Future Immigration

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised this important issue of fairness. The Home Office makes millions of immigration decisions, whether on visas or otherwise, each year and we cannot pretend that every single decision is going to be right. Earlier, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) raised the issue of Windrush, which was a problem under successive Governments, and we need to learn the lessons from that, and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) raised a live case from her constituency that the Minister for Immigration will be happy to meet her to discuss.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the proposal set out by the Home Secretary to have an immigration system that gets the best talent from around the world for our economy and public services. Will he also undertake to cover in this legislation the loophole of descendants from the British Indian Ocean Territory, whose rights have been abused for the best part of half a century?

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about this issue. He has championed it for a while and we have discussed it. It is not specifically addressed in the White Paper in terms of a future immigration system, but he is right to continue to raise the matter, and we are right to continue to work with him and to look at it.