Immigration Bill

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Mark Reckless

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

The hon. Lady says that such things were very common. I cannot comment on the 19th century, although she did mention cases that were more up to date. Whether during the depths of the worst of the de Valera regime in the ‘30s, or after what we have seen in the past five years with the move to switch away from a link to sterling and experiment on the Irish people through the imposition of the euro, which has destroyed so much of the Irish economy, I feel that this country—England, the United Kingdom—has stood ready to welcome people who have come from Ireland, often in large numbers. It has welcomed them and they have found work here that they were not able to find in Ireland.

Other Members have referred to their experiences, history, or what some of their constituents have said, but I do not believe that my mother experienced that prejudice or discrimination as an Irish citizen and passport holder. She has felt welcome in this country.

I was astonished by what the hon. Lady said. As if a large number of people who are prepared to work harder for less money coming here would have no impact on wages! Other things being equal, it will have a significant impact. The debate has changed in that the most recent large-scale immigration—from central and eastern Europe since 2004—has not been of black, Asian or foreign-looking people, as she described them, but of the white Caucasians. She is so insistent that the immigration debate must be about race but, in a way, that immigration has de-linked race from the debate. It is clear that the debate is not, or largely not, about race.

Whatever the overall costs and benefits of immigration, the fact is that the impacts are different. People who are well off often buy goods and services produced by people who have come to this country. The people who have come here have, at least initially, competed for some of the less-skilled jobs. If wages are lower than they otherwise would be in those categories, that allows better-off people to get a better or cheaper service—they understandably welcome the people providing it. However, it is less understandable and not right for better-off people who benefit from immigration to look down on those who do not have the same view of those coming here and think that it is because they have antediluvian or even racist attitudes.

The reality is that less well-off people are competing with those coming in and it affects their wages or how hard they have to work for their wages. Their situation is less good because they are subjected to a large amount of competition from significant numbers of people who have recently come into the country. Sometimes the competition will be between people with skills, but it is often at the lower-skilled end. They will compete with those who might otherwise have those lower-skilled jobs or receive better pay in those jobs. It is not surprising that people are unhappy with the scale of immigration. It is quite wrong for those who benefit from immigration to look down on those people and suggest that their attitudes are racist when what we are seeing is the economic effect.

One other important context of the Bill is this country’s system of eligibility for benefits, which is different from that in most other EU countries. The UK, Ireland, Estonia, Finland and, importantly, Germany, do not require a significant contributory period prior to eligibility for unemployment benefit. That leads to the possibility of people who do not have a long-term connection with this country benefiting without having paid in. I am not suggesting that that is the most significant part of the immigration pull into this country, but it causes concern among my constituents.

The more significant pull within the benefits system is the possibility of family benefits. The payment of child benefit to children who are resident overseas, be that in Poland or, in greater numbers, in Romania or Bulgaria, is wrong and should be stopped. I believe it could be stopped, even under current EU law, but I am not sure whether Ministers agree. Another pull is child tax credits. Our system of in-work benefits for people in some of the not-so-well-paid jobs is very generous compared with the system prevailing in, for example, Poland, particularly if they have children. That is a significant draw and my constituents are not terribly happy with it. They have paid into a system for a long time and see people who do not have that link with the system immediately taking significant benefits from it.

Those two problems are the basis and context of the debate. The recent large-flow immigration de-links race from the immigration debate, although some people would like to preserve the link. In addition, when more recent immigrants compete for jobs with people from a previous migration, the latter understandably object. We will either have to change our benefit system, or leave the European Union.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Some of the hon. Gentleman’s points make sense. There is a case for ensuring fair competition on wages and that benefits are not paid to children who have never seen the UK and never intend to, but none of those points will be addressed by the Bill. Why is he speaking about them?

[Mark Reckless]

One area within the broad range the hon. Lady describes is the charge for the use of NHS services. If someone comes to this country for a considerable period, say as an overseas student, it is right that they should make a contribution. She is right to say that in many of these areas we are not able to make the changes that I would like within our domestic legal system, because of the European Union. It is right, therefore, that my party has said that it will give the people an in/out referendum so that they can decide whether they want us to be an independent country or whether they want to continue to have these rules set by the European Union.

