Immigration

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). As he said towards the end of his speech, there really could be no more appropriate topic than immigration for the SNP to choose for our first Opposition day debate for nearly a year. The inept and damaging approach of this Conservative Government to immigration typifies how this Westminster Parliament is incapable of serving Scotland’s needs.

As the current Prime Minister’s reign fizzles out in the midst of a constitutional crisis, she is frantically clinging to the wreckage in an effort to outstay Gordon Brown’s reign, staying till the last possible minute as she desperately searches for something other than the Brexit shambles to be her legacy. She should not fear: help is at hand from the SNP. As my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said, one policy that can undoubtedly be laid firmly at the door of the current Prime Minister is the hostile environment and the ludicrous net migration targets on which she has insisted throughout her time as Home Secretary and Prime Minister, despite the fact that they have never been met.

It is not a legacy of which the Prime Minister can be proud. When she stood on the doorstep of No. 10 at the outset of her premiership, she promised to fight against the burning injustices in our society. Not only has she failed to do that; instead she will be remembered as the architect and driving force behind a policy that has not only failed but created a whole new set of burning injustices, typified by the scandalous treatment of the members of the Windrush generation.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I was involved in a case study of two of the Windrush cases in some detail. We were able to see the way in which those acting on behalf of the Home Office repeatedly ignored extensive documentary evidence that these people had every right to be here. They detained them and were on the verge of deporting them from this country. Given that treatment and the denied-my-vote scandal that took place on 23 May, it is perfectly understandable that EU nationals living in the United Kingdom are afraid about the protection of their rights after we leave the European Union should they find themselves in a position similar to that of the Windrush citizens—where they have every right to be here but do not have the right paperwork. In that respect, I pay great tribute to the work of the 3 million group and also of the New Europeans, who have done a lot in relation to the denied-my-vote scandal.

The Windrush scandal illustrated with a human face the severe unintended consequences of the hostile environment policies. Perhaps even worse, they were not unintended at all, and it was the price that the Prime Minister felt was worth paying to achieve her unobtainable targets. There is no doubt about it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said, that there is a racist element to these policies. The long-term lawful residents of the United Kingdom who lost their jobs, their homes and their health as a result of the Windrush scandal were black and ethnic minority people. The only known middle-aged, middle class white person to have lost their job as a result of the Windrush scandal is the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who had to resign as Home Secretary, but make no mistake about it, the rap for the Windrush disaster rests at the door of the outgoing Prime Minister.

[Carol Monaghan]

My hon. and learned Friend mentions the outgoing Prime Minister. When I first wrote to her about my constituent who was caught up in the Windrush scandal, she was in fact the Home Secretary. She knew what was happening years before it was brought to the attention of the House by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—I think. She knew about it years before, yet denied knowledge when it all blew up.

[Joanna Cherry]

The Prime Minister left others to take the rap for her. It is important that today’s debate notes that the hostile environment is the legacy of the outgoing Prime Minister. Of late, there has been a rush in certain Tory quarters to disown the policy. Much as they like to try to lay the whole Brexit fiasco at the door of the current Prime Minister, such chameleon-like figures as the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and Ruth Davidson—both populists who have more in common than either would care to admit—have tried to distance themselves from the hostile environment without ever taking a principled stand against it.

The current Home Secretary likes to talk about how hard his father worked after arriving in the United Kingdom from Pakistan with just £1 in his pocket. In Scotland, we have a very significant community of Asian Scots, many of whose parents came to the United Kingdom with just £1 in their pocket like the Home Secretary’s father. The reality is that the current policies of the Government, of whom the Home Secretary is part, are designed to discourage people from following in their footsteps. Even worse, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and others this afternoon, the visit visa system is designed to prevent the families of our Asian brothers and sisters and others from visiting, except in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

At the start of this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) made a forensic speech. In a measured way, as we would expect from him, he went through in forensic detail the various problems with the system. In particular, he dissected the White Paper and outlined what is wrong with it—what is wrong with replacing freedom of movement with an expansion of the already failing tier 2 visa system. He also pointed to the demographic time bomb for Scotland, which appears to be conveniently ignored by Members on the Government Benches. He also pointed out that the Scottish Government have proposed constructive alternatives to the White Paper.

