Immigration

Katie Lam Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend, the shadow Home Secretary, rightly said earlier, migration has been too high for decades and remains so. In every year since 1997, with the unsurprising exception of 2020, net migration was over 100,000 people. Every election-winning manifesto since 1974 has promised to reduce migration. Successive Governments of both parties have promised to end the era of mass migration and control the borders, and successive Governments have failed. In the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), the previous Government, like the Governments before them, also promised to do exactly this, but, again, like the Governments before them, they did not deliver. I am afraid that this Government are just the latest addition to this rogues’ gallery of broken promises.

Worse than disregarding the public’s wishes, public servants have told the British people to ignore what they can see and feel around them. The public was told that migration would deliver growth. It has not. Instead, people can feel their wages stagnating because they are being undercut. They can see the pressure of mass migration in their soaring rents, in how hard it is for their children to get on the housing ladder, in the lack of cohesion in their communities, and in the pressure on their GPs, dentists and schools. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), immigration is the biggest broken promise in British politics, and probably the biggest single reason that British politics is so broken.

[Oliver Ryan]

rose—

[Mark Ferguson]

rose—

[Katie Lam]

I wish to make a little progress.

Fixing this broken system is the single biggest thing that we can do to restore trust in our politics. That means control of the borders and an end to mass migration; we need a system that works in the interests of this country and its people. Those who have come here legally and not contributed enough should be made to leave. Those who are here illegally, either by crossing the channel or from overstaying their visas, must be removed. The era of taxpayers funding accommodation, education, healthcare and legal challenges against their own Government for those who have no right to be here must end forever.

[Sir John Hayes]

We should deport the approximately 1 million people who are here illegally. We also need, as I hope my hon. Friend will acknowledge, to look at the indefinite right to remain. All kinds of people—with extremely dubious pasts, presents and possibly futures—have been granted that status. Will she commit the Opposition to relook at that, because indefinite does not mean permanent?

[Katie Lam]

We already have committed to that and will continue to do so. It is a clear amendment both to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill and to the deportation Bill in the name of my right hon. Friend, the shadow Home Secretary.

Unless and until politicians of all stripes can deliver the migration system that the British people have voted for time and again, there will be no reason for them to trust in our political system, and they will be right not to. We have seen no indication from this Government since they came to power last year that they are willing to do what needs to be done to give the British people the immigration system that they want and deserve. The debate today, I am afraid, has been no different.

The Minister clearly wished only to speak about the record of the previous Government. But they are in charge now—and what do we see? My right hon. Friend, the shadow Home Secretary, points out the facts. He says that Afghans are 20 times more likely to be sex offenders, and Government Members say, “Outrageous!”. Well, it is outrageous; saying so is not. He points out that over 70% of Somalis live in social housing, and they call it race-baiting. That is exactly the attitude that has allowed our political class to ignore the reality of the world that we live in. No party and no Government who continue to treat the British public’s very legitimate concerns with such scorn will ever rise to meet the challenge of securing our border.

The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) called for more safe and legal routes, but demand to come to Britain will always dramatically outstrip our supply. There is no number of safe and legal routes that will ever stop people making the dangerous channel crossing. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) called for this House—not foreign courts—to decide who can stay in this country. I admire his stance, and I look forward to the launch of his campaign to leave the ECHR.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) made a characteristically insightful speech about the substantial challenges of integration, and rightly connected that to the volume of immigration. No country of our size could ever hope to integrate that many people each year, and he is right to say so.

[Mr Brash]

It is possibly in order for me to correct the shadow Minister. I was very clear that I believe that the application of article 8 should be tightened so that courts in this country are not sovereign over this place regarding deportations. It should be this place that ensures deportations—not our courts.

[Katie Lam]

I thank the hon. Member for his clarification. I hate to break it to him, but article 8 will not do what he thinks it will, and tightening it will not solve the problem. The article that presents the biggest problems, actually, is article 3, which does not have caveats and cannot be tightened in the way that he suggests.

The hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) spoke of border security as national security. She was correct to do so, but just last week when told in this Chamber that terrorists come across the channel in small boats, her colleagues on the Government Benches laughed and jeered.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk made, as ever, a compelling economic and cultural case for control. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White), who is not in her place, set out some of the worst problems with the current immigration system, but she was perhaps not entirely forthcoming in the way she shared the statistics. Far from Labour closing asylum hotels, there are 8,000 more people in asylum hotels than when Labour came to power.

The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) and I have aired our differing views on this topic over many weeks in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill Committee. I am not sure either of us has done much to persuade the other, but I always enjoy his company.

[Dr Evans]

In 2020 the Prime Minister—then Leader of the Opposition—pledged as point 6 of his “Another future is possible” plan that the Yarl’s Wood detention centre would close. To my knowledge, as of today it is still open. Given my hon. Friend’s experience, is she aware that Yarl’s Wood will be closing? Has she heard the Government commit to closing it, and if so, when will that be?

[Katie Lam]

I can only recommend that my hon. Friend does not hold his breath.

I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) for mentioning what needs to be done on age assessments. The amendments we have tabled to the border security Bill would make much progress on that.

Last week the Prime Minister said that mass migration risked turning us into an “island of strangers”. He was absolutely right. He recognised, as we do, that fixing migration is the single most important thing that his Government could do to restore public trust in our politics, yet the plan that he presented—the Government’s migration White Paper—is not a plan to end mass migration or control our borders. It is a plan for more of the same.

Instead of a detailed programme, the Government’s White Paper offers more delays, more reviews, more consultations and more half-measures. Their plan to deport foreign criminals is subject to a consultation later this year. Their plan to reform the rules on settlement is subject to another consultation. When given the chance, they have voted against a hard cap on visas, against our plan to disapply the Human Rights Act 1998 from immigration cases, and against our plan to restrict long-term settlement to those who contribute enough to cover their costs. They are just not serious.

The Home Secretary estimates that their plan will cut migration by 50,000 people. In the context of hundreds of thousands a year, that is just not enough. The Government have no plan to remove the 1.2 million people here illegally and no real plan to restrict study or family visas, which made up 40% of all migration last year.

If we thought that the Government’s plans would genuinely end mass migration and control our borders, we would support them in a heartbeat. The need to do what is right for our country is bigger than any single party, politician or Prime Minister. Unfortunately, this Government have no plan, and they will go down as the latest Government who failed to fix mass migration. This is the most shameful betrayal of public trust in British politics, and it must end, but the Labour Government show no sign that they will do what needs to be done.