Relocation of Migrants in need of International Protection (Opt-in Decision)

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point in respect of rights and entitlement to citizenship, but he will know that there are certain tests that we adopt—good character requirements, for example—and other steps that we take to assure ourselves in respect of those who may be granted citizenship, and that that process is conducted over a number of years before someone would be so entitled. Citizenship is certainly not automatic. I underline the point that I made—we maintain our own visa and border requirements in respect of those who come here, and adhere to them clearly for those who are not EU citizens.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

There is another problem that arises before secondary movement. What if the refugees do not want to go to the countries to which they have been allocated? If they are put on trains and forcibly sent to countries that they do not want to go to, that has echoes of uncomfortable times in the past.

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the operation of the scheme. That has been a practical issue for EU member states that are party to the scheme when migrants have displayed an unwillingness to participate in the relocation arrangements envisaged by the measures to be debated this evening. Such practical issues have to be confronted.

The migration crisis is constantly changing and requires a flexible but robust response. Our approach has been designed to protect the UK interest while making a contribution to helping those in need and addressing the unprecedented challenge faced by our partners. Relocation is not proving to be successful. In our view, time would be better spent on measures that would make a real difference. We must secure the external border, quickly provide protection to those who need it and return those who do not. That is where the focus of this Government will remain, and I trust that the House will be minded to support the motion.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

As Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I have been invited to attend four meetings—two in Luxembourg, one in Brussels, and one in Italy this last weekend—bringing together most of the national parliamentary chairmen with responsibilities in the area we are discussing. I pay tribute to the chairman of the Schengen committee in the Italian Parliament, Laura Ravetto, for taking this extremely important initiative.

I would like first to refer to a meeting that took place under the auspices of COSAC—Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union. That body, which consists of the chairmen of the national parliamentary EU committees, is given a very wide remit in matters of the kind that we are discussing. Although its meetings are webcast and published, it does not get anything like the attention that it really deserves. Having served on the European Scrutiny Committee for 30 years, having been its Chairman for the past five years, and now having been re-elected as Chairman for this Parliament, it is important for me to say that I have never seen such an explosion of anger at a meeting of COSAC in all the time that I have been taking part in those meetings.

The reason for that is the lack of democracy that lies at the heart of this proposal. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) was with me in Luxembourg, and he will bear witness to the sheer anger about its imposition against the wishes of the individual countries concerned—about five in all, from central and eastern Europe. They were absolutely furious about having these mandatory controls imposed on them. This raises a fundamental question of intense sensitivity to the people who live in these countries. The way in which the issues are debated and discussed in the upper echelons—the rarefied atmosphere—of the European Union in its institutional framework bears almost no relationship to what is going on on the ground as regards the voters themselves. When the national chairmen came together at the meeting, they expressed themselves in very clear language indeed.

Apart from all the other things that are going on with the referendum and our complaints about the single currency—and the exchange rate mechanism before that—this raises the whole question of the straitjacket, ever further political integration, and the compression chamber, which I have been referring to since I led the rebellion on the Maastricht treaty back in 1990. I mentioned then, in black and white, in pamphlets and in debates, the compression chamber that was building up. This is an example of that compression chamber, which is now exploding, as was made clear in the COSAC meeting and replicated yet again in our discussions last weekend on the Schengen agreement. I know that we are not members of Schengen, and we will perhaps have an opportunity to discuss that in a moment.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I was with the hon. Gentleman at the meeting in Luxembourg, as he rightly said. Does he agree that there seemed to be some intimidation of smaller, less economically powerful nations by larger, more economically powerful nations?

[Sir William Cash]

There is the case of Germany, to come straight to the point.

At the meeting it was discussed whether the 28 member states represented there, excluding us and Ireland because we are not part of Schengen, would welcome the proposals that were set out in the motion. In a nutshell, the countries concerned—the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania—were being told that they should go along with these mandatory arrangements irrespective of their resentment about that, their parliamentary votes against it, and their application to the European Court of Justice. As the Minister said, Hungary and Slovakia had brought proceedings in the Court of Justice to challenge the validity of this. These countries were, in effect, being told that they were wrong, and that in saying that the motion should merely “take note” of the relocation proposals, which was almost over-generous of them in the circumstances, they were refusing to accept the notion that they should welcome it. That is what led to the explosion. The debate went on for nearly four hours. This must not be underestimated. It is not just something to be floated over as, with respect, the Minister did; I understand why he probably did so. It is fissile material. It is a perfect example of the total want of democracy in the European Union in imposing, by mandatory arrangements, a settlement on countries that simply do not want it. It is a perfect example of what I have described as the compression chamber blowing up in such circumstances.

That is the background against which we should consider this. It is not just a question of whether we like it or not, but of how the European Union operates in practice. One need only look at how the Greeks were treated by the Germans with regard to the whole austerity programme or how the Portuguese president, a few weeks ago, disregarded, ignored and refused to accept the decision of the voters by not acknowledging the new party of government. The list is considerable, and, as far as I am concerned, that is the basis against which this issue ought to be judged.

