Immigration

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), because that is exactly the point. The idea that immigration is out of control is nonsense. We know that the Government’s ambition is to reduce immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. It is not going to happen. What the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex and Members on the Government Benches fail to appreciate is that we live in an interconnected and globalised world where knowledge, ideas, creativity and talent are an international commodity. That of necessity means a transfer of people across continents and countries, and that is good for the global economy; it is good for our economy.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will not give way any more because I have not got any more time.

We are in the fantastic city of London, the most dynamic and prosperous city in the world. A third of the people who live and work in London come from outwith the UK. It is like in Monty Python—“What has immigration done for us?” It has made London into a fantastic, dynamic, prosperous city.

Conservative Members talk about the Olympics. What I saw was a fantastic celebration of multicultural Britain. I saw the little tweet of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) and how he got a Twitter monstering for what he said—deservedly so. He could not have been further from the national mood when it came to how we see what immigration and multiculturalism brings to our country and our nation. It is something that is welcome and is celebrated, and so it should be.

I do not go along with this 100,000 Daily Mail petition that we are now debating. There is a mood change in this country and people are coming to accept and celebrate what we have and see that immigration is a good thing. That should be welcomed—not this nasty, authoritarian little motion.

I will come now to Scotland. I am sorry if I am boring people by restating that Scotland occupies just over a third of the land mass of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but has only 8.4% of the population—less than a tenth. Our issue is not immigration throughout the decades and centuries, it is emigration. We lose people instead of attracting them. Scotland is not full up; Scotland is one of the most under-populated parts of western Europe. Yet we are asked to accept an immigration policy that could almost be designed to be the opposite and contrary to what we require.

[Henry Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman; I have no more time left.

Scotland’s population currently stands at a record 5.2 million. For years we feared that our population would sink below the iconic 5 million mark for the first time since the mid-20th century, but we now have 5.2 million, which is good. What distinguishes Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom is that the Scottish Government issued a press release welcoming the fact that our population was at a record high. Can we imagine even the new Minister issuing a press release welcoming the fact that the UK population was at an all-time high? We have to put up with an immigration policy that is designed not for us but for another country. Thank goodness that in a few years we will have an immigration system in line with our own requirements.

Our requirements are huge. We have an ageing population with an ever smaller active work force. We need to address that. We need to attract the best and the brightest to fill our skills gap. Current immigration policy is creating havoc with our education sector. In Scotland we are reliant on overseas students. About 19% of the total student body in Scotland comes from overseas, and that is worth about £500 million to the Scottish economy. Almost 10% of all the teaching staff come from overseas, too, because we have three universities in the top 100. People want to come to Scotland because we have a culture, history and heritage of invention and creativity. The Scots practically invented the modern world so of course overseas students want to come to Scotland to study.

Students observe what is happening at the London Metropolitan college and think, “If I go to the UK there is a good chance that some Minister will decide that my college is not worthy of status and I will not get a course.” The Government’s policies are putting people off coming to our universities and colleges, and I urge the Minister to stop them now because they are harming our universities and higher education institutions.

In Scotland we need our own immigration service that will address our needs. We do not need harsher immigration policies. I bet the Minister that he will never get to these suggested levels of immigration. This is the world we live in, and there is no point in trying to address it. The Migration Observatory wrote to every Member of Parliament to give its view, and even it could not agree with the right hon. Members who have proposed the motion. It pointed to variations throughout the United Kingdom in people’s perception of immigration. I am proud that we in Scotland do not perceive immigration as a dreadful, negative thing as so many Conservative Members seem to do.

I, like the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), would like to come to debates such as this to have a proper discussion about immigration. Hon. Members always protest that we do not discuss it properly, but when they get to their feet all we ever hear is that immigration must be curbed or stopped, that it is not a good thing, that it must be reversed.

We have a new Minister in his place, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I hope that we will have a better understanding of the issues than the previous Minister because what we are observing just now is not positive or good. As a Scottish National party member, I hope that he will understand that Scotland’s immigration requirements are different. I do not know if he will acknowledge that, but just a cursory recognition that Scotland is lumbered with a system that is not appropriate for our needs would be welcome and then we could make some progress in how we address this. I live in hope that that might happen, but I have my doubts. Scotland would reject this silly, authoritarian and nonsensical motion, and I hope that the House does too.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I should like to start by paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) for their courage, conviction and determination in tabling the motion. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that the debate was held today; it is a debate that the vast majority of people in this country want us to have.

