Immigration

Debate between Keith Vaz and Andrew Turner

Thursday 9th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Turner]

The Prime Minister is currently negotiating with Europe and Europe must hear what we have to say.

What is a disgrace is the irresponsible manner in which previous Labour Governments allowed immigration to overwhelm our society. When we think of the housing crisis, for instance, we have to look only at past immigration policy to see why it has all gone wrong. The excellent founding chairman of Migration Watch UK, the noble Lord Green of Deddington, made that very point. He said that we simply cannot keep up with the demand for homes required at current levels of immigration. Recently, Fergus Wilson, one of the UK’s biggest buy-to-let landlords, said that the only way to address the housing crisis was to build outwards on to greenfield land. I am not a housing expert, but I take what those people say seriously as evidence of mismanaged immigration policy. The blunt fact is that sooner or later this country will run out of space.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is right that we should discuss and debate such issues, because they are of concern to people outside this House. He mentions the mismanagement of previous Governments. Some of the reports published by the Select Committee on Home Affairs note that it has happened under successive Governments. The coalition however, in the past five years, failed to meet the net migration figure. Why does he think that happened?

[Mr Turner]

That happened because we had a coalition. A coalition cannot deliver what one party or the other wants.

No system is in place to ensure that the UK can cope with the number of people moving here. People are coming from Europe and the rest of the world. Our relationship with the EU has effectively taken away our ability to decide who lives in this country. EU migration inflow is considerably larger than our outflow. In 2013, net EU immigration was, according to the Library, 123,000.

The second aspect of our border controls is how we deal people from the rest of the world. That is something that we should be able to control in pretty quick order, yet in 2013, a net number of 143,000 people came to live here from outside the EU. Until recently, those figures were much larger. Throughout the years of Blair’s Labour Government, around 200,000 non-EU citizens came to live in the UK each and every year. It is only since 2012, under a Conservative-led Government, that have we seen any drop in numbers at all. We still have over 250,000 people in total settling here every year. That is far too high.

From 1997 to 2009, enough people to fill Birmingham two and a half times over arrived on our shores to live here permanently. Now, in 2015, it looks as if we will need three and a half new Birminghams. We have seen the rise of parties such as UKIP, which won 3.5 million votes, even if only one seat. That is evidence of how important the electorate consider this issue to be.

So far, there is no clear plan on how to reduce net EU migration. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s hopes of achieving meaningful change in the EU appear optimistic at best, although we certainly wish him success. Under the last, Conservative-led Government, there were notable successes, as well as one or two notable failures, on non-EU migration. The number of skilled economic migrants from outside Europe was capped at 20,000 per year, but what is happening about others from outside Europe, whose numbers amounted to more than 120,000 in 2013?

There was an outcry when the tier 1 post-study work visa was scrapped. It was said that businesses would not cope, but the sky has not actually fallen in. Foreign graduates must now simply find a graduate-level job to stay here. Before 2012, 50,000 foreign graduates were working in shops and bars and doing other non-graduate work every year. In the first full year after the rules changed, however, only 4,000 found work that qualified them to stay. It was a complete myth that businesses were desperate to employ them all. We also need to clamp down much harder on benefit and health tourism, for EU and non-EU nationals alike.

I have not called the debate simply to complain about the past or to call for the Government to do more. While I applaud the successful efforts of the coalition, and now the Conservative Government, to reduce the number of people coming here from outside Europe, there is still a long way to go. As for EU migrants, little can be done without major constitutional change—and that must come. If it does not, I fear that the numbers coming from the EU will rise inexorably year after year, confounding all efforts to cap immigration at the tens of thousands, which is our aim. That was our manifesto commitment, and now that we are not yoked to the Liberal Democrats, we must act on it.

I know the Government recognise the problem. Putting right years of Labour failure is not easy, but I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will take this opportunity to tell my constituents, and indeed people across the country, what plans he has to make our ambitions a reality.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a huge pleasure after all these years to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Sir Alan, given that we were elected to the House together and that we both represent the east midlands.

As I said in my intervention, I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on securing the debate. It is extremely important that the House discusses immigration. We should not be afraid to do so and we should do it openly and transparently. It was good to hear his thoughts about this important subject. After the economy, immigration is the second or third most important issue in all the opinion polls. If we do not discuss it openly and transparently in the House, others will discuss it outside and accuse us of being afraid to do so.

Let me also say how pleased I am that some things never change. Before the election, the Minister was the Minister for Immigration; the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), was the shadow Minister for Immigration; and I was the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—it seems that nothing changes in this place. I congratulate both on their reappointments, and particularly the Minister, who has been the Immigration Minister for five years. It is rare that an Immigration Minister comes back after a general election, but he was obviously doing something that impressed the Prime Minister, so congratulations to him on being back.

