Modern Slavery Bill
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
It has been a pleasure to sit here listening to the debate, not just for the quality of the speeches, though one would expect the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) to give a commanding performance. The real pleasure for me has been looking at the Government Whip, who has had to take refuge, quite understandably. As the debate has gone on, the Government Whip has become greyer and greyer. I thought that, while we would put up a good fight in this House to amend and strengthen the Bill, the main changes would happen in the other place. After listening to the unprompted interventions and speeches, it has become clear that the Government will be hard pressed to hold the line they have drawn in the Bill that they have submitted for Second Reading. There will be a clear choice for the Home Secretary to make. Does she wish the Bill to remain her Bill, or will it become a Bill that the House begins to fashion in its own likeness? I will come back to that.
I see a Whip leaving the Chamber now. I hope that she is off to one of the places where this message needs to go—No. 10. It will be hard pressed to resist the changes the Home Secretary wants the House to make to the Bill before it leaves us and goes to the other place. I wish her well taking that message. I know that, in her own style, she will make the case we are making here.
Like others, I want to put on record the basis for my interest in this topic. It is the person who is sitting in the Box below the Gallery, Anthony Steen. I would not have been committed—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We should not mention people in the Box, as much as we are tempted, and as great as the man that he mentioned may be.
Mr Field
I accept that I cannot mention the great man in the Box, at whom we are now all looking. Convention prevents me from drawing attention to his presence there or even to the fact that elsewhere, outside the Box, he is known as Anthony Steen. For it is he who ignited my interest in this area. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), made that point very effectively. In many ways, when he left this House he took out to the wider world the candle that he lit in this Chamber. To all intents and purposes, it is his Bill that we are debating today: no Anthony Steen, no Bill.
However, Anthony Steen is not the only person who ought to be thanked on the record. The hon. Member for Central Devon drew attention to how quickly the debate has progressed here. It has done so because of three women, the first of whom is Philippa Stroud. I can mention her because she is not in the Box, Mr Deputy Speaker. When she was at the Centre for Social Justice she decided that this topic ought to be investigated and initiated the inquiry that led to the report “It Happens Here”. She is a parent of the Bill. She convinced Fiona Cunningham, who was then the Home Secretary’s political adviser, that this was an important topic in its own right and one for which the Home Secretary ought to win time from her colleagues for a new Bill. Anybody who knows how Parliaments progress knows that, as a Parliament reaches its conclusion, parliamentary time becomes not easier but more difficult to command. We therefore naturally applaud the Home Secretary’s decision —for she is of course the third person. Philippa’s work, Fiona’s work, the work of the all-party group and the work of the person we cannot mention in this Chamber would have come to naught had the Home Secretary not made the crucial decision that there should be a Modern Slavery Bill. Although she has had to go to other meetings, she will take great heart from the fact that in two areas on which she has not been totally happy with the Bill as introduced—I think it is reasonable to say that—she will probably get her way.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I saw the report in the paper to which she referred and thought, like her, that a three-year sentence for the serious criminal behind those abuses was too light. Hardly a day goes by when we do not have yet another report in the paper of different forms of modern day slavery. I commend the Home Secretary, as previous speakers said, on having the determination to bring in a Bill on modern day slavery in the final Session of Parliament before a general election. I commend her also on the way in which she has built the consensus about which we have heard over the last four hours or so in the Chamber. She has built consensus with all parties to make sure that we get the Bill on to the statute book.
My right hon. Friend had the foresight to appoint the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) to chair the Joint Committee of both Houses, a decision for which I respect her. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to serve on that Committee. It is probably true to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you really would not have known from which political party the Members of both Houses hailed as they sat on the Committee due to their absolute determination to do their best in that pre-legislative scrutiny exercise.
If this Bill is to be world class, it must tackle the issue of modern day slavery on a global scale. When we as a country are implicated, it is no good turning our backs to where the majority of the slavery occurs. I shall, therefore, focus on the issue of the supply chain.
