Immigration Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bellingham]

I entirely agree, but it is of no consolation to a hospital in Norfolk that needs to recruit 90 nurses over the next few months to avoid those penal payments to agencies. I agree that this is a matter that the NHS and the Ministers in the Department of Health must deal with. There is a long lead-in time; we cannot suddenly train nurses. There are many retired nurses whom we need to bring back into the profession, but many of them cannot come back, or do not want to come back.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was at today’s Health questions, but the Minister proudly claimed that he had record numbers of nurses in training. In fact, there are four applicants for every nurse training place in Britain today, and we are training fewer nurses than we did in 2009.

[Mr Bellingham]

I absolutely take on board what the right hon. Lady says. It is very important indeed that Ministers look urgently and with relentless energy at that problem. If they do not look at it or at the training and the supply of nurses, these problems will continue. In the meantime, I ask the Minister of State to look very carefully at what I have said and tell me exactly what the updated position is of the Migration Advisory Committee. I gather that it is looking at evidence being produced by a number of trusts around the country. If the problem is not addressed, hospitals such as the one in my constituency will be running up debts completely beyond their control.

We are living in an ever more troubled and turbulent world. I do not think that any of us could have been anything but moved by those pictures of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who was drowned along with 12 other Syrians. When I look at the tragedy going on in Syria, I fear that it will be replicated in other countries around the world such as in Yemen and Egypt. Sudan, too, is in a very vulnerable state. I support the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, but feel that it is essential that we target people in country, which is why I strongly favour the idea of safe havens, overseen by the UN and the EU. It makes far more sense to have safe havens in the south of Dimashq and in the al-Suwayda province along the Jordanian border. It is a turbulent world and we face many challenges, but this Bill is a small, but essential step in helping Britain to secure its borders.

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[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I think that it is universally accepted that the British people want properly controlled immigration. Their objection is to unfair and uncontrolled immigration. This Bill has been dressed up as a powerful response to that demand for effective immigration control, but it is in fact the opposite; it is a sign that the Home Office has given up on doing its job.

Instead of fixing that which is broken—the ports of entry that passengers go through without seeing an immigration officer; the practice, when police officers intercept people who have been smuggled in lorries, of sending them on their way and asking them kindly to present themselves at the Home Office in Croydon; and even appeals where, having refused an application, the Home Office fails to send a representative to defend the decision—the Home Office has instead allowed terrible delays in listing appeals, resulting in people who have no valid claim to remain here staying longer and putting down roots so that they become more difficult to remove.

The Home Office has rejected calls to extend the role and remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority so that practical action can be taken to prevent labour exploitation in sectors where we know it exists, such as the hotel trade and construction. Instead, it is delegating the problem to us—to ordinary people and not just employers, who rightly should check the immigration status of people who apply to work for them, in order to protect themselves and their customers. Those employers regularly complain to me that the information on the advice line is at best confusing, and at worst wrong.

We are told that there will be an advice line for some of the new groups who will have to check someone’s immigration status. Banks already have some experience, but landlords will now be expected to refer to an advice line in order to spy on the immigration status of their tenants. In effect, the Bill is setting us all up as snoopers on other people’s immigration status. We know that that is ineffective. Of 75,000 allegations to the Home Office in 2013, there were 4,000 arrests and only 1,000 removals. Even privatised Capita, when given 120,000 records of overstayers, managed to persuade only 1,000 to leave.

I have been advising people about immigration status for over 35 years, but I still need to check with up-to-date experts about what some of my constituents’ entitlements are. The Home Office is not providing the tools that would allow citizens to be sure of the status of someone who might seek services from them. The result is unsurprising, and it is confirmed by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants report on west midlands landlords: people will just stop taking the risk.

Britain, having been a tolerant and welcoming society in which iconic British successes have often been created by refugees and migrants—businesses such as Marks & Spencer and inventions such as the Mini, which was designed here by an Italian—will become a place where people with foreign names and accents face a kind of pass law system in which, in order to play a full part in society, they have to keep proving their status and the fact that they have rights. The MPs who opposed the national ID card system did so on the basis that it was an infringement of civil liberties. The consequence of failing to introduce such a system is that all of us will have to make these checks, and minorities will bear the brunt of infringements of their civil liberties.

[Simon Hoare]

I do not know when the hon. Lady last rented a property or opened a bank account, but when doing so, as British citizens, we are all required to provide information, be it a passport, a utility bill, proof of address or a driving licence, and so on. Surely it is just common sense that when landlords are letting a property these safeguards and checks should be made. They are made on the rest of us, as things stand now.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The point is that if someone has a full British passport, it is very easy to say that they are entitled. The Residential Landlords Association predicts, rightly in my view, that the consequence of this measure will be that people who do not have a British passport, even those who are British—we should remember that some 12 million people in Britain do not carry a passport—will find themselves discriminated against because the landlord thinks that the situation is difficult.

We need to make sure that the only landlords prosecuted are those to whom Ministers have referred, who are sometimes complicit in illegal migration and the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers. Can the Minister point to a provision saying that only people like the pimps who are exploiting trafficked workers in brothels will be prosecuted but innocent landlords who make a mistake and do not understand the documents will not? I do not believe that this Bill is going to help these women. The clause 8 offence of illegal working will apply to them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) clearly explained. Will the Minister give specific details about what action he will take to make sure that victims who are coerced by others to work are not criminalised by the offence? Will they have a statutory defence under the Bill? We know that the results of the assessment of landlords experiment will not be available until after this debate, but has he conducted an assessment of the impact of these measures on victims of modern slavery?

