Police Grant Report

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman highlights that there are sometimes special situations, and special grants are needed to deal with exactly what he has mentioned. I am happy to make sure that Home Office Ministers meet him to discuss that further, as it is a very important point.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for understanding the need and coming up with a much better settlement for us. Does he agree that Thames Valley, which contains fast-growing areas of the country such as mine, where a lot of extra housing is going in, needs some extra money just to keep pace with the extra number of people who require a police service?

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend on that, and I thank him for his support. He highlights the need for this extra funding, and I know that he will welcome the support that will be provided—I believe it is almost £34 million—to his force.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. No doubt he has had some time to digest the legal opinion, but he might also note that it is perfectly consistent with what the Attorney General said at this Dispatch Box earlier this week. He made it clear then that, naturally, what he is providing is legal analysis, but this should also been seen in the context of the politics of such a situation, and he set that out quite clearly as well on the day. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the remarks that the Attorney General made on that point earlier this week.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that if we approve the withdrawal agreement, the UK will have to pay a lot of money for many years after we have left the European Union, although there are no cash limits or numbers in the documents, and very general heads? Will he also confirm that the EU will have preponderant power in deciding just how vast this open-ended commitment will be, and that it will be massively more than £39 billion?

[Sajid Javid]

In the withdrawal agreement, there is an estimated amount that the UK will pay. It will not be instant; it is over a number of years. The general figure that has been talked of by Government Ministers and others is a total of £39 billion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I will come to that point, but I will say now that the Prime Minister’s red lines, one of which was the ECJ, may well prove to have been reckless. The EU insists on treaty arrangements governing key aspects of international security, justice and policing, as do we. Without a treaty, courts have no legal basis to implement arrest or extradition warrants and cannot allow third countries access to criminal and other databases. We are on course to become a third country in our relationship with the EU. Because there is no security treaty planned or even aimed for in the exit documents, the level of co-operation between the UK and the EU post Brexit could be severely and unavoidably downgraded.

Ministers will be aware that neither France nor Germany will automatically extradite to non-EU countries—their constitutions say that. There will be a mutual loss of the use of the European arrest warrant, and the UK will no longer be able to access the Europol database in real time. In addition, as a third country, the UK’s access to databases of criminal records, fingerprints, DNA and missing and wanted persons will be compromised. Ministers promise a future security partnership between this country and the EU. However, the assurance on access to SIS II and the European criminal records information system is only that

“the UK and the EU have agreed to consider further how to deliver capabilities that, as far as technically and legally possible, approximate those enabled by EU mechanisms”.

That is not the same as assuring us of the same level of co-operation that we have today. In relation to the European arrest warrant, there is not even that promise. On passenger name records and the exchange of DNA, fingerprints, and vehicle registration, the agreement says:

“The UK and the EU have agreed to establish reciprocal arrangements”.

It does not say that they have established reciprocal arrangements; it is a wish for the future. However, without appeal and oversight by a court—that role is currently played by the ECJ—all these things could be subject to legal challenge in practice.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

No, I need to make progress.

In addition, on the EU agencies Europol and Eurojust, about which Members have made interventions, the deal says:

“The UK and the EU have agreed, as part of the FSP, to work together to identify the terms for the UK’s cooperation via Europol and Eurojust.”

Working together to identify the terms is not the same as a guarantee of the same access and co-operation that we have today. As these are EU agencies, they are not in principle open to non-member states. Again, if that were to change, the legal basis for that would require a treaty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

As I said earlier, one problem in these negotiations, and one reason why they have not gone further, is the Prime Minister’s reckless red lines, particularly on the ECJ. However, let me return to the issue of immigration.

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

Let me first deal with the status of EU nationals. I begin by saying how distasteful it was to many of us that the Prime Minister referred to “queue jumpers”. She seemed to be implying that there was some unfairness or illegitimacy in their role in British society, whereas EU nationals play a vital role in business, academia, agriculture and public services such as health and social care. EU citizens and their dependants living here cannot be reassured by the terms of the deal. The Home Secretary has given general assurances, but the deal says almost nothing in detail about their rights, including work, residency and access to services. No one on either side of the House who has ever had anything to do with the immigration and nationality directorate can have confidence in the Home Office’s ability to process the approximately 5 million applications that are required to process settled status applications. I am aware that the Home Secretary sets great store by his app, but he knows perfectly well that it cannot be used on iPhones, and although it has been trialled, the trials involved volunteers and only the simpler cases.