I have been involved in local politics and parliamentary politics for some years. My constituency of Crawley is multi-ethnic, and one of the most important issues that people raise with me—regardless of their ethnic background, although it is often raised by people from an ethnic minority—is the concern about the sheer number of people coming into this country over the past decade or so. If people continue to enter the country in those numbers, the situation will be unsustainable. A population in excess of 70 million would certainly be unsustainable.

It is worth repeating that, for far too long, the main political parties and the political establishment in this country have not addressed people’s concerns about the sheer level of immigration, particularly over the past decade or so. As a result, reasonable people who are not prejudiced or racist have found themselves supporting racist organisations and parties such as the British National party and the so-called English Defence League. That is a great shame, in a country that has traditionally been—and still is—one of the most tolerant nations anywhere in the world. It is appalling that our lack of willingness to address the situation has led to those thoughts being held by reasonable people.

Immigration has played a big part in the history of this nation. There have been various waves of immigration, but we are now, for the first time in a millennium, seeing unsustainable numbers. Some estimates mention 3 million people, but the important point is that we do not actually know the figure because the numbers of people coming to this country are not properly recorded. That has put enormous pressure on our infrastructure. That is evident in my constituency, where the pressure on housing is immense. Areas that were originally designated for commercial development have had to be re-designated as residential development to support the numbers of people coming to live there. That results in pressure on infrastructure—not just the physical infrastructure such as the highways, but, perhaps most acutely, the schools. Many have had to expand their classroom capacity in quite difficult circumstances to accommodate the numbers.

Mention was made earlier of the pressure that immigration has been putting on the national health service. Next Tuesday, I am pleased to be presenting a ten-minute rule Bill on this issue, which will seek to require a proper audit to be carried out in order to recover reciprocal costs incurred in the treatment of foreign nationals by the national health service. At the moment, the figures are not properly recorded or monitored, but they suggest that the health service is paying more than £1 billion a year on supporting foreign nationals who would otherwise not be entitled to free care.

[Kate Green]

I note what the hon. Gentleman says about the use of the national health service, but does he also recognise the substantial contribution made by immigrants who are employees of the NHS? How does he think the NHS would manage if we were unable to attract migrants to come here and do that work?

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for using the word “manage”. That is what has been missing from our immigration system up to now. My wife was an immigrant to this country, and she used to work in the national health service. The hon. Lady is quite right to say that the NHS has relied on people coming to this country to support it.

However, we need an immigration system in which we know who is coming into and leaving the country, and in which those who come in use a fair and lawful route. When the so-called accession eight countries became part of the European Union in 2004, only the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden did not exercise their right to a period of controlled immigration. As we were the largest country not exercising the right to control immigration, and as we are an English-speaking country, we saw millions of people coming here in a rapid and unsustainable way. That has resulted in many pressures in communities up and down the country.

Let me start to conclude by congratulating the Government on the work they have already started to do. I very much welcome the new Minister to his post, and I am sure he will continue the excellent work of his predecessor over the past two and a half years. I am encouraged that the number of net migrants to this country has come down, as recently reported, from more than 250,000 to just over 200,000—but we still have to go much further. I congratulate the Minister’s predecessor—I know that this good work will continue—in closing down the sham marriage route and the illegal routes to entering this country through bogus college courses. Again, the action we have seen over the past week is to be welcomed, but we need to continue our pressure and our determination to get a grip on this situation. As we heard earlier, it would need eight cities to be built outside London over the next 15 years to accommodate the projected rise in population as a result of immigration, which is clearly unsustainable. I echo other hon. Members in saying that we have a duty to the British people to ensure that we address this issue for our future harmony and prosperity as a nation.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

In opening the debate, the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) talked about the need for honesty and open and candid discussion. I regret that many of the contributions so far have, I think, thrown more darkness than light on the subject. I want to concentrate on one specific thing, which I believe unites many Members on both sides of the House—the way we address the issue of students. We need to recognise the important role of UK higher education. I welcome the new Minister to his post and hope he will bring an open mind to this issue. I am sure he will be lobbied by Government Members as much as by Opposition Members.

