Immigration

Debate between Christopher Pincher and Andrew Turner

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Let me assure the House, and certainly the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), that I have no intention of attacking anyone. I should also like to thank the Minister for his accelerated denouement, which has given all Members the opportunity to speak if they wish to do so.

I was interested to hear from the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) that this issue had not been debated in the House before, but I was perhaps not surprised, given that this is one of the most sensitive debates we could have. As a result, we have too often shied away from it. It has been taboo—beyond the pale for mentionable conversation. We have only recently discovered that, unless we are prepared to talk about it sensibly, openly and honestly on the Floor of the House, we cede the debate and the concern of the public to the rather more unsavoury voices that, thankfully, we do not have in this House.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate; he has been buried under bouquets this afternoon. I hope that, as a result of it, we in the House and people out in the country will be able to see the undoubted benefits that the country has gained from immigration without forgetting the undoubted problems that are attendant on large-scale, uncontrolled, unconsidered immigration. There is no doubt that we have benefited from immigration to this country, be it in science, the arts, comedy or cooking. I prefer eating to cooking, but there is no doubt that, culturally, we have had a massive stimulus as a result of immigration. Beyond that, many people have come to our country down the years and got jobs or started businesses. They have got involved in the community and paid their taxes; they have done all the things that we should all try to do to be part of the big society.

Over the past 15 or so years, however, the myth has developed that uncontrolled immigration has been an unalloyed economic benefit to this country. That myth needs to be exploded. We are told that cheap labour is good for us, and migrants tend to be cheap. They come here and they do jobs that other people do not want to do, and they accept wages that other people will not accept. They provide a service at low cost and everyone is happy, but that masks the price of immigration, and we need to recognise that price. It is undoubtedly true that immigration keeps wage inflation down, but it also keeps a lid on productivity. If employers can import more and more cheap labour into this country, they will have less and less incentive to be more productive in their business. As a competitive model, that is unsustainable.

It is therefore incumbent on the Government not to turn a blind eye to businesses that are importing large-scale cheap labour. Those businesses that import illegal immigrants should be fined and the illegal immigrants sent home. We need to send a message to businesses and to the people who should not be here that they cannot profit by getting around the law. That is a very important message to send. Unless we do that, we will inspire slackness in business and resentment among hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding people, as I think the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) recognised in his constituency some years ago.

We must, however, draw a distinction between those people who want to come here to provide labour for jobs that no one else wants to do and those who want to come here at the behest of their employers or putative employers to provide highly skilled labour for an extended period. We need those people in this country, and I was therefore pleased when the Prime Minister made it clear that Britain was open to business and that we would allow the best talents to come to this country to help us to shape our economy, and to provide businesses with a cutting edge to compete in the global marketplace.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend continues down that road, I would like to ask him whether he considers migration from outside the European Union to be just as worrying—or as good, depending on where someone is—as migration from within the European Union.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am pleased to respond to my hon. Friend, and I think it depends on the jobs that people are coming here to do.

I was pleased to hear that the Minister was prepared to look at intra-company transfers to ensure that we do not disbenefit companies that want to bring employees into Britain to help the outsourcing industry—for example, by transferring employees into companies through the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. We need to bring into Britain people from the Asian subcontinent, for example, who have good IT skills and understand the ethos of the companies to which they belong in order to train up those employees transferred through TUPE. It is important to recognise that the outsourcing industry needs transferable people with transferable skills moving around the world to help British businesses do business wherever they need to do it.

We also recognise that immigration can bring economic problems, and infrastructure is another issue, to which other hon. Members have alluded. Anyone reading the House of Lords Economic Affairs report, to which the noble Lord Lawson contributed—it shows the effect of large-scale immigration on housing, transport, health care and so forth—would realise that there are real issues that must be addressed.

Still another issue is social tension. We have all engaged in electioneering over the last six months. We have been knocking on doors and meeting our constituents. Cumulatively, we must have met thousands of them. Since then, we have received e-mails and letters from our constituents running into the thousands. If we are honest with each other, we will surely admit that one of the key issues that constituents continually raise with us is their worry about immigration. They are frustrated and concerned. They are frustrated because they believe that the last Government refused to recognise their legitimate concerns about large-scale immigration; and they are worried, frankly, that the new Government will also ignore them.

Having read the coalition agreement, I can say in all candour that the new Government are moving in the right direction when it comes to listening to people’s concerns. I do not mean that simply because we are introducing an immigration cap, which sends a message to the country and beyond that we are serious about immigration controls; because we are tightening up the student visa system, which was badly abused under the last Government; because we are introducing a border police force to protect our borders and ensure that those parts and ports of the country that lack protection will subsequently have it; or because we are insisting on minimum language skills so that people who come here can work and integrate. The most important thing the Government are doing as part of the coalition agreement to meet the challenge of uncontrolled immigration is to take control of the welfare system.

Our welfare system—“system” is a neat word to describe what is really a mess—costs us £194 billion a year, and it has locked hundreds of thousands of people into dependency by making it economically senseless for them to work. As a result, there are vacancies. To fill them, employers look for employees in all sorts of places, including abroad. The vacancies act as a magnet for people abroad to come and try their luck in Britain. It makes absolutely no sense to make hundreds of thousands of people not work—effectively, to pay them not to work—while importing hundreds of thousands more people to fill the gap in the labour market. As we know, those people place a strain on our social infrastructure, the fabric of our country.

I think that the Government are doing exactly the right thing with the Work programme, which aims slowly, steadily and surely to return people to work, to choke off the demand for labour, and at the same time to introduce stringent controls to stem the supply of immigrant labour. Getting that balance right is the way to deal with our uncontrolled immigration, and the Government have got it right. They are introducing a workable, fair system which, crucially, emphasises the importance of British workers getting into work and British businesses acting responsibly, as well as the importance of controlling inflow.

When he was Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to take control of the immigration problem and deal with it quickly and effectively, so that we would no longer describe it as an issue. That is a sound and sensible aim. I believe that the approach that the Government are now taking is correct, and I commend it. I look forward to hearing less about this issue in future, but if we do have to talk about it, I hope that we will talk about it in the same sensible way.