We have all seen the shameful chaos around the Windrush scandal. Today’s National Audit Office report on Windrush is comprehensively negative. It criticises the Home Office for its poor-quality data; the risky use of deportation targets; poor value for money; and a failure to respond to numerous warnings that its policies would hurt people living in the UK legally. It is a damning report, and Ministers should be ashamed. EU citizens can only await with trepidation their further and deeper engagement with the Home Office.

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[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

We would not be having this debate today if Parliament had not asserted, earlier this year, its right to express its views clearly on the deal that has been brought back to us. It does not, however, follow from that that Parliament should have to take on the responsibility of designing or redesigning the deal. I do not believe Parliament should overreach itself in that respect. What Parliament can do is set the boundaries for a deal and express its view on the deal, and I hope we will be able to do that on Tuesday.

Equally, because of the amendment that I supported yesterday, tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), it should be very clear what is not acceptable. In my view, no deal is not acceptable. It is my judgment that no deal would be highly irresponsible. Having no agreement on trade and security would be damaging to our business interests, and we must have a deal properly in place before we leave. So I do not support no deal. I also have to say to some of my hon. Friends that I am not convinced by the arguments for having another referendum. Of course referendums are divisive, but that is not the problem. The problem is that I do not see how a referendum could be decisive and could secure a sufficient consensus to put this issue to bed for a decent period of time.

If we are to respect the referendum that we did have, and if, as my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), said in an excellent and powerful speech, we are to surrender our vote, our voice and our veto straightaway and immediately pay over this huge sum of £39 billion, we need a deal that is worth all the risks of not knowing how it is going to work out. We do not have that at the moment. Instead, we are confronted with a completely vacuous political declaration. In my view, we need something much better and much firmer if we are to take that decisive step at the end of March.

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I hope my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I continue.

I would like to see the deal improved in four crucial and already well-known respects. First, on the backstop, a sovereign country cannot be placed in a position in which we are denied, in the end, a unilateral right of exit. That is all the more important because the protocol acknowledges that the backstop might remain under “alternative arrangements”, even in part. Others have already made the case as to why a backstop should remain, and I find that argument rather odd. We have been told this week that the European Union does not like the backstop any more than we do and that Ministers in other countries do not actually want the backstop to remain. If that is the case, why should they not agree that it is in everybody’s interests—theirs and ours—to set a date by which the backstop at least falls away? I am not encouraged by all this lawyerly talk of “good faith”, “best endeavours” and endless arbitration. If we are going to have a backstop, which I do not like, let us have a date and set the clock ticking.

Secondly, the absence in the political declaration of any commitment whatsoever to the frictionless trade that the Prime Minister promised us is not acceptable, unless we have some clearer idea of the extent to which some freedom of movement will be required and of the extent to which there will be areas beyond state aid and procurement where we will have to respect European Union competition policy. The Attorney General told us on Monday that this is one of the “outer boundaries” that will have to be considered, but he did not attempt to set those boundaries. We need to be much clearer about exactly what the European Union is likely to accept, in respect of both the skills cap that we are contemplating and the competition policy that we will have to accept.

Thirdly, on the extent to which we will be allowed an independent trade policy, the political declaration is at least clear on this point: our future economic relationship must

“be consistent with the Union’s principles, in particular with respect to the integrity of the Single Market and the Customs Union”.

That does not leave us any clarity on whether we will be allowed to reduce much or even part of our common external tariff. Indeed, the Attorney General told us that we cannot have an independent trade policy and belong to a conventional customs union. Again, that commits us to complying with one boundary set by the European Union without any clear understanding of where the other might be set.

Finally, there is Northern Ireland. If a different regulatory framework is to continue—there are currently some elements of difference—it is clear to me that, inside our own single market, that can be done only with the continuing consent of the Province itself, or in other words of the Executive and the Assembly. The agreement should have been explicit in that regard. There may well be further checks that would enhance the protection of the whole island, but they can be put in place only with the agreement of all communities in Northern Ireland.