There are various estimates of the number of slaves globally—as high a figure as 30 million has been given, yet that is probably an underestimate. It is appalling to think just how profitable this despicable trade in human beings is, generating an estimated $150 billion each year. We must use the Bill to send a clear signal, not just at home but abroad, that criminals who perpetrate these crimes will not prosper in our country. We do not want them to prosper through any intervention of ours either inside or outside this country. The Bill will become the first Act of its kind in Europe, and tougher sentences for this human piracy will help send that strong signal. The Bill undertakes an important exercise in streamlining existing legislation and ensuring that there are no gaps in the law through which criminals can evade prosecution.
Through William Wilberforce, we have an important legacy to live up to; he had the courage and moral determination over years and years to ensure that this country got rid of terrible injustice perpetrated on poor people outside our shores. That is the spirit in which we need to look at supply chains and how they impact on people—abroad, but in ways in which we as a country are implicated.
Mindful of our reputation as one of the leading legal jurisdictions in the world—we have a proud history of the rule of law—we can do no less than pick up from where Wilberforce left off and continue his fight against this inhumanity, wherever it occurs. It can be a difficult issue for any Government. We obviously do not want to burden business unnecessarily, but I genuinely doubt whether British businesses out there would knowingly associate themselves with this blight on humanity. Despite our current efforts, however, businesses often do not have clear oversight of their complex supply chains. We saw that in the experience of Primark, caught up in the collapse of the factory in Rana Plaza. It might well have undergone due diligence on the seventh floor of that factory to establish that the working conditions were all right on the floor it had contracted for garment workers to work; it realised in hindsight, however, that it needed to go beyond that and to look at the floors above and below to see what was going on there.
As I say, not a day goes by without an example of modern day slavery taking place, and the problem with the supply chains should be properly exposed. I want to put a case study briefly before the House, and it is thanks to the Human Trafficking Foundation that I am able to do so. The person cannot be named, but is otherwise present.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I may be able to help. He can be named, but we cannot point out that the person is present—that is the difference.
Mrs Spelman
I think that the record will reveal to the wider world the true position. I am grateful to the Human Trafficking Foundation for bringing these cases to our attention.
One particular example shows why the supply chain issue must be tackled. It comes from the Islington law centre, and it concerns 10 Hungarian men who were trafficked to the UK. They were told that they would earn £250 a week with good accommodation and food, but they received only £10 a week and two packets of cigarettes. They were told nothing more until they had paid back the £400-worth of flight costs incurred in coming here. It was the equivalent of 40 weeks’ work just to pay that back. They worked first in a slaughterhouse, then a bed factory and then a tile factory. Interestingly enough, that bed factory was a supplier to the household name John Lewis, which terminated the contract when it found out, and the bed factory has now been closed. The labourers, the factory and John Lewis were all exploited by the traffickers, and in their own way they have all been victims.
Only one trafficker was arrested, because the others got away too quickly, and by the time that trafficker had been charged, all the assets had been transferred back to Hungary. That is a prime example of why we need the Bill. As for the issue of the supply chain, I doubt very much that a company such as John Lewis would want to find itself in the same position again—to find that its very high reputation had again been damaged by the discovery that products which were on sale in its stores, and which we could buy, had been produced by slave labour.
We need to balance the debate. Is the Bill a burden on business? Does business want it or not? All the businesses that gave evidence to the Joint Committee made clear that they wanted a level playing field—that they wanted the law to change so that we did not have to depend on best practice, because it would be crystal clear that companies must undertake due diligence to ensure that no part of their supply chain could be touched by modern-day slavery.
The answer to the problem lies with all of us: Governments, companies, employees, consumers and shareholders, all working together. We need to require Britain’s public companies to engage with their shareholders on their supply chains in their annual reports by amending the Companies Act 2006, which would create the level playing field that the businesses that have been harmed say they want to see. That was what the Joint Committee recommended to the Government. From now on, British corporate governance and social responsibility ought explicitly to include human rights in supply chains. How companies deal with the issue in detail, along with their shareholders, customers and employers, should be left to their good conscience, but the requirement in law would be there. I certainly have faith that British companies will do the right thing; they usually do.