I am, of course, delighted, but not surprised, that the Government have decided not to opt into the arrangements. I say with enthusiasm that our policy of trying to deal with the problem of refugees at source, which I have applauded from the very beginning, is the best way to go about it, not to allow these people in. At Friday’s meeting, the issue was raised of why Germany took the line it did. The answer, as I have said on the Floor of the House on a number of occasions over the past couple of months, is that it was very much to do with its desire to have more people working in the country, not just for altruistic reasons but for economic reasons. It wants to compensate for the fact that it will soon have a much lower working-age population. It made the decision because that is what Germany wants, irrespective of the impact it will have on the European Union. Angela Merkel’s popularity happens to have plummeted over the past few weeks because, in my opinion and that of many other commentators, she has misjudged the situation.

The real point is that, to bring in 1 million people to Germany—that is basically what is happening—is not the end but the beginning of the story. Those 1 million people will themselves have their own children and probably bring their families over as well, because the charter of fundamental rights will be made available to them. This is, in fact, an opening of what I described the other day as a tsunami.

On top of that—I have referred to this on a number of occasions on the Floor of the House—nobody can doubt for a moment that there are a number, albeit perhaps small, of jihadists among those people who have come over. The reality is that only a few are needed in order to wreak the kind of carnage and havoc that we witnessed in Paris. To those who would criticise people like me for mentioning that, I say that it is a fact that that is what is happening, and on a scale unprecedented since the second world war.

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[Sir William Cash]

Is that an apology? I would like the Minister to reply. I want to know whether, in these circumstances, which are unusual and unprecedented—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), should keep his calm. It is very important that he should understand that these matters relate to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, not to purely personal opinions. We are very concerned about that and I have made my point.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I support the hon. Gentleman’s comments on delayed debates on the Floor of the House and even in Committee. The Minister said that matters were fast moving, but I hardly think that having to wait two years for a debate is fast moving. The issue is fast moving when the Government want it to be, but when they do not want it to be fast moving, it moves very slowly indeed.

[Sir William Cash]

I thoroughly agree with my fellow member of the European Scrutiny Committee and with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). The point has been made.

In the joint address to the European Parliament on 7 October, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, described the Dublin rules as “obsolete”. The French President highlighted the link between the Dublin rules and the proper functioning of the Schengen free movement area and said:

“Calling into question the free movement of people, by returning to internal borders, would be a tragic error”.

He went on to say:

“ But pretending that Schengen, with its current way of functioning, allows us to face border pressures would be another mistake.”

The question, therefore, is whether the Dublin system is at risk of breaking down and whether further fragmentation of the Schengen free movement area can be avoided. An extraordinary contradiction emerged from the meeting I attended over the weekend. The people there were very anxious to be sure that we had a proper border control system, but they also insisted on an external border system. I am sure the Minister is aware of that from his discussions in Brussels and elsewhere. The irony of the situation is that at the same time as they are insisting on greater border controls—as I have said on other occasions, there is almost more barbed wire in Europe today than there was during the cold war—they also want a complete external border system surrounding the whole of the European Union, presumably with the exception of the non-Schengen countries, namely ourselves and the Irish. I hope the Minister appreciates that, under the pressures exerted by the migrant crisis, there is a real desire to go further towards having a complete external border and to go deeper towards having political union. At the same time, they want effective border controls, but those two things are inconsistent.

I understand that the Government now propose to use taxpayers’ money to increase the effectiveness of Frontex, but when we consider the scale of the borders—a massive area of the European continent is supposed to be completely sealed off along the EU’s external borders—we can see that the costs will be absolutely monumental. Frontex has already proven to be ineffective. It does not work and I doubt whether it is possible to make it work, but through an insistence on its external borders, more and more pressure is being exerted towards the deeper integration of the European Union.

I want the Minister to tell us how we can have an effective system of the kind now proposed, with a full external border for an enhanced Schengen system, and the United Kingdom staying in the European Union at the same time. I see this as a very important moment in terms of our having to leave the European Union. The Schengen arrangements, reinforced by Frontex, to which the British taxpayer is expected to contribute, and the increasing pressures towards political union seems to me to be a subject on which we should speak more and more clearly and loudly.

There are real dangers in all of this. I simply think that bringing the Turkish action plan into operation will make the situation even more intractable. More could be said about that. At this moment in time, with their internal border controls, Germany and several other countries are in breach of the Schengen free movement area. Border controls have been introduced by Austria and Germany, justified on the grounds of public and internal security, and imposed unilaterally without prior notice, whereas the Schengen border code specifies a maximum period of two months. Those countries are in breach of the code, and I understand—the Minister may confirm this—that Germany is facing infraction proceedings. Angela Merkel is facing very substantial pressures from within her own country as a result of the mistakes that have been made.