Without those improvements, this so-called deal is a gamble: we put all our cards on the table and all our money, and we wait for another two years for the European Union to set the rules of the game. That is a risk too far.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Almost two and a half years have now passed since the people spoke in that big democratic referendum. The people voted in very large numbers to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, and to reclaim the lost sovereignty of the United Kingdom electorate, and they did so in the teeth of enormous hostility and propaganda from many elements of the political and big business establishment.

The people were told they were too stupid to understand the arguments and that there were huge dangers if they dared to vote to leave the EU. They were told by both campaigns, and by the Government in a formal leaflet, that we would be leaving the single market and the customs union, because rightly we were told that the EU would not allow us to cherry-pick bits of the single market and customs union and that those were an integral part of the whole. They were given a set of entirely bogus and dishonest forecasts about what would happen in the short term after the vote, and practically every one of those forecasts was wildly too pessimistic, which has led to the distrust between the vote leave majority and the establishment that pushed out those forecasts.

I urge the House to move on from “Project Fear”, to move on from gloom and doom, and to understand that many millions of decent, honest voters made a careful and considered decision, and they do not believe those who tell them it will all go wrong, that it must be reversed or that they must be told to think again and vote again because they did not do their homework. It is deeply insulting to the electors, and I am sure that this Parliament is worthy of a much better performance than that.

The people were saying something wonderful for this Parliament. They were saying, “We believe in you, Parliament. We believe you can make wise laws. We believe you can make even wiser laws than the EU. We believe you can make better judgments about how to spend the taxes we send you than the EU, which spends so much of the money on our behalf in ways of which we do not approve. We believe, O Parliament, that if you help us to take back control of our laws and democracy, we will get better answers. Or, of course, Parliament, if you do not give us a better answer, we the people will have our sovereignty back, and we will dismiss you.”

One of the things that most annoys people about the EU among the leave-voting majority is that we cannot sack them. Whatever they do, however bad they are, however much money they waste, however irritating their laws, we have to put up with them. We cannot sack them; we cannot have a general election. [Interruption.] Scottish National party Members say that they feel the same about the Union of the United Kingdom, but we gave them the democratic opportunity, and their people say that they like our system of government, because this is their democracy too. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) should understand that her colleagues in Scotland, and her voters in Scotland, believe in UK democracy, and they have exactly the same rights of voice and vote and redress as all the rest of us.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Ever since the referendum, the narrative has been to find explanations for why the people voted as they did—any explanation other than the fact that they wanted to leave the European Union. Does he consider that the majority in favour of the amendment in the name of our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) shows that the game is up, and that there is now a majority in the House against leaving the European Union? The game for us must be to find some orderly way around that, irrespective of the majority who are now against us.

[John Redwood]

I do not prejudge the evil intents of other Members. I hope that all Members will agree that we must implement the referendum result. We had a general election in the summer of last year, and I remember that in that general election Labour and the Conservatives got rather more than 80% of the vote in Great Britain, the Democratic Unionist party did extremely well in Northern Ireland, and all three parties said that they would faithfully implement the referendum decision of United Kingdom voters on leaving the European Union. I trust that they will want to operate in good faith in the votes that may be to come.

My advice to Ministers, as well as to the rest of the House, is that what we should now be doing is celebrating the opportunities and the advantages that we will gain after March, when we have left the European Union. We should be having debates about how we will spend all the extra money on improving our public services instead of giving it to the EU. We should be having a debate about all the tax cuts that we need to boost our economy, so that instead of growth slowing after we leave, we speed it up by deliberate acts of policy which we would be empowered in this place to take if only Members would lift their gloom and their obstinate denial of opportunity, and see that if we spent some more money and had some tax cuts, it would provide a very welcome boost to our economy in its current situation.

I want to see us publish a schedule of tariffs for trading with the whole world that are lower than the tariffs that the EU currently makes us impose on perfectly good exporters, particularly of food products, from elsewhere in the world. Why do we have to impose high tariffs on food that we cannot grow for ourselves? I want us to have a debate on urgently taking back control of our fishing industry so that we can land perhaps twice as many fish in the UK and not let them all be landed somewhere else, and build a much bigger fish processing industry on the back of domestic landings from our very rich fishing grounds.