In the end, the change requires just five words. That way, Britain will not turn its back on millions of suffering people around the world. We will be able to shine a light on those shadowy areas through the time-tested strength of our great legal system, and we will challenge all nations that respect the rule of law to follow suit, and join Britain in consigning this horrific crime to the history books once and for all.
Student Visas
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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James Brokenshire
Again, my hon. Friend highlights the need for those academic institutions to fulfil their responsibilities and to know that students are attending their courses. It is precisely such measures that our inspectors investigate when they check whether those institutions are meeting their responsibilities. Ultimately, as a highly trusted sponsor, they should know where students are residing and whether they are attending their courses. That is precisely the purpose of the system and why we monitor it in the way that we do.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
To what extent are London campuses opened by universities based many miles from London simply devices to harbour bogus students, and how can we be sure that we will not see many more bogus students siphoned through those campuses in future?
Deregulation Bill
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(9 years, 12 months ago)
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The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)
I beg to move amendment 58, page 157, line 11, at end insert—
‘Mining Industry Act 1920 (c. 50)
3A The Mining Industry Act 1920 is repealed.
3B In consequence of paragraph 3A, in Schedule 4 to the Mines and Quarries Act 1954, omit the entry for the Mining Industry Act 1920.
Mining Industry Act 1926 (c. 28)
3C (1) In the Mining Industry Act 1926, omit section 20 (which confers power on coal-mining companies to establish profit sharing schemes irrespective of the terms of their articles of association).
(2) The repeal made by sub-paragraph (1) is to have no effect in relation to any scheme still in existence that was established, and is being carried on, in reliance on the power conferred by section 20 of the Mining Industry Act 1926.’.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 75 and 59.
Amendment 4, page 162, line 22, at end insert—
Part 7A
Civil Law
Defamation Act 1996 (c.31)
34A Omit section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996 (which allows an individual litigant in defamation cases to waive the ban in Article IX of the Bill of Rights on proceedings in Parliament being impeached or questioned in court).’.
The Joint Committees on Parliamentary Privilege in 1999 and 2013 both recommended the repeal of this hardly-used provision.
Government amendment 60.
Amendment 73, page 163, line 12, at end insert—
‘Part 9 Communications
Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988
37 The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is amended as follows.
38 Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Reception and re-transmission of wireless broadcast by cable) is revoked.’.
Section 73 was introduced in the 1980s to encourage cable roll-out as a competing platform to terrestrial (analogue) television. This has clearly now been achieved and cable is a highly-effective and well-resourced competitor to Sky and Freeview.
The Solicitor-General
This group contains amendments to schedule 18, which makes provision for repealing legislation that is no longer of practical use. Before I outline the amendments, may I say how much I welcome re-encountering the hon. Members for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) and for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), whose very helpful and constructive approach in Committee has improved the Bill?
The Mining Industry Act 1920 and section 20 of the Mining Industry Act 1926 will be repealed as they are no longer needed for mining and quarrying. Most of the Mining Industry Act 1920 has already been repealed, and we now seek to repeal the remaining provisions. That will not affect rights to ownership. The remaining sections are outdated administrative arrangements. For example, functions were originally conferred on the Board of Trade, but were long ago transferred to the Secretary of State through a transfer of functions. Sections 18 and 22 concern the powers to make drainage schemes for groups of mines, but they are now dealt with by negotiations between mine owners and other local landowners. Sections 25 and 26 are technical provisions.
Overall, the only matter that needs to be mentioned is section 20 of the 1926 Act, which provides for the establishment of profit-sharing schemes. It of course pre-dates the nationalisation and privatisation of the coal mining industry, as well as modern companies legislation. Such legislation should apply to coal mining companies in the same way as it applies to any others, so there is no need for any special provision. However, the amendment contains a saving provision, because it would clearly not be fair to undermine any existing profit-sharing schemes, and they will be allowed to continue.