The reality is that the Commission opinion has shown the interdependence of member states participating in the Schengen free movement area and the risk of a domino effect whereby unilateral action by one member state has an immediate effect on the security of its neighbours. That is causing the most enormous pressure and enormous volcanic eruptions in the countries concerned. People simply will not wear it.

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I will not speak for long, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is important to say something in this debate. I support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and his emphasis on behaving in a humane way towards migrants, as well as his point about the rather small numbers of people currently being allowed into our country. Like him, I believe that we should consider taking more of those desperate people into this country from areas where they risk death on a daily basis.

I support the Government’s position, and it is right that this country should have its own controls, but I think that that should go further and that other EU countries should also be able to control their own borders—that is what has caused the enormous row that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned. I believe that a fundamental component of democracy is that a country should control its own borders and who comes in. That is sometimes difficult to do, but it is fundamental. Borders matter, and trying to eliminate them in pursuit of the creation of some kind of super-state—that is effectively what has been happening in the European Union—is a mistake and will eventually come to a sticky end. It is noticeable that tensions are rising strongly at the moment.

As I said in an earlier intervention, refugees may not want to go to the country to which they have been allocated. If they are allocated to countries that do not really want them, they may not be made welcome, cared for, or well treated when they get there, and that is another serious problem. A way of helping refugees to go to places to which they want to go, and where they will have some kind of welcome and be looked after, would be much more sensible than a forced allocation policy. The UK can do that and we should not opt in to the arrangement, but other countries in the European Union should be in the same position as us.

I do not accept free movement; I think it has been a mistake. If we want to recruit people from other countries who have the skills we need, that is fine. That could be done on a temporary or permanent basis, but it should be a choice and not that of some supranational body that says, “You must accept people because those are the rules of the club and you ought to accept those rules.” I do not accept those rules, and neither do many people in Britain.

There is a conflict here. We must ensure that we behave in a humane way to other people. We all admire and wish to adopt such humanitarian actions, but large, substantial and unregulated movements of people can militate against the humane feelings that we all have. There comes a point when people think, “We can’t cope”, and destabilising massive population movements are not conducive to humane behaviour.

In the 19th century there were vast open spaces in the United States, South America, Australasia and elsewhere, and countries recruited people because they needed them and it was not a problem. We recruited people from Ireland in particular, as well as from elsewhere. We have also been very humane with certain immigrations. When I was younger in the 1960s, the Ugandan Asians were being seriously threatened and we accepted them into our country. Indeed, one or two Members of the House are descended from that population, and those people have made a massive contribution to our society. We have behaved well in the past, but when movements of people become so large and seemingly unstoppable, our humanity starts to break down—not individually in the Chamber, but as a society—and people start saying, “We can’t cope. There is a desperate housing crisis and unemployment and so on”.

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman clearly has a point, but would it destabilise the United Kingdom to take a share of the 4 million people who have fled Syria? How can it stabilise anyone for all 4 million to be left in two or three countries in the Mediterranean?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I have said, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras on the Labour Front Bench has said, that we should accept more people from Syria. There is absolutely no question about that. We should play a bigger part in helping refugees to escape their terrible situation. The number the Government have decided to accept is far too low. That said, we are not going to have an open border policy in which very, very large numbers of people come here, because that would be politically destabilising. It would not be good.

Germany’s population was falling. It is a very successful industrial country with a low birth rate, which means it needs workers. Our population is increasing rapidly. We are going to overtake Germany and become the country with the largest population in the whole of the European Union. We are therefore in a very different situation from Germany. If we had a serous labour shortage, and lots of space and vacant housing, we would want to recruit more people.

[Sir William Cash]

Has the hon. Gentleman also heard that our own population is growing exponentially and that we will get up to about 70 million really quite soon? Such an increase is way beyond the space and capacity of the United Kingdom and its expenditure.

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[Kelvin Hopkins]

I do not want to get into specific numbers, but our population is increasing substantially. The German population was falling. The population of a number of other European countries is falling too, and they will no doubt want to recruit sufficient young and energetic people to make sure their economies carry on working well.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Médecins sans Frontières estimates that over 466,000 people have arrived on the beaches of Lesbos. The population of Lesbos is about 86,000. Do we not have a responsibility to help them, as they cannot possibly deal with that number of new people arriving in their area?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

As I said, I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras that we should take more. We should be doing more to help the refugees who need help, but I do not think that compulsory allocation to countries across the European Union or a free flow of migrants across the continent is sensible. In the end, I think it would militate against a humane and managed way of looking after people.

On this occasion, the Government are right. I understand that the Scottish nationalists do not agree and will vote against the measure, but the Labour Front Bench and the Government are together on this and I support them. In the longer term, we have to look to the restoration of sensible border controls within the European Union between member states, and not just the breaking down and the elimination of borders and having an indefensible common external border.