I wish to see us get rid of VAT on, for instance, green products and domestic fuel, which we are not allowed to do because we are an impotent puppet Parliament that does not even control its own tax system for as long as we remain in the European Union. I wish to see us take back control of our borders, so that we can have a migration policy that is right for our economic needs and fair to people from wherever they may come all around the world, rather than having an inbuilt European Union preference. I wish us to be a global leader for world trade. Now that the United States of America has a President who says that he rather likes tariffs, there is a role for a leading great power and economic force in the world like the United Kingdom to provide global leadership for free trade.

We will do none of that if we sign this miserable agreement with which the Government have presented us, because we will be locked into their customs arrangements for many months or years. We will not be free to negotiate those free trade deals, let alone provide the international leadership which I yearn for us to provide. I want us to have our seat back at the high tables of the world in the big institutions like the World Trade Organisation, so that with vote and voice and purpose, we can offer something positive, and have a more liberal free-trading democratic world than the one that we currently have. That is something that we are not allowed to do for as long as we remain members of the European Union.

I say this to Members. Lift the gloom. Stop “Project Fear”. Stop selling the electors short. Stop treating the electors as if they were unable to make an adult decision. Understand that they made a great decision—a decision I am mightily proud of—to take back sovereign control to the people, to take back the delegated sovereign control to this Parliament. It is high time that this Parliament rose to the challenge, instead of falling at every opportunity, and high time we did something positive for our constituents, instead of moaning and grumbling and spending every day—groundhog day—complaining about the vote of the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

This has been an excellent debate covering a range of vital and urgent issues. I am not going to repeat the many compelling points made by the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in her speech. I cannot do adequate justice to all the other 48 contributions that have been made, some of which I missed. I am told, however, that there was a typically brilliant speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David).

In the time I have available, let me highlight those contributions which I believe best sum up why the Prime Minister’s proposed Brexit deal would leave us less secure as a country and would not deliver the fair rules for migration that we need—two out of Labour’s six tests failed in one debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said, we are being asked to make this decision without even seeing the immigration White Paper we were promised. We therefore have no detailed idea of what the new migration rules will say or how they will work in practice. She also said that we are being asked to support a political agreement that is entirely silent on our future access to the SIS II database and will leave our police and security services less well able to protect the public than they are at present. As the former universities Minister, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), pointed out, if we are being cut out of the Galileo database even while the agreement is being discussed, what hope do we have of negotiating access to other vital databases once the agreement has been signed?

We also heard an important contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who talked about his German lessons at school and the lessons from history that show that our place in the world is not strengthened but diminished when we cut ourselves off from Europe—a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). From the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), we heard about the grave consequences of the dangers of this deal, and even worse of no deal, for the national health service, both for medical supplies and for medical staff. That is something that the Foreign Secretary should understand better than anyone, because that is what he used to say when campaigning for remain.

We were reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) not just that EU co-operation and networks help to keep our country safe from crime and terrorism, but that the Prime Minister personally fought to keep our part in them when she was Home Secretary. Now, however, she cannot guarantee that they will continue. My hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff North and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) both rightly said—I agree with them—that far from helping to maintain Europe’s leadership on climate change, which is the single biggest threat to the world’s long-term security, this political agreement cannot even guarantee that we will continue to agree a common position in future international negotiations. Indeed, let us note that it used to be one of the warnings against a no-deal Brexit that Britain could lose access to the EU emissions trading scheme. However, even this supposed deal does not guarantee that continued access, and says only that the parties should “consider” co-operation—just one of many foreign policy sections of the document where clear, existing agreements on co-operation have been replaced by vague, loose aspirations.



What this debate and all the many contributions have laid bare is that on the first duty of every Government—the duty to protect the safety and security of their citizens—the Prime Minister’s deal fails. I hope that when the Foreign Secretary speaks in a moment, he will address the points that I have mentioned: access to vital security databases—

[John Redwood]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

No, I have been asked not to take interventions at this stage of the evening.

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary indicated, we are seeking a sensible transition period that will enable the Home Office to ensure that these cases can be caseworked. The Prime Minister has been very clear that free movement will end—[Interruption.] We will in due course set out the future immigration system, which will enable there to be further clarity.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Government legislate, before our departure from the EU on 30 March, for a comprehensive system for immigration, migration and citizenship that is fair to all concerned? That is what we voted for. Does the Minister also understand that a lot of us will not be voting for a withdrawal agreement to pay £39 billion that we do not owe when we need to spend that money here at home?