As we were reminded by the Minister for Universities and Science in this morning’s Business, Innovation and Skills questions, UK higher education is a major export earner. It contributes something like £7.9 billion to our economy annually. It is not just about money—we recruit some of the best and the brightest to our universities and they add to the intellectual rigour and to the overall educational experience of UK students, as well as play a vital role in research and innovation, which is greatly recognised by British business—but the direct financial contribution is significant. The money spent through tuition fees is matched by the money spent in local economies. In all our major towns and cities across the country, tens of thousands of jobs are dependent on international students. In the city I represent, Sheffield, they are worth about £180 million to the local economy and involve more than 2,000 jobs. It is a major success story, but it could be even better.

Driven by the world’s growing economies, international demand for university education is expanding rapidly, and BIS estimated that we could double the number of international students in this country by 2025. That would mean another couple of thousand jobs in Sheffield and tens of thousands across the UK. With the world’s strongest higher education offer after the United States, we should be seeing huge growth, but we are losing market share. The reason for it is the message we have been sending out to prospective students around the world as a result of changes to the student visa system. The Home Office’s own impact assessment of the student visa changes, published just over a year ago, estimated that its proposal would cost our economy a massive £2.6 billion.

At a time when we need growth and should be encouraging our major export earners, I have to say that the situation has been made worse by the handling of the London Metropolitan university issue. Clearly, we need to act if universities are failing in their obligations, but we need to act appropriately and proportionately. How this has been handled, however, has done huge damage. A Google search reveals something like 700 stories in the international media about this issue, and a deeply damaging message is being sent out. They are saying “You can come to the UK, you can comply with visa requirements, you can pay thousands of pounds for your course and contribute to the local economy, you can be making a success of your studies, and, through no fault of your own, you can still be deported at any time on the whim of Government.” What would a prospective international student choose to do when confronted with that situation?

[Henry Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that enabling overseas students who are investing considerable sums to come here to feel confident that they are coming to a college or higher education institution that is complying with the law is fairer to them than the random, haphazard system that has existed up to now, which can leave genuine overseas students vulnerable?

[Paul Blomfield]

I think that genuine overseas students were left vulnerable by bogus colleges that were recruiting them to fairly bogus courses, but London Metropolitan university is not one of those. There may have been failings in its processes and systems—the situation is still being investigated—but the issue is that bona fide students who are succeeding in their courses are being threatened with deportation at a critical stage of the academic cycle.

We should bear in mind the message that that sends to prospective students around the world who are considering their options. They will say to themselves, “Shall I go to the UK? Thanks, but no thanks. I shall go to the United States”—or Canada, or Australia—“because I shall not be deported from that country on the whim of Government.”

EU Council

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that, in the end, as Europe changes and as we seek this fresh settlement, we will need to seek a fresh mandate. That is what the Conservative party at least has clearly recognised.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

At last week’s meeting, the European Council president said it could take up to a decade to implement EU treaty change. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is therefore more important that the Government passed a referendum lock in legislation?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Europe is changing rapidly and, as I have argued, quite fundamentally, but some of the institutional changes will take quite a long time to come through, because it is difficult for democratic states to achieve what the eurozone countries are engaged in. It will take time, which is why, as I have said, we need the tactical and strategic patience to maximise our national interest.

Civil Service Reform

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Yes. When we said we wanted those services that can be delivered online to be delivered only online, we meant it. It is not easy to do this, but it can be done, and my hon. Friend, who has considerable expertise in this area, will no doubt support the aim.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend touched on the importance of importing the very best of transformational change from the enterprise sector. Will he say a little more about that?

[Mr Maude]

We want a civil service culture that is much more recognisable to those who come from the private sector so that there can be greater interaction. Where people do move from one sector to another, frequently it does not work because they feel like they have landed on a different planet. It is particularly valuable for civil servants to spend some time in the private sector as they will pick up additional skills, as well as vice versa. There can be very valuable cross-fertilisation. This has often been tried, but it has worked far too rarely. We are going to have another go.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman wants to know whether we met in the same room or not. Okay, we did not; we met separately. Hold the headlines, “Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister have separate meetings”. Honestly, he is really scraping the barrel. We all agreed, as I explained earlier to the over-excitable right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), that it was very important that Germany and Britain should work together on deepening and widening the single market, and on promoting competitiveness and growth, upon which the jobs of millions of people depend in this country and elsewhere in Europe.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T7. In the context of House of Lords reform, will the Deputy Prime Minister say whether consideration has been given to a form of representation for British overseas territories in a revised second Chamber?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

This is not something that has been looked at as closely as my hon. Friend would perhaps wish. We have set out our ideas in the White Paper. As I said earlier, they are now being subject to scrutiny by the Joint Committee, and the Government will make their final views known shortly thereafter.

