continue, year after year, to debate it in this Chamber in order to represent the very real concerns of our constituents.

There is no doubt in my mind that immigration has enriched our country culturally and intellectually. People have come here and founded businesses, employed people, and created empires. They have helped us to become the country that we are; we are a nation of immigrants. However, we have, over a number of years, allowed the notion—the myth—to grow up that there is some unalloyed benefit in allowing uncontrolled immigration to our country.

The hidden economic costs of uncontrolled immigration are becoming clear. We are told that cheap labour is a good thing—and of course immigrants are cheap. They do the jobs that nobody else wants to do, they take a wage that nobody else wants to take, and they keep costs down. However, although uncontrolled immigration may put a cap on wage inflation, it also puts a cap on productivity. Businesses that can benefit from cheap workers have no incentive to be more productive. In the long term, that is not a sensible economic model. I hope that the Government will take further action to crack down on businesses that use illegal immigrants—to find them and to make sure that those illegal immigrants are deported in order to send a message that there is no future and no profit in this sort of thing.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) recognised the phenomenon that is created by the large volume of cheap labour in his constituency. It creates resentment among hard-working workers and jobseekers who cannot get a job or the wage that they would like because of the volume of immigrants. Polly Toynbee, hardly an acolyte of the right, has also complained about that phenomenon. The House of Lords, hardly a home of the left, has recognised that large-scale immigration can have an impact, particularly on youth unemployment. A quotation in its 2008 report states:

“Given the age and skill profile of many of the new immigrants, it is possible that ‘native’ youngsters may have been losing out in the battle for entry-level jobs.”

That is of real concern to us. It is certainly of real concern to people who are looking for work.

The House of Lords has also pointed out that there is an issue with our infrastructure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) said, housing and transport are put under greater strain by uncontrolled immigration. It is no coincidence that in the years after 2002, which saw the greatest increase in immigration, there was a 60% increase in the number of people waiting on social housing lists. Immigrants who have been here for a period of time are 30% more likely to be living in social housing than those born in the UK. That creates resentment and fuels a feeling of futility. Many people see the 3 million jobs created between 1997 and 2010 by the previous Government as a success, but 75% of those jobs were taken by immigrants. What message does that send to young people in this country?

People are angry. They are angry that the previous Government did not seem to listen to their concerns and they are worried that the present Government may also ignore their concerns. I hope that in his remarks, the Minister will put front and centre the importance of telling people what the Government are doing to deal with uncontrolled immigration, such as the cap on the number of skilled workers coming into the country; the zero cap on unskilled workers coming into the country; and the desire for, and insistence on, language skills among spouses so that they can integrate and contribute to society. Those are important messages that the Government need to recapitulate time and again, so that the constituents who talk to us about this issue understand that the Government are doing something about it.

[Tom Brake]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the expansion in apprenticeships is a concrete example of the Government doing something about the issue by giving people here the skills that they need to get the jobs that are available?

[Christopher Pincher]

My right hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. He pre-empts what I am going to say next.

We have talked in this debate about the importance of controlling the supply side of immigration by stopping people who wish to come to this country from doing so. It is also important to deal with the demand side of the equation. Our welfare system—that is rather a neat and organised way of describing the mess that we inherited—costs us £194 billion a year. It pays hundreds of thousands of people not to work and keeps them trapped in dependency and on welfare because it is not worth their while working. Is it any wonder, therefore, that employers need to plug the labour gap by importing people to take the jobs that people on welfare cannot or will not take? It is economic madness to pay people not to work while importing labour and placing a strain on our infrastructure in so doing.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need measures such as apprenticeships to get our indigenous young people into work, and we also need to ensure that the welfare system, the Work programme and universal credit get young people and those who are long-term unemployed into work. That will choke off demand from employers for imported labour. The checks at our ports and airports and the other rules that the Minister for Immigration has put in place will also choke off the supply side of uncontrolled immigration.

I believe that the Government have got the balance right. The message that the Prime Minister gave during the general election campaign, when he said that he wanted to deal with immigration so that it was no longer an issue for the British people, showed sound judgment. I look forward to hearing what the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), has to say, and I hope that he will say it in such terms as to give the British people confidence that the Government are going to take control of the issue so that it does not lie dormant, untouched and taboo, as it did for so many years.