One impact of the scale of the immigration we have seen to this country is the linking of those issues in a way that people understand. If people want to control immigration and reduce the numbers coming from the European Union, we once again need to be an independent country. Over the next year as people from Romania and Bulgaria gain the ability to come here for employment, rather than self-employment—or purported self-employment—or other reasons, I hope that we do not see a huge influx of people from those two countries, which might get in the way of the very good progress that the Government have made towards our target of cutting immigration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. Were that to happen and to reflect on the Government—perhaps unfairly, given that it was the previous Government who signed up to that treaty of accession—it would be unfortunate if in any way that were to prevent the referendum that we have promised coming to pass in 2017.

The Bill will bear down on several channels for immigration, and some of the issues it addresses are quite technical. The Home Office has looked at all the issues and made progress in many different areas to reduce the overall scale of immigration. Part 2, on restricting the right to appeal, strikes a good balance. I have referred to the NHS charge in part 3, but it also addresses the need to ensure that people have the right to be here before giving them a driving licence. That is clearly a good thing. In the United States, that is a massive political issue, and states have very different policies on it. In this country, it seems to have gone by default, but at last we have a Government who are waking up and ensuring that people get a driving licence only if they have a right to do so by virtue of their eligibility to live in this country.

I welcome the Bill’s approach on article 8. We have heard some excellent proposals recently from my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). I thought that they were very sound and it was a shame that they did not make it into the Crime and Courts Bill, and his approach may have further benefits over and above those in the Bill. Nevertheless, the provisions in the Bill are very sound. For example, and crucially, clause 14 would insert into the 2002 Act a new section 117B(4) that states:

“Little weight should be given to…a private life, or…a relationship formed with a qualifying partner, that is established by a person at a time when the person is in the United Kingdom unlawfully.”

That is overdue. It continues:

“Little weight should be given to a private life established by a person at a time when the person’s immigration status is precarious.”

The fact that that will be in primary legislation will at last give us a real opportunity to rein in the courts and their overly expansive interpretation of article 8. In this instance, it is not so much the European Court in Strasbourg, but our own domestic courts that have had an excessively loose approach to the definition of article 8.

I add one caution. The provisions on article 8, which are good, will act as a restraint—although I look forward to reading them in more detail—but there remains an issue with how section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 has been used. As a general principle of family law, it is right that the interests of the child be paramount—for instance, in a divorce case—but I am much less convinced that it is useful in considering the deportation, following a long prison sentence, of a foreign national, not least because it is not easy for immigration judges to come to a fair and proper assessment of the interests of that child. I suspect that very often the individual concerned will not be a good parental influence on the child, but even where it might have a small impact—if it might become more difficult for that child to see a parent—I am not convinced that it should always be the trump card, which is what section 55 has become. However bad the crime committed, so long as a foreign national can find a UK partner and have a UK nationality child, a reference to section 55 has come close to trumping all other considerations in the eyes of the courts. The article 8 stuff is good, but I am worried that section 55 will still be applied, even when the overall balance, including the public interest, would have individuals deported to their home country.

I congratulate the Home Secretary, the current and former Immigration Ministers and officials in the Home Office, because one thing about the Home Office is that it does respond to a lead. As we saw under the noble Lord Howard, when Ministers have a clear set of objectives and direction of travel, more often than not officials respond, and in many areas the Home Office has done good work that has not been properly sung. For instance, appeals are going a different way because of operating criminal nexus and because judges can now consider information from police short of a conviction. That has largely been upheld as proper and judges have allowed it, and some seriously bad people have left the country who would otherwise have stayed because of the excellent work by Ministers.

I think also of the work on the electoral roll. Previously, Commonwealth citizens would apply to be on the roll even though they had no immigration leave to be here, but now Ministers are insisting on immigration leave and the guidance to electoral registration officers has changed. Rather than people being able to refer to their being on the electoral roll as evidence of their legitimacy, we now have the proper checks and linkages. Those are just two examples, but an awful lot of unsung work goes on in the Home Office. I welcome that, as well as the Bill, which will assist us, at least, in bearing down on immigration, and I give credit to Ministers for their work.