Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Keith Vaz and Andrew Bridgen

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz]

The remit of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee does not extend to controlling the diaries of members of the parliamentary Labour party, but it is their loss: I think it is important that we should be here participating in this debate.

We should start by acknowledging the strong and important relations that we have with Bulgaria and Romania. I visited both countries while I was Minister for Europe, when we started the enlargement process. The ambassadors representing the two countries here are excellent, as are our ambassadors in Sofia and Bucharest; in particular, I want to acknowledge the way in which Martin Harris, our ambassador in Bucharest, is ensuring that good relations between our two countries are fostered even at this challenging time.

The Home Affairs Committee has been looking at the issue of the transitional restrictions for a number of years and has made a number of recommendations. Earlier this year, with the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who is currently sitting on my right, and the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), I went to Bucharest to meet members of the Romanian Government and to talk with members of the Romanian community. If there are regrets—I have a few regrets in my speech—my primary regret is that the Immigration Minister and the Home Secretary have not taken the opportunity over the past year to go to Romania and Bulgaria and engage with those Governments. We talk about push and pull factors—why it is people decide to travel all the way from Bucharest or Sofia to live in Leicester, London or Manchester—and we should have worked with other Governments to find out the problems and look at the issues.

For example, in response to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), the hon. Member for Amber Valley referred to the number of talented people leaving Romania and Bulgaria. When we were in Bucharest, we spoke with the president of the Romanian equivalent of the British Medical Association. He lamented the fact that so many talented young Romanian doctors had decided to leave Romania to work in the United Kingdom and in other countries—on average they trebled or even quadrupled their salaries when they came to our countries—which was having a detrimental effect on Romania and Bulgaria. That is why I wish that the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister had visited, because they would have been able to establish a dialogue and try to see what we could have done to help those countries.

One way in which we could have helped was in respect of the huge amount of money that was allocated to Romania when it joined the European Union. It may surprise Members to note that 87% of the £20 billion that was given to Romania in pre-accession funds have still not been accessed, because sufficient assistance is not being given to the Romanian Government to ensure that they get the funds. If those funds were accessed, the jobs that people seek to find here might have been made available in those countries. Across the House, we all support the enlargement of the European Union; I cannot remember an occasion in the past 26 years when any party has voted against enlargement. We allow countries to join the European Union, but then we leave them on their own. Our Ministers should have engaged more—under the previous Government and under this Government—to ensure that there was proper access to those funds.

The big question that remains unanswered is why we still do not have estimates of how many people will come here next year. On 21 October 2008, the then shadow Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), said that one of the greatest failures of the last Government was the failure to predict the consequences of enlargement in 2004. Given that, research should have been conducted so that we would be aware—at least have estimates—of the numbers that would be coming into this country. For the reasons outlined by the hon. Member for Amber Valley—the pressure on housing, on schools and on the health service—if we had even estimates it would be helpful. When we went to Bucharest, we came across a university that had conducted research and had produced estimates. It is very remiss of this Government not to have done the same.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the people most vulnerable to the next wave of mass immigration are not the people in this room? They are previous immigrants, particularly the last wave of immigrants. Competition for jobs, housing and public services will be intense, particularly in inner city areas such as his constituency.

[Keith Vaz]

It is intense, but I think we can deal with such issues. It is right that in the first wave of enlargement, a million people came, but a lot of those people have returned. We will come on to benefits later, but what upsets people more than anything else is the issue of those who, for example, claim benefits in the United Kingdom—38,000 from the EU—yet their children live in other EU countries. There are simple changes that we could make to satisfy our constituents, because I do not believe that the Romanians and Bulgarians who will come to this country are coming to go on benefits. They are coming to work. The migration process is for that purpose. Last week, the Select Committee had before it the chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee. We specifically asked Sir David Metcalf whether the Government asked him and his committee to conduct research into the number of people coming into this country after 31 December. He specifically said no. He said that they are set their homework by the Government, and the Government did not ask them to do that. I think that that is big mistake. We have estimates of annual migration that vary from 10,000, according to the Bulgarian ambassador; 20,000, according to the Romanian ambassador; and 50,000, according to Migration Watch. We have such problems because the Government were not prepared to ask the very body they established.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

I shall make some progress and if there is time, I shall certainly give way again.

There is a more fundamental issue here—that of freedom of movement. One cannot have freedom of movement without movement, which is why I think the fundamental issue is our presence in the European Union and what we are prepared to take, as far as the negotiations are concerned, should the Government win the next election and should the Prime Minister start on his discussions with EU colleagues. At the end of the day, we need to have a fundamental discussion about that, and if it means changing treaties, so be it. That is why I favour a referendum on our membership of the EU, because this issue is a sideline. I will probably—most likely—be on the other side to the vast majority of those in here, but I am saying that I want the right to make that case. I think that this is a village story at the moment for Westminster. Why can the people not have a say on the whole issue of freedom of movement? We can discuss Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and what will happen when Turkey becomes a member of the EU, but at the end of the day, that is one of the fundamental issues that we need to address.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

I will for the last time, yes.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I totally agree that the people want an EU referendum. From what he said, I take it that the right hon. Gentleman will be voting Conservative at the next election.

[Keith Vaz]

No. I will not be voting Conservative. I shall be voting for myself and hopefully, I will still be the Labour candidate at the next election. However, I hope to be able to persuade the leader of the Labour party and others of the necessity to hold a referendum on the day of the next general election and not afterwards, because frankly, by then it will be too late. We should put something of that importance to the British people.

Finally, there are so many issues that need to be resolved before 31 December. Only yesterday, in one of the courts in Lincoln, Judge Sean Morris talked about the fact that it is now taking up to seven months for criminal records to be provided for those who come from Romania, who are subject to prosecution in our courts. Before the cut-off date of 31 December, so many issues need to be resolved that have not been resolved. We should have resolved those earlier, rather than leaving it to the very last minute. The Government should think carefully about how they will proceed after 31 December and see whether, because I do not believe for a moment that there will be any further opportunities to discuss this issue—of course, because Parliament is rising shortly—we should revisit some of the issues that have not been resolved and try to resolve them as quickly as possible.

I shall end where I began. We are in the EU and we have good relations with the two countries. We welcome people who come to this country from Romania and Bulgaria as equal EU citizens, but we want them to play their part fully in the life of our country. If they are to be treated as equal EU citizens, and if there are problems with the way in which the system operates, we need to sort those out for the next time.