Among other colleagues, I am also pleased to see the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who is the newest member of the Home Affairs Committee. His membership is just a few hours old, because the names of the Committee’s members went through the House only at 7 pm last night. As a former immigration solicitor, he will, I am sure, make a huge contribution to the Committee’s work.

I wanted to take part in the debate to remind the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, and the House, that the Committee takes a keen interest in immigration. Even though immigration policy is a hot and controversial subject, we have made it our business to ensure that at least a quarter of our work looks at it. Given the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised, I want briefly to set out those we intend to look at, and I hope he will be pleased to hear that Parliament, through the Committee, is eager to explore them all carefully.

Indeed, the Committee’s first evidence session will take place next Tuesday, even though the names of its members went before the House only yesterday. Our first star and principal witness is the Minister for Immigration. One issue we will look at immediately is Calais. I was there last Saturday, when I saw for myself the sense of crisis gripping the town. During my trip, I also saw the worry that is felt by many people, including those who run Eurotunnel, those involved in the road haulage industry, the police and the people of Kent.

My sympathy is also with the people of Calais. They did not ask to have a large number of migrants, but those migrants are there, and they have just one ambition: to cross the channel and to live and work in the United Kingdom. Nobody mentioned the Isle of Wight to me, so the hon. Gentleman does not need to be quite so worried. However, all the migrants said they were in Calais to come to this country. The authorities there believe they are coming here to participate in our generous benefits system, so, in the few conversations I had with migrants, I told them they were in for a shock—and that, of course, was before yesterday’s Budget.

These are important issues. Illegal migration is partly to do with economic migration, but it is also to do with people being desperate to escape the conflicts in the middle east. A week before going to Calais, I was in Rome because another issue that will confront the Committee, and into which we will shortly announce an inquiry, is the migration crisis gripping the Mediterranean. People are prepared to risk dying in the Mediterranean to get from north Africa to mainland Europe, but the members of the European Union seem unable to act together to deal with this serious problem.

In the migrants’ camp in Rome, which is just near the main railway station, I met Ali, who told me he had paid $5,000 to a person who trafficked him from Eritrea right across north Africa to Libya, where he was put on a boat at gunpoint. Even though he had paid the money, he did not want to get into that particular boat, but he was forced. The boat went to Lampedusa, and Ali eventually ended up in Rome. Criminal gangs operating in north Africa are forcing people at gunpoint to put their lives at risk. People have a choice: they either try to cross the Mediterranean, and perhaps die there, or they stay in north Africa and get shot by the people traffickers. What they are clear about is that they do not want to stay in their countries, because their countries are ravaged by war.

There is not a simple answer to the question how we are to deal with the issue. It is not as simple as saying, “We just don’t let them in,” because the fact is once they arrive at Calais people will do everything they can to get to Britain. I saw the footage of 150 migrants who ran across the tracks to get into freight lorries as they set out at the channel tunnel. I heard, as I am sure other Members did, about the young man who died only two days ago while jumping on to a freight train as it left Coquelles. I heard about the 14 individuals found in a refrigerated container, who had made the journey from Somalia—some had come from Nigeria and some from Afghanistan. They were about to set off from Calais when someone shouted “Hurray!” because they heard the train moving. It was stopped and the container was opened, and those 14 people were found. They had been given a few coats, but some of them clearly would not have made it through their journey across the channel because it was so cold in there.

Those are true stories, about real people. Parliament, with our commitment to a fair and firm immigration policy, but also with our international obligations, needs to find the right balance, and those with the responsibility to stop illegal migration need to take on that responsibility. I firmly believe that we can do that only with the support of the countries of the Maghreb. The Home Secretary announced a taskforce. When I was in Rome, I was informed that that would begin only in November, because several agencies were being brought together. By the time it is put together I am afraid the people traffickers—the criminal gangs—will have found another way. According to the Greek authorities the passage for Syrians is through the Greek islands of Kos and Lesbos into mainland Greece. The United Nations gave me the figure that 60% of those who travel from Syria into Kos have university education. They pay to go there because they want to flee the dangers of Syria.

We also need to realise that we should be careful with our foreign policy. We are very good at phase 1 but pretty awful at phase 2. Phase 1 was to get rid of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. However, 92% of the people who cross the Mediterranean—there were 170,000 last year—crossed through Libya. There is no stable Government there, so applications cannot even be processed before people leave. I know that people require simple answers to the humanitarian crisis and the immigration system. We would all like simple answers but it is very complicated. The solutions that UKIP comes forward with are simplistic and in many cases nonsense. They cannot be put into effect.