This Bill is horribly un-British. It gives immigration officers extreme powers without submitting them to abiding by protections like the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—protections that police officers have to abide by. It forces people to appeal from overseas, and by doing so ignores the rights of children who will be separated from their parents. The Children’s Commissioner has said that the current arrangements already fail to meet our obligations on children’s rights.

Overseas appeals will not deal with cases such as the one in my constituency of a husband whose documents showed that he lived in Slough while his wife lived in Bradford, so the Home Office said, “This is a marriage of convenience.” In fact, Slough was the only place he could get work, so he was coming down there to work from Monday to Friday and then returning to his family at the weekend. Without an oral hearing, he would not have been able to win his case. He did win it, and the immigration judge praised him for working so hard to support his family. This Bill is going to lead to un-British injustice, and we should reject it.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in full support of what the Government are doing to tackle the problem of illegal immigration, and to put on record my support for every single word of the speech that the Home Secretary made at the recent Conservative party conference. The Government are absolutely right to be doing this. Nobody has any problem with legal migration into Britain; no Conservative Member has suggested that there is a problem with it. Speaking for myself, I am married to somebody who migrated into this country from eastern Europe. My children are bilingual and have dual nationality. My sister-in-law is Chinese. Davies family Christmas get-togethers can be like the United Nations.

This is not about racism or xenophobia at all. Conservative Members are concerned that migration needs to be managed in a careful fashion, and to be legal and controlled. Illegal mass migration is causing all sorts of problems, not just for the UK, but for many of those who have been illegally brought into this country.

Pressure is being put on housing and it is important that we take action against rogue landlords. I remember going out with the police in a part of London—I think it was Ealing, but it may have been elsewhere—and they openly said, “Look at all these sheds that have been converted into accommodation. It’s all for people who have come over here illegally.” It is such a widespread problem that very little is being done about it.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I represent a constituency in which many such sheds exist, and the housing pressures in Slough are such that most of the residents of those sheds are now perfectly legal.

[David T. C. Davies]

We do not know that, do we? But we will no doubt be able to find out because we are giving people the powers to check.

There is pressure on schools when pupils cannot speak English. There is a cost for translators and the issue also causes problems for the health service. It undermines wages and creates wider public concerns.

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[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

This has been a very wide-ranging and passionate debate. Clearly, there are some issues that deserve further scrutiny.

Let me welcome the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) to his new role; this is the first opportunity I have had to do so. I look forward to further debates with him on the issues that have been highlighted during this debate.

The hon. and learned Gentleman raised a specific point on the statutory defences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Perhaps in the sense of wanting to respond to him positively so that we can end the debate in that manner, I can say that that Act does include provisions relating to defences. There will be a defence to the new criminal offence of illegal working in the Bill. The Director of Public Prosecutions also issues guidance to protect victims from unfair prosecution. Certainly, I can give that reassurance to him and to other Members who raised the point during today’s debate.

May I say to all hon. Members that this Government are firmly on the side of the vast majority of law-abiding migrants who play by the rules and contribute so much to our society? The UK has a long and proud history of immigration and this Government will continue to welcome the brightest and the best, the skilled and the talented to our country and to recognise the contribution that they make.

I thank all my hon. and right hon. Friends for their support of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) rightly highlighted the concern in his community and the need to deal with illegal immigration. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) made the important point about exploitation by organised crime. He made the very clear statement that exploiters have the most to fear from this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) talked about strengthening criminal sanctions for illegal working.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) raised an issue in relation to nurses and talked about some of the things that he has seen in his constituency. I can say to him that we take the advice on who should go on our shortage occupation list from the Migration Advisory Committee. That Committee said at the start of this year that nurses should not go on that list. It is considering the evidence further, and we will continue to take account of what it has to say on these important matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) highlighted the new closure power and the scope of the director of labour market enforcement. We have launched a consultation today and I welcome contributions to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) highlighted his experiences on his visit to Calais, a point that was also raised by other hon. Members who have been out to northern France. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) also highlighted this point, and we are continuing to work with Kent County Council on the pressures it has experienced, particularly those concerning unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) made a powerful point about having good migration, not mass migration, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) talked about how we need to stop the abuse carried out by rogue landlords. I hope that we will reach a point in our discussions on the Bill at which we will highlight how these measures contribute to taking action against rogue landlords more generally, working with local authorities to clamp down on the appalling conditions in many of the properties those landlords own. This is about supporting the proper regulated sector and joining up to take action against those who are exploiting the vulnerable.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The Minister said earlier that the Modern Slavery Act 2015 would protect victims who might be prosecuted for working illegally. He says that the Bill will enable us to deal with rogue landlords. Will he put in the Bill protection for landlords who let a property accidentally, who are not rogues, and protection for victims of trafficking?

[James Brokenshire]

We will no doubt discuss that point in Committee, but the Bill builds on measures in the Immigration Act 2014, including the right-to-rent provisions, the mechanisms that operate and the clear guidance we provided in the pilot scheme, and we will continue to do that. We are clear that there should not be any discrimination and that will be set out firmly in the guidance we will provide. That point about how the Government are approaching the measure must be stressed to the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gower mentioned the impact on children, a point that was raised by other hon. Members as well. Section 55 of the Children Act will continue to apply as regards safeguarding duties towards children.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) talked about immigration detention and I repeat that we have commissioned the Stephen Shaw review into immigration detention. Stephen Shaw has recently submitted his report and his findings are being considered carefully. The report will be published by laying it before Parliament alongside the Government’s report on its recommendations.