Most of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 has already been repealed. Section 37, which relates to the licensing of tidal works by harbour authorities, disapplies the requirements of section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949. That Act has already been repealed, so the saving provision is no longer of any practical effect.
Amendment 59 will extend the repeal of the Milk (Cessation of Production) Act 1985 to Northern Ireland. EU legislation in 1984 set up a system of production—the milk quota system—in which, in essence, each producer was allocated a quota. That will end on 31 March 2015, so the underlying EU legislation will cease to be effective next April. The amendment will allow the Bill to repeal and revoke all relevant UK legislation relating to Northern Ireland, as well as England and Wales.
Amendment 60 will ensure that the saving provision in paragraph 3 of schedule 18 to the Housing Act 1988 will cease to have effect in England, although it will continue to apply in Wales. The saving provision has become redundant in England. Essentially, sections 56 to 58 of the Housing Act 1980, which have been repealed, enabled landlords to grant assured tenancies for newly built or newly repaired dwellings. The vast majority of tenancies were converted in 1989 into new style assured tenancies under the Housing Act 1988. Sections 56 to 58 were repealed subject to a saving provision, which is now being abolished because there are no longer any assured tenancies under the 1980 Act in existence in England, and it is therefore redundant.
To turn to the non-Government amendments, amendment 73 would require the Government to revoke section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for raising that important issue. The effect of section 73 is that public service broadcasters cannot charge cable services for the inclusion of their channels on these services.
Section 73 is part of a much wider framework supporting the availability of television and investment in television programming in the UK. A variety of rules and regulations affect the production, availability and ease of discovery of public service programming and its relationship with the different platforms—cable, satellite, digital TV and terrestrial—that carry it. They include the obligations on public service broadcasters to offer their content to all relevant platforms, the rules governing payments by broadcasters for technical platform services and the powers for regulators to compel these services to carry public service broadcast content.
This is an area with many competing interests. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport produced a policy paper, “Connectivity, Content and Consumers” last year. The Government stated that their policy objective was zero net charges, where fees for access to the main platforms—cable, satellite, digital TV and terrestrial—would be cancelled out by charges made by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, so creating a zero net charge regime. That is close to the current market position, and it recognises the benefits to platforms, public service broadcasters and consumers.
Section 73 is an integral part of that picture, but the arrangement is under pressure. Online services rely on section 73 to exploit public service broadcaster content, but no benefit flows back to the public service broadcaster.
Public Administration Select Committee
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
In Lincolnshire during this Parliament, we have had an absurd spat between the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner, which resulted in the chief constable being suspended for a time—not for anything operational, just some rubbish about political correctness. Meanwhile, while all this money and time wasting is going on I, speaking personally as an ordinary member of the public, have been a victim of crime twice in Lincolnshire and I have to say that the response of the police was completely underwhelming, with no follow-up and nobody caught. People are increasingly fed up with members of police forces, particularly at the top, who pay themselves quite well and seem to be enmeshed in empire building, political correctness and form filling. What we and the public want to get back to—this is why this report is so good—and what I want my hon. Friend to comment on, is old-fashioned community policing, with the police in our communities, the old bobby on the beat, walking around, knowing everyone, talking to people and not just sitting in their headquarters having these absurd spats—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sure that there must have been a question somewhere in that great rant, and I am sure that Mr Jenkin will be able to pick out an answer.
Mr Jenkin
I am interested to note that Lincolnshire is one of the outliers in the table of the average no-crime rate for reported rape incidents that shows the downgrading of rape. As I look at the table, I cannot remember instantly whether that means it is very good or very bad—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) says that I should turn it upside down. The hankering after practical policing based on common sense outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) suggests that the police would be well advised to lead according to common-sense values and the values in the ethics code. If they do the right thing on the day according to those values, their leadership should back them.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I, too, commend my hon. Friend and the PASC for this forthright and uncomfortable report. Is he aware that the figures are being distorted further by the police’s increasingly arbitrary use of police information notices? When an individual perceives that harassment has taken place, often devoid of a common-sense test of whether a complaint has substance or is vexatious, according to