The second area that the Select Committee will look at is legal migration. One of the issues is that we try to stop illegals coming in, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I do not know whether the Mayor of London has changed his view since giving his estimates when he last spoke on the subject, but he said that half a million illegal migrants were working and living in London and he was in favour—a few years ago—of an amnesty to allow them the right to remain in this country. However, when legal routes are cut off, people tend to come here illegally. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has been open, transparent and articulate in talking about the importance of legal migration to this country.

The Committee will consider skills shortages. If the hon. Member for Isle of Wight goes to his high street and speaks to the owners of south Asian restaurants, he will hear complaints about their inability to get specialist chefs into the country. At the conference of the Royal College of Nursing there were complaints that, because of the Government’s policy on skills and the tiers of the immigration rules, nurses would not be able to come. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the people who have come to contribute to this country as my parents and the parents of other first-generation immigrants did. The fact is that cutting off the legal route and making it more difficult leads to people finding other routes to come in. I am all for ensuring that the legal routes are robust, but they should also be fair.

That is relevant to our policy on students. The Minister will say that we always attract the best and brightest, but all Ministers say that. Why would we want people who were not? Why would we want to encourage people who were stupid, and who were not the best—who were the worst? All Ministers have said the same for my 28 years in the House. I am afraid that as a result of the student policy, the number of students coming from India has declined considerably, even though the number of Chinese students has increased.

[Mr Turner]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is fair—to use his word—that the EU should control who comes into this country from the whole of Europe, but that everyone from outside the EU is our responsibility?

[Keith Vaz]

Perhaps I am being unkind to the hon. Gentleman. I do not know his position on the EU. I have never believed that enlargement was wrong. That is partly because, of course, I was Minister for Europe at the time. I do not believe that we should constantly say “mea culpa”, and I signed some of the documents that allowed people from Poland, Hungary and other countries in. I think that the arrival of the eastern Europeans helped our economy. It boosted it enormously. It was different from migration from south Asia, because people from eastern Europe tend not to stay. They tend to want to go back—it is only two hours to Warsaw—but people from the subcontinent wanted to stay longer and put down roots. That does not apply to the eastern Europeans.

Migration Statistics

Debate between Keith Vaz and Andrew Turner

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, Mr Walker. The Public Administration Committee report on migration statistics was published before I was appointed by the House to be a member of that Committee, but it is, none the less, excellent. It is a testament to the fine leadership of the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), and to the hard work of current and previous Committee members.

The Committee is tasked with scrutinising good government across all Departments. Many people would argue that after the defence of the realm, the Government’s most important role is to protect and uphold the rights and interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom. In order to do so, they need to know with a high degree of accuracy exactly whose rights and interests they must protect and uphold. That information is necessary to ensure that public services can be properly planned and to enable the Office for National Statistics to produce statistics in which the public and the House can have confidence.

It is absolutely clear that the citizens whose rights and interests the Government should protect are interested in who is in our country, why they are here, what they are doing and when they leave. In order for the Government to fulfil their duties to UK citizens, plan public services, produce accurate statistics and address the legitimate concerns of the people, they must do all they can to ensure that migration statistics are accurate, up to date and fit for purpose.

On the Isle of Wight, UKSA usually refers to the UK Sailing Academy, but it also stands for the UK Statistics Authority. Despite the excellent work of the former organisation on the island, I am speaking today of the latter institution. In 2009, the UKSA said:

“Both users and ONS’ statisticians generally agree that migration statistics are not fit for all of the purposes for which they are currently used and require further improvement.”

Between 2008 and 2012, some improvements were made in the statistical data, which the Public Administration Committee welcomed. Those improvements were not enough, however, to earn the wholehearted support of the Royal Statistical Society, the British Society for Population Studies or the Royal Geographical Society, although the latter body conceded that the ONS is doing a good job with poor data. The international passenger survey, which is used as the primary source for those statistics, was never intended for that purpose, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has said. It is hardly surprising that the survey was not up to a job for which it was never designed, so more needs to be done.

The original recommendation from the Committee was that e-Borders data, due to be fully operational this year, should also be fed into the statistics. That was superseded by the news in March that Labour’s over-ambitious and badly implemented e-Borders scheme had to be scrapped. However, I welcome the Government’s commitment to make much more of the information from the border systems programme available to the ONS to help improve the statistics.

[Keith Vaz]

The e-Borders scheme is a particular concern of the Home Affairs Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that we still do not know why the agreement made between the previous Government and the company that was undertaking e-Borders went wrong? That is still the subject of litigation. When we have massive procurement, as we had with e-Borders, it is extremely important that we know what went wrong before we procure for the future.

[Mr Turner]

That is absolutely right, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing it out.

I also welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Public Administration Committee’s recommendation to use data held by other countries. The Government are hamstrung by EU free movement legislation, which prevents their gathering information on why people from EU countries are coming to the UK and how long they intend to stay.