Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

David Linden Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I mentioned earlier in this debate that I was speaking as a first-generation immigrant. Immigration is an issue that is very close to my heart. My personal experience, especially through my immediate family and relatives, has been not from an EU perspective, but from a non-EU perspective. One good thing about the Bill is that we are no longer focusing on nationality, but, really importantly, on skills and ending this form of discrimination. I know that, in the future, most of the red meat will be coming with the immigration rules, so I shall speak on the substantive points in the Bill.

One of the primary reasons that I supported the withdrawal agreement was because of the reciprocal guarantees on citizens’ rights. As leaving the EU is such a huge fundamental change to this country, it is only right that we have clear rules and that we think very carefully about what the new regime will be like. Quite clearly, this is a country that welcomes migrants; the numbers speak for themselves. For every British citizen who is in the EU, there are four EU citizens in this country, so we know that this is a country that welcomes immigration—that is just EU migration, let alone migration from the rest of the world. One huge challenge has been the language that we use to discuss immigration and, in particular, freedom of movement. I thank the Home Secretary, who is no longer in his place, for taking a lot of the emotion out of this debate, allowing us to focus on the logic, the reason and the substantive issues.

One Opposition Member—I cannot remember their name—talked about negative media rhetoric and about the language that is used to talk about migrants. I think that a lot of that starts from this House. It comes not, as Opposition Members may think, from the language that is used on the Government Benches, but from the whipping up by the Opposition of things that are not necessarily to do with immigration, so that they can get good headlines. I ask to Members to look, for example, at how the shadow Home Secretary conflated illegal and legal migration in her opening statement when she was talking about those “Go home” vans. This is not in any way an endorsement of that sort of technique, but it was quite clear that those things were used to talk about illegal migration. This constant conflation of legal and illegal migration is one of the things that whips up the rhetoric. It starts from here and ends up going out there.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is not in his place, intervened on his colleague to say that Tories do not want to see anyone coming to this country at all. That is completely ridiculous.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mrs Badenoch]

No, I will not give way. I want to make this point.

The same people who say that we on these Benches do not want anyone to come to this country will also complain that we are letting in more non-EU migrants such as me and my family.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I will take the intervention.

[David Linden]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I just wanted to remind her of some history. It was the Conservative party that, in an election, had huge billboards saying, “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” That was the kind of rhetoric that was whipped up by this Tory party, so I will take no lectures from her on that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

I do not think we should be talking about student numbers at all. The Home Secretary said earlier that there should be no cap on student numbers. It is important that we establish a constitutional process whereby the Governments of Scotland work together and talk and listen to each other.

[David Linden]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He knows how much respect I have for him. The Immigration Minister is on the record as saying that she would not grant the Scottish Government powers that she would not grant to Lincolnshire County Council. Does he support her view on that matter?

[Stephen Kerr]

I have made it clear what I think should be happening in how Scotland’s two Governments work together.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As this debate approached, I reflected on one of the first experiences I had when I first stood for election in 2017. It was at a hustings—although they seem to be a dying art in election campaigns, they are still a very important aspect—and I remember being challenged by a guy in the audience about what my party’s policy on immigration was. I gave a very full-throated argument in favour of immigration and why we need it. After the hustings was over, he came up to me and said, “Look, before the public meeting tonight I was intending to vote for you, but because you are so pro-immigration, I can’t.”

It was probably that experience that led me to reflect on how we managed to get into a situation where immigration has become such a hotly contested issue. There is an argument that during the Brexit referendum, leadership on this issue was completely absent from the main political parties. I believe that immigration is fundamentally a good thing, and that if politicians talked about it more, we would be less likely to be in this position. There is a degree of hypocrisy when we speak to some of our constituents. When we talk about immigrants, that means people who come here from Europe, but when we talk about people going to live in Spain, we call them expats. People will complain, “They don’t speak our language when they are on the streets of Glasgow,” but when I go on holiday to Gran Canaria or Tenerife, I do not often hear many British people speaking Spanish, so there is a degree of hypocrisy there.

On the issue of hypocrisy, I want to address very directly the absolute mess that the UK Labour party found itself in this afternoon. The shadow Home Secretary opened the debate by saying that Labour would abstain on Second Reading. It took 135 miles for Jesus and Paul to walk the road to Damascus, but today it took an hour and 35 minutes for the Labour party to make a U-turn on its position. That shows the absolutely nonsensical position that the Opposition have found themselves in—and it is the same with Brexit. If someone is trying to ride two horses, eventually those two horses will give way. What we saw today is the very beginning of that for Labour, and its Members should reflect on that.

We have to be very, very upfront about the benefits of immigration, because if we are not, there will be major challenges coming down the track for us, in terms of not just our economy and our public services, but social care. We know that the number of people with dementia will have increased by about 40% in 12 years’ time, and that means more people in care homes. It is a sad thing, but the vast majority of people that I went to school with do not like the idea of going to work in care homes—of wiping people’s bottoms or serving meals. If we do not confront the reality of our ageing population, we are going to have a very serious problem with regard to our current argument on immigration.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. It is not simply about providing labour; it is also about the taxes that these immigrants will pay, which are needed to fund the social services that so many people rely on.

[David Linden]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend almost anticipates my next point. We have an ageing population, and people are going to have to be looked after. People will live for longer and we will need others to fund the tax base that pays for their pensions, so there is absolutely an economic argument for immigration as well.

As I was preparing for this speech, I reflected on the fact that we begin the sitting day in the House of Commons with a prayer in which the Speaker’s Chaplain says:

“May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind”.

We stand here at half-past 2 and pray that to God. We say, “Let us take decisions not just to please people but for the right reasons.” In reality, we find ourselves in a position politically in which we are not leading anymore—we are reacting to public opinion.

I make no apology for the fact that I took a very pro-immigration stance at the hustings that night. Tonight, with a German surname, I will walk through the No Lobby and vote against the Bill because I believe in the free movement of people. The sooner that Members get to grips with the challenges coming down the track and the benefits of free movement, the better, because we have serious challenges, and any vote for this Bill would be a seriously retrograde step.