European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her honesty in saying that she had changed her mind when she was sitting with Stanley Johnson: two blonde bombshells, if you like, in the same European Parliament. I remember campaigning with Stanley Johnson, and if the good people of Newton Abbot had decided to vote the right way in, I think, 2005—or perhaps it was 2010— he would be sitting here, and we would have been able to hear from him as well as from the Mayor of London.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

With respect, why does the Prime Minister “bang on” so much about east European migration? After all, the Poles have a wonderful record in this country of coming here, not for benefits but to work hard and integrate. Is it not much more worrying that millions are pouring into Europe from north Africa and the middle east? Has the Prime Minister any idea of the proportion of those people who will exercise their right to come here once they have their German passports? If we remain in the EU, the channel will be about as useful in stopping them as a trifling Macedonian stream.

[The Prime Minister]

I promise to “bang on” for the next four months, but I hope to “bang on” considerably less about this subject after that.

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Obviously we have the advantage of being outside Schengen, so foreign nationals coming to other European countries do not have automatic access to the UK. We can stop them coming in, as indeed we can stop European citizens who we think may be a risk to our country. The factual answer to my hon. Friend’s question, however, is that, after 10 years, only about 2.2% of the refugees and others who have arrived in Germany have German citizenship, so the evidence to date is that there is not a huge risk of very early grants of citizenship to these people. Nevertheless, I agree that we need to act, and if we are involved, we are more likely to act to try and stem the flow of migrants in the first place. What is happening now in the NATO-led operation between Greece and Italy is happening partly because of a UK intervention in this debate, taken with the French, the Germans and the Italians. When we are around that table, we can get things done.