Oral Answers to Questions

James Clappison Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I make three points to the hon. Gentleman. First, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), the immigration figure—the gross number—is down by 100,000 to its lowest level since 2003. My second point concerns people in the United Kingdom who have no right to be here. I actually want them to leave, which will contribute to reducing net migration. Thirdly, on the in-flow of people from the EU, as he will see from the numbers, the EU is not where the bulk of net migration comes from; the majority of people coming to Britain come from outside the EU.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

In the light of the recent upwards revision of the migration figures between 1997 and 2010—an additional 500,000 migrants were found, meaning that overall immigration in that period was 4 million and that net migration under the last Government was 3 million, which amounted to three cities the size of Manchester—can my hon. Friend assure me that in the future we will have robust statistics and no return to the open-door policies favoured by the last Government?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will know that Migration Watch has written to the Office for National Statistics about that historical period, and I understand that it is engaged in a dialogue about it. I also understand from the ONS that it has revised its methodology so that its current recording of statistics is accurate, but his general point is very sensible: we had a period of uncontrolled immigration under the last Government—a mistake that this Government are not going to make.