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. As I have said, free movement will end, and over the next few weeks we will set out the parliamentary timetable for the immigration Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am sure that the hon. and learned Lady agrees that we want an immigration system that serves the national interest—that brings immigration down to sustainable levels but also gives the skills that we need for the entire UK, of course including Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister is planning to visit Scotland this summer to meet Ministers.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend is working on a new UK-based migration policy to hit the Government’s targets. Does he accept that we might need this as early as 30 March next year if we leave without an agreement?

[Sajid Javid]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a very important point. While we are working on the basis that we will not need it as early as 30 March, he is absolutely right to point out that we should be prepared for all eventualities, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Calais

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady has raised some important points. I draw her attention to some of the comments that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made about the important work that the European Union is doing, some of which we are leading on, on upstream funding to ensure that the terrible tragedy of refugees moving, quite often from east and west African countries, is stopped. We do that by being one of the largest donors and by working in partnership arrangements, and I share her view that if we can stop the scale of movement, that deals with the most important element of why people come over to Europe and then make their way across France.

I do not need reminding by the hon. Lady about the scale of misery in the camp in Calais. That is why I have made it such a priority to work with my French counterpart to see the end of that camp and, I believe, the end of the misery that has taken place there. Protecting children has always been at the forefront of what we are doing.

The hon. Lady referred to the Dubs amendment and what else we are doing to take children according to Dubs, and I can tell her that we are continuing to interview to ensure that over the next three weeks—she asked particularly about the time frame—we continue to take several hundred more children in addition to the 200 we have already taken. Yes, we are continuing to work on the Dubs children who will be eligible in Greece and Italy, and we will bring some of them over soon. There is a funding arrangement with local authorities for each child who is given a place as they arrive.

The hon. Lady specifically mentioned Sangatte in 2002. She is right that the camp was closed. There were approximately 2,000 people there. At that time, the UK agreed to take half of the adults. We have not put in place such an agreement this time. Instead, we are taking some of the most vulnerable people, who will mainly be children. However, lessons have been learned from the closure of the Sangatte camp, because camps grew up swiftly afterwards, particularly the Calais camp. As she points out, this camp is several—four and possibly even five—times larger than Sangatte ever was. I refer her to my earlier comment that part of our funding commitment to the French is based on securing the camp as it is—in other words, once it has been closed. We want to make sure that we work closely with them so that no future camp is erected there.

I believe that if there is no camp for people to come to, that will stop the dreadful passage of people across France and the dreadful endeavours that people put themselves through, such as throwing themselves on to lorries and trucks, in trying to get to the UK. I believe that that will go some way to stopping them being easy prey to the traffickers, whom the hon. Lady and I both abhor.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What success have the various authorities had in arresting or stopping the people traffickers? What more can be done to do that, and how can we dissuade any adult from committing money and a child to these dreadful people?

[Amber Rudd]

The National Crime Agency works closely with the French border force and the UK Border Force, and we have had success in arresting traffickers. However, there is so much more that we can do, which is one of the reasons why we want to protect the Le Touquet agreement, which allows us to work together to intervene to stop the traffickers plying their trade.

Rights of EU Nationals

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the contribution that nationals from other countries in the EU have made to the UK; and calls on the Government to ensure that all nationals from other countries in the EU who have made the UK their home retain their current rights, including the rights to live and work in the UK, should the UK exit the EU.

It is nearly four months since the EU referendum, and the long-term status of non-UK EU nationals living in the United Kingdom is still unclear, just as the Government are still without a plan or a negotiating strategy for the Brexit that they accidentally delivered. The status of millions of our fellow workers, friends and neighbours is uncertain. That is simply not good enough. Despite repeated requests, the Government have refused to guarantee, in the long term, the rights of EU nationals who have made their home in the United Kingdom. In the meantime, in England and Wales hate crime has soared and xenophobic rhetoric is common in the mainstream media and, sadly, sometimes in the mouths of Ministers.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I thought that the Government had clearly said that they had no wish to make anybody leave unless there were evictions from the continent. Is the hon. and learned Lady saying that continental countries are going to evict British citizens?