EU Council

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Clearly, if we had been able to achieve the protocol on financial services there would have been greater safeguards, but the safeguard we do have is that we are not signing up to a treaty that could have put that industry in danger.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his bold and courageous stance in the early hours of the morning last Friday and I should like to pass on the thanks that many of my constituents have expressed to me over the weekend. Will he confirm that of the nations at the European Council that did sign up to an agreement, the Parliaments of Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania and others such as Hungary still need to approve and ratify it?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We do not yet know exactly how the new organisation and treaty will develop or how many countries will sign up to it. There will then be a huge process involving very detailed scrutiny by and punishment from the European Commission if Governments draw up inappropriate budgets or have a structural deficit of greater than 0.5%. Labour left us a structural deficit of—what was it?—7% or 8%? There are big processes to go through before the treaty is either finalised in March or implemented, for which it will again have to be put to Parliaments and, possibly, even to referendums as well. There are many hoops to go through.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard Ministers in the Ministry of Justice talking about this when we debated the matter last week, and I think they made a very good case for what the Government intend to do.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T4. Can my right hon. Friend say how the British Government compare with the French Government when it comes to the number of contracts they procure with domestic suppliers?

[Mr Maude]

The procurement practice that we inherited from the previous Government militates heavily against the interests of UK suppliers and UK jobs, especially when it comes to very large contracts. Both France and Germany, which do not operate protectionist regimes and which obey the rules, give away fewer jobs to other countries. We are looking at this to see how we can support UK suppliers in a way that the previous Government signally failed to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Youth unemployment has been rising since 2004—it went up during the growth years as well as in the difficult years. We need a comprehensive strategy that deals with all the problems of youth unemployment, including the fact that there are too many people leaving school aged 16 who spent 13 years under a Labour Education Secretary—so the Labour party needs to take some responsibility—and who left school without qualifications to help them get a job. This is about ensuring that we have better education, a welfare system that helps people into work and a Work programme that provides not phoney jobs, as the future jobs fund did, but real work for real young people.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

A recent TaxPayers Alliance report revealed—[Hon. Members: “Ahh!”]—that 38 union leaders were remunerated at more than £100,000 each, including Derek Simpson of Unite, who received more than £500,000. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is time for union boss pay restraint?

Libya

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Let me say again that I think it was right to re-form a relationship with Libya when it gave up weapons of mass destruction, but we had to do that in the right way, and I do not believe we made enough progress on issues such as the murder of Yvonne Fletcher, and I also do not think that the al-Megrahi case was handled in the right way.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Five years ago, the then Government invited two of Gaddafi’s sons to visit SAS headquarters, which I think was quite appalling. What lessons can we learn about the appeasing of abusive dictatorships?

[The Prime Minister]

I have a feeling that if they invited him again, they might treat him rather differently this time. As I have said: it is right to have a new relationship but wrong to be quite so gullible in how that was carried out—and, for all the reasons that have been given, I also think that helping to complete PhD theses is probably not a role Ministers should enter into in respect of other countries.

House of Lords Reform

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am very grateful for your calling me to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I admit that for the first time in 13 months I do so with some trepidation, because, given the interventions and sedentary comments of those sitting close to me, I suspect that this is one of those arguments on which we will respectfully have to agree to disagree.

In case it has escaped anybody’s notice, we are at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, and in a democratic country it is anathema that both Houses of Parliament should not both be democratically elected. The ultimate question in a democratic system is, “Who appoints the representatives?”, and the ultimate answer is that only the people should be empowered to do so.

We have heard about the 61 other bicameral Parliaments throughout the world and how the vast majority have two fully elected Chambers, and that is absolutely right. Throughout the world, throughout the Commonwealth and, although it pains me to say it, throughout Europe, we see that that democratic structure is the norm. The United States Congress, with its House of Representatives and its Senate, is probably the predominant example, and 49 of the 50 American states have fully elected bicameral systems, too. There we have systems that work extremely well and, indeed, provide a greater check and balance than we have in our own Parliament.

In the Commonwealth, perhaps the best example is the federal Australian Parliament with its House of Commons and Senate, a system that, although no system is perfect, works extremely well for the people of Australia. That system goes for most Australian states as well.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and interesting speech, but he is surely aware that the vast proportion of the legislatures that he describes operate under codified constitutions that explicitly prevent power leaching from one side to the other. Does he propose a codified constitution in this case? That is surely the counterpart of the undoubted change in conventions that would occur if there were an elected Lords.

