Legal and Illegal Migration: Suspension

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes]

I would like to think that the hon. Gentleman, who is my constituency neighbour, spends more time in Lincolnshire than Clapham. I am sure he does. Perhaps, though, we could have an outing on the Clapham omnibus together.

When I go about my constituency, and I imagine this is the same in Lichfield and many constituencies across this House, I hear the frustrations; a feeling of resentment that so much harm has been done by so many people in power who have been oblivious to that harm. The last Government very belatedly, after overtures from people such as me and the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson)—when he was still in the light, before he went into the shade—clamped down on some of those abuses. They cut the number of work visas in a range of sectors and they reduced the number of dependants that students could bring.

It was preposterous that students could come and bring their families, was it not? When people go to study somewhere, they do not go in order to bring their family; they go specifically for an academic purpose. That ability was curbed, and it had some effect on overall numbers, but it was too little too late. It was not sufficient, and it took a lot of hand-wringing to get to even that point.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

Now that I have been half-kind to the hon. Gentleman, I will give way.

[Lee Anderson]

The right hon. Gentleman is being most generous with his time in giving way, especially to a Member from a minority party. He raises an interesting point about people coming here to study and bringing dependants. Does he know of any British students who have gone abroad and taken their family with them?

[Sir John Hayes]

The key difference is the type and number of students. The hon. Gentleman and I rarely disagree, and we certainly do not disagree on this subject very much. If someone is studying for a PhD, and they are coming here to work for a considerable time and looking to build a long-term career in academia, I can understand why they might want to build a family life here. If they are coming for a shorter course such as a master’s, it is pretty hard to see why they would want to bring their family, given that they would expect to go home at the end of it. Most of those people will also be very young, so it is unlikely that they will have children, wives or husbands—so who are these dependants that they might be bringing? I agree with the hon. Member for Ashfield that the idea was preposterous to begin with. Happily, in the end we curbed it.

I know that others want to contribute to the debate, so I will not take up any more time, except to say that it is high time there was a sea change, and that we recognise those

“finger posts on the road to achievement”,

the failures by successive Governments. While I know that, to quote CS Lewis again,

“An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason”,

the cause of this situation has been a fundamental reluctance to measure the medium and long-term effects of things that in the short term seemed attractive because they dealt with shortages or gaps in the economy.

I hope that we can now make the necessary changes. I hope that we can reunite those in power with those whom their power affects, and that we can re-engage with a population who know the premise with which I began my short contribution: that there has been too much immigration into this country for too long—a widely held view by people who think that enough is enough.

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who is also my office buddy, for opening this important debate.

The petition demands a five-year suspension of all immigration. Although I understand the concerns that have led to more than 200,000 people signing it, if we were to do what the petitioners are asking for, we would make Liz Truss look like a saint and suck out the rich cultural tapestry that makes our country so great.

Migrants make up a fifth of our workforce. The NHS alone relies on more than 160,000 staff from overseas. Suspend all immigration tomorrow, and who will fill those roles? Who will care for our sick? Who will work on our buses—including the Clapham omnibus, perhaps? Who will staff our hospitality sector?

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Member asks who will fill the skills gap or the labour gap. How about the 7 million people in this country who are economically inactive?

[Jacob Collier]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I am grateful that he is here in Westminster Hall today; he has had a busy weekend, so it is nice to see him.

It is the Government’s plan to train up more British people and get them into the healthcare sector and other sectors. That is what the Government are going to drive forward, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be interested in the announcements later this week by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who will lay out our steps to get people back into work.

This particular petition is not a serious proposal or one that any serious Government should follow, but I recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield said, the underlying concerns raised by the petition and the concerns that my constituents have about migration. Migration must be controlled, and the Government have rightly taken steps to bring down net migration to sustainable levels. We will not tolerate the vile trade of human smuggling, including the criminal gangs that are exploiting vulnerable people and making millions at the expense of our national security. That is not immigration—it is lawlessness. That is why the Government are investing in the new Border Security Command, delivering crackdowns on smuggling networks, increasing enforcement and expediting removals.

In the last six months alone, 16,400 people without any right to be in the UK have been returned to their home countries, and I know that the Minister and his Home Office team are working hard on this. That is real action and not just words.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way again; this is the last time that I will intervene. He said that 16,000 people with no right to be in this country have been deported. I agree with that figure, but is he aware that most of those people are overstayers on student visas or work visas, that they have been paid £3,000 to be deported, and that not one of them came over on those small boats?

[Jacob Collier]

The fact is that this Government are getting on with deportations, and we did not see that under the last Government. Indeed, they pursued the Rwanda policy, which cost the taxpayer millions of pounds and sent only four volunteers. What we are seeing from this Government is real action.

The Government know that secure borders are not an option, but a necessity. Legal migration is another matter entirely. Shutting off our borders to all might be a simple gimmick that some in this House support, but this is a serious issue and not one for snake-oil solutions. That is why we must take a balanced approach by investing in training and upskilling British workers to fill more vacancies in crucial sectors such as healthcare, while also ensuring that overseas workers with the skills we need come here and contribute to our society.

Beyond economics, this is about the very fabric of our society. In Burton and Uttoxeter, we see a diverse community because of migration. While Muslims observe Ramadan in their mosques, local Christians are helping the homeless, the Polish community are shopping in the mini market, and the Burton Caribbean centre is blasting out soul music. That makes us a better place. Today, as we mark Commonwealth Day, I am reminded of the contribution that those nations and their people have made and continue to make to our country.

Earlier today, I was at Burton town hall, where Mayor Shelagh McKiernan and her cadet raised the Commonwealth flag. Sheila reminded us of the six Commonwealth values. No. 4 is tolerance, respect and understanding. In this debate, too often we forget that people are at the centre of it: people who contribute, build and enrich the very communities that they join. From the engineers who build our infrastructure to the care workers looking after the elderly, these people are integral to our national story, and always have been.

I am proud to be British because of the fundamental values of tolerance and respect for others. That is how I was brought up in school, and that is what my parents taught me. We owe it to the British people to have a debate and immigration system that are worthy of those values and the complexity of the issue, not slogans and not hysteria.