[Joanna Cherry]

The whole point of this motion is that human beings should not be used as bargaining chips in negotiation. If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues think that the United Kingdom has so much to offer the European Union in its negotiations, why do they insist on using human beings as bargaining chips?

EU Nationals in the UK

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I have read in The Guardian the views of some health professionals talking about how they feel. An Allied Healthcare professional—not a DJ—who is Dutch said this:

“Since the referendum, I wish I had not come to the UK. Half the population does not want me here. I am tearful at times. If I had the chance I would leave now.”

It is not true: half the population does not want these people to leave, but that is obviously how they have been left to feel.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this motion, and I agree that we need to offer reassurance. Does he agree that, assuming the motion passes today—because I get the distinct impression that it will not be opposed—that is a great offer of reassurance from this whole Parliament?

[Andy Burnham]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman is correct. I do not know what the Government’s intention is, but if we were to follow the logic of what we heard from the Immigration Minister at the Dispatch Box on Monday, they will oppose the motion. We will see. Tonight this House can remove the uncertainty from the people my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) described, sending them a message that they are welcome here in our country, and that is precisely what we should do.

Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I agree with the hon. and learned Lady that being a member of the EU does give us access to certain tools and certain instruments that help us to share information that otherwise would not be available to us, and that is very important in the sharing of criminal records information. There is more for us to do, and I am working with others to ensure that we can enhance our ability to share that information so that we have more information available to us. On her latter point, I have to say that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee rarely allows himself to be overshadowed.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I congratulate the Home Secretary on her changes to UK law and her success with non-EU criminals, but is it not the case that freedom of movement and a series of court judgments and decisions by the European authorities have made it much more difficult to tackle the problem of EU criminals?

[Mrs May]

The important issue for us in being able to prevent people from entering the UK, should we consider that they are individuals whom we do not wish to have in the country, or in being able to deport people is retaining our borders, which we do. It is important that we have at our border controls information available to us to help us make those decisions. That is why membership of SIS II is an important part of the tools and the framework that we have to enable us to deal with criminality. Of course, in the deal that was negotiated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in relation to our membership of the European Union, we have enhanced our ability to deport people with criminal records and to prevent people from coming here with criminal records. We will also be ensuring that certain decisions taken by the European Court of Justice are overturned.

EU Migrants: National Insurance Numbers

John Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the number of national insurance numbers issued to EU migrants.

[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

For years, UK migration figures have been measured independently according to agreed United Nations definitions. Today’s report by the independent Office for National Statistics is a clear endorsement of the validity of those figures. I welcome the clarity that the ONS has provided on this important issue, and am glad to have the opportunity to clear up some of the misconceptions about the figures for national insurance numbers and what those may mean for EU migration.

On 7 March this year, the Office for National Statistics published a note explaining why long-term international immigration figures could differ from the number of national insurance number registrations, concluding that the two series are likely to differ. At the same time, the ONS undertook to conduct further analysis of the issue. It has published its conclusions this morning; I stress that that is independent work carried out by an independent statistics authority. Its conclusions are clear. The ONS has now stated that the difference between the number of long-term EU migrants and the number of national insurance registrations by EU nationals can largely be accounted for by short-term EU migration to the UK, and that the independent international passenger survey remains

“the best source of information for measuring”

net migration. The ONS also says that national insurance figures are “not a good measure” of levels of migration, even if they are helpful for understanding patterns of migration.

A national insurance number can be obtained by anyone working in the UK for just a few weeks, and the ONS explains clearly that the number of national insurance registrations should not be compared with migration figures because they measure entirely different things. Short-term migrants have never been included in the long-term migration statistics, which are governed by UN definitions. There have always been short-term migrants who are not picked up in those statistics, but short-term migration will not have an impact on population growth and population pressures, as by definition short-term migrants leave the UK within 12 months of arriving.

The Government look forward to the ONS’s follow-up note later in the year, which will set out its analysis in greater detail. We must now be careful not to distort the figures following the ONS’s clear statement. I welcome its conclusions, which I hope provide reassurance to those concerned that national insurance data could suggest that the published migration statistics were inaccurate.

The Government take very seriously the need to reduce net migration to long-term sustainable levels, from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands. We have taken a number of steps to achieve that, of which the Immigration Bill, which completed its parliamentary passage this week, is just the latest. Clear and accurate statistics are integral to what we are seeking to achieve. I am pleased that today the ONS has, with its normal impartiality, confirmed that the statistics based on the international passenger survey that we use have the necessary integrity and remain the best measure for understanding net migration.