[Henry Smith]

My hon. Friend anticipates the remarks that I hope to make in a few moments.

Several weeks ago I was in Poland, where I was fortunate to meet the Speaker of the Polish Senate. That country saw its Senate abolished under the Communist totalitarian regime but, happily, had it democratically restored approximately two decades ago, and again it is a system that works very well.

My main point—I hope this answers my hon. Friend’s question— is that I do not look to the rest of the world to tell me the best way to construct our Parliament; I look to our proud British history. We have had Parliaments in these islands for the best part of 1,000 years, and I am struck by the coincidence that 2015 will be the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, which is probably one of those points that set us off on our constitutional journey.

Since then, we have had the civil war, which in a greater way established the sovereignty of this Parliament, the Bill of Rights, the Reform Acts starting in 1832, the Parliament Act exactly a century ago, universal suffrage for women following the first world war and the Parliament Act 1949.

We are an evolving constitution, and we are a country that to its credit has proudly developed the principles of liberty and participative democracy over the best part of many centuries, but, as we are at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, an evolving constitution to my mind says that the only legitimate second Chamber for this Parliament is a wholly elected second Chamber, because 100% is the most legitimate and best way forward.

I do, however, want to make a couple of remarks about the draft Bill. I am pleased to note that it is a draft Bill, and I congratulate the Government on that and on the Joint Committee, because it is important that we feed in as many views as possible to what is an important constitutional change.

Time does not allow me to elaborate too much on the pros and cons of 15-year terms, but I suggest, first, to the Government that there should be a power of recall over any future elected Member of the House of Lords. I am sure that the vast majority of them will diligently carry out their duties on behalf of this Parliament and the country.

[Stephen Pound]

Just as Bagehot said that

“the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it,”

may I advise the hon. Gentleman to read the House of Lords record on those occasions recently when recalcitrant peers have been identified as breaching the rules? He will suddenly see that the wagons circle around them and, far from a power of exclusion, there is a power of holding tight to the ermined bosom. That comes across loud and clear.

[Henry Smith]

I wish I had the hon. Gentleman’s eloquence, based on that final comment. There are some infamous examples of noble Lords who have behaved in a less than noble way, but most Members of the other place do a very diligent job, and I am sure that future Members, under whatever system, will do so as well. It is important, however, that we have a mechanism like that in local authorities, whereby, if somebody does not participate for six months, excepting ill health or some other legitimate reason, there is a power of recall or replacement for that individual.

My second remark is about an 80% versus a 100% elected second Chamber. I think that 300 Members is about the right number for a second Chamber, but my concern is that if only 80 Members are elected at the beginning of every Parliament, that will not be terribly representative of the smaller regional constituencies proposed in the draft Bill. Having 100% election and 100 Members elected at the start of every Parliament would ensure that there was far greater representation in the other place. It would also mean that we had a second Chamber that was not dominated by any one party, not only because of the system of single transferable votes but because of its term stretching over the course of three Parliaments.

With regret at not having more time to elaborate on my arguments, I very much support the Bill and look forward to Members’ contributions making it even better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, because the bravery of the Royal Irish Regiment and the Irish Guards in Afghanistan has been outstanding and, sadly, both regiments have suffered loss of life during their recent deployments. As I understand it, a number of homecoming events will be taking place across Northern Ireland. We are discussing with Belfast city council and others how we can give recognition to their tremendous bravery. No decision has yet been made and I will make sure he is fully involved in those discussions. It is also worth noting that because they are actually stationed in north Shropshire, they have already had a very successful homecoming parade in Market Drayton, and I am sure that they will have many others besides.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating Crawley borough council on freezing its council tax this year? Can he say how many other local authorities across the country have frozen their council tax, against the advice of the Labour party, which described that policy as a “gimmick”?

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased to announce that in spite of the fact that Labour dismissed it as a “gimmick” and that the leader of the Labour party said that councils ought to be able to charge more, every single council in the country has given their hard-pressed council tax payers a council tax freeze. We all remember what happened over the last 10 years when council tax doubled. It was the tax of choice of the Labour party, taking money out of people’s pockets. We are freezing that council tax to give people a break, and they deserve it.