The shadow Minister, who knows I am very fond of him, suggested that a differential system would be an impossibility for Scotland but, as I said to him in my intervention, there are many examples across the world of differentiated systems working effectively. Canada is the example of which I am most aware, having been there to study the system, but there are other examples. I gently suggest that the Labour party has a go at looking at those examples. If it wants to get back any of the votes it has lost in Scotland, it needs to get on board—this might be a bit of a tall order—with the understanding that the position in Scotland is different.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who has had to leave his place, made a very powerful point about the threatened mass eviction of asylum seekers in Glasgow by Serco, and he has an Adjournment debate on the subject tomorrow. This is another spin-off from the hostile environment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, who is my constituency neighbour, spoke about the impact of visa refusals on the Edinburgh festivals and on conferences in Edinburgh, as the capital city of Scotland is so important to our economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) made a powerful contribution about the impact of the Government’s immigration policies on education and skills development in Scotland. She is an expert in the field of photonics, about which she spoke, but the points she makes apply across the science, technology, engineering and maths sector and into other sectors such as language teaching. We are discouraging early career researchers and technicians from working in Scotland by expanding the tier 2 system.

Other Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), spoke about the problem with religious visas. I first became aware of this problem in relation to the Thai temple in my constituency, but the issue is clearly affecting all sorts of religious denominations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said that she could have filled the rest of the debate with constituency cases and indicated that they account for a very high percentage of her workload. She is right, of course; that is the position of most of us. That is why I was so puzzled by the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). Given that so many Scottish MPs have a high caseload of immigration cases, I am surprised that he is not in a similar situation. Stirling must be a little spot that the Government’s hostile environment has not reached.

What I really want to say to the Scottish Tories is that there is no doubt that, in this respect, SNP Members speak for their constituents. We speak for the high number of immigration cases we have to deal with, but we also speak for the fact that most of our constituents voted to remain in the European Union, and opinion polls show that even more people want to remain in the European Union than did three years ago.

I have to say that I feel a little bit sorry for the Minister as she has to both lead and sum up the debate today. It seems a bit unfair, particularly on her birthday; you’d think they would give her a wee bit of a break, especially as I am not aware of any shortage of Ministers in the Home Office. The Minister seemed keen to point to the evidence of the Migration Advisory Committee. Later, we heard from the hon. Member for Stirling that he is pretty unhappy with the MAC report, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East indicated in his forensic dissection of it.

Of course, the MAC report is not the only source of evidence on which the Minister could draw. She could also look to the report of the Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population, which estimates the damage that ending free movement will inflict on Scotland. The group comprises a panel of experts with real expertise in the effects of migration and population on the economy and demography of Scotland, who said that proposals in the White Paper

“are projected to reduce net migration to Scotland by between 30% and 50% over the coming two decades”,

despite the fact that that migration is essential to growing the Scottish economy and to keeping our population up at the level that it is required to be. There are a number of other interesting things in the report by the Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population and I commend the Minister to read it. It would be incorrect to leave the Chamber with any impression that business in Scotland is completely happy with what is proposed in the White Paper.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Carol Monaghan

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

No, I will not, thank you.

I know that this deal will place Scotland at a potentially serious competitive disadvantage compared with Northern Ireland. I know that this deal and the ending of free movement, combined with this Government’s hostile environment, will mean a fall in the working and tax-paying population of my country, which will adversely affect my country’s future and my country’s economy.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend share my surprise, frankly, that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has been to Crossmaglen, and does she share my concerns, as someone whose mother-in-law is from the fair town of Crossmaglen, that any threat to the backstop is indeed a threat to peace?

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes. I have been to Crossmaglen. My mother went to school in Carrickmacross, and when I was a wee girl, she taught me the poem:

“From Carrickmacross to Crossmaglen,

There are more rogues than honest men.”

I am not suggesting that that is the case any longer, and I am not suggesting that that is because the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip visited. Joking aside, however, as somebody with an Irish mother and a family who still live in the Republic, albeit very close to the border, and who run businesses close to the border, I am acutely aware of the threat that this deal—this Brexit—poses to the peace process and the threat it poses to the economy on the island of Ireland, so I do not say that I do not understand why the backstop is there.

I said earlier today what I feel about the measly assurances the Prime Minister spent two months getting from Brussels. I know there are many people in this Chamber who have very good reason to be concerned that there should be a backstop if the deal goes ahead. However, I still make no apology for voting against this deal, because voting against this deal does not mean no deal; it gives us the opportunity to do what we should have done all along when we realised what a disaster this was, which was to hold a second referendum given that the people across the United Kingdom know the reality of Brexit—not the promises made by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which are unable to be fulfilled, but the reality of Brexit. I believe that if people see the reality of Brexit and the reality of remain, they will choose remain.

I am also voting against this deal because I know that, if this deal goes through, what will happen is that we will simply move into another lengthy period of even more difficult negotiations, with no guarantee whatsoever that any trade deal will be reached at the end of the negotiations. Even if there is, I know from the evidence that any trade deal reached will not be advantageous to my country.

The Prime Minister has said:

“I have been clear throughout the process that my aim is to bring the country back together.”— [Official Report, 26 February 2019; Vol. 655, c. 167.]

I simply do not accept that. This process has not been about the national interest; it has been about keeping the Conservative and Unionist party together and keeping the Prime Minister in power for as long as possible.