[John Redwood]

I am grateful to the Minister for his statement, but does he not accept that the very popular programme of making a substantial reduction in net migration that he, I and other Conservative MPs stood on at the general election is quite impossible to honour as a promise given the Government’s own figures for migration, never mind the figures for national insurance? Migration has been running well above the maximum total that we suggested to the electorate. Does that not show that all the time we stay in the European Union we cannot control EU migration in the way we promised at the general election? Does the big difference between the national insurance numbers and the migration figures have implications that will worry Members across the House, given the impact on public services?

Over five years, 1.2 million additional people came to the UK, got a job and a national insurance number, and lived here for a considerable time, even if some of them have now departed. Those people needed doctors surgeries, school places for their children, and so on. In the past two years, an additional 1.1 million people have registered for GP services. That implies that national insurance numbers are closer to the truth, and that we need to consider those figures as well as the formal migration numbers when planning public provision.

Does the Minister share my concern that we are not offering a sufficiently good welcome in terms of GP places, health facilities and school places, and that that is putting a lot of pressure on settled communities and not offering something good to the newcomers? Does he share my wish to get a grip on that, so that we can properly plan our public services? The note that was slipped out—fortunately Mr Speaker allowed this urgent question—does not explain that discrepancy or deal with the fundamental point that if someone comes here, works and gets a national insurance number, we must provide public facilities for them.

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for allowing me to clarify those points, and today’s statement from the ONS is clear. As Glen Watson, the deputy national statistician for population and public policy, said:

“We are confident the International Passenger Survey remains the best available way of measuring long-term migration to the UK.”

My right hon. Friend correctly highlighted the pressure on public services, and the Government remain committed to reducing net migration to the long-term sustainable levels that existed before the previous Labour Government. We remain focused on achieving that, which is why we have taken steps to reform the visa system and to confront illegal migration. Measures in the Immigration Bill, which the House approved earlier this week, are pivotal to that.

The ONS is clear that we should not be looking at national insurance numbers for an assessment of the pressures of migration. Some have suggested that leaving the EU will in some way deal with the migration issue, but we need only consider the examples of other countries that have decided to be outside the EU yet have free movement and pay into the EU budget. There is an idea that things would be better outside the EU, but I find it inconceivable that we would have access to the single market and not have those issues of free movement.

We must also stress the important achievements of the Prime Minister in his renegotiation, and in putting the welfare brake into effect and dealing with some of those pull factors, as well as important steps on deregulation. He secured important elements in that renegotiation for the benefit not just of the UK, but of the EU as a whole. We must grow that economy and see other European nations succeeding and creating jobs and employment in the way that this country has done. I recognise the concerns that my right hon. Friend has rightly highlighted about public services. Those issues remain a concern of this Government, but we have taken, are taking and will continue to take action to see net migration figures reduce to sustainable levels, and to address concerns about public services and the pressures on our communities.

Dublin System: Asylum

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will know about the practical support that we are providing through the European Asylum Support Office to front-line states that have seen significant numbers of people arriving on their shores. We have provided £70 million of funding for the Europe-wide response, which is a significant contribution to the activities needed to support vulnerable migrants. He is right that we need to continue the work with Greece and Italy, which is precisely what the Government will do, as we recognise the pressures that those Governments are under.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The EU documents about the EU-Turkey agreement, including the creation of a visa-free area for most of the EU and Turkey, make it clear that strengthening the Turkish frontier with Syria, Iraq and Iran must be part of the revised asylum and migration policy. Quite remarkably, and rather strangely, the documents say that the EU will help build walls, fences and ditches along what is an extremely long border. Can the Minister tell us how many miles of those impediments to migration the EU has in mind, and what the costs might be?

[James Brokenshire]

The clear focus is on seeing that refugees do not make the journey across the Mediterranean sea to the shores of Europe, which is consistent with the approach that the Government have taken. It is why we have pledged £2.3 billion to tackling the humanitarian crisis, which is giving people a sense of hope and opportunity through work and education. That is the right approach to show people why they should not be making the journey, and the EU-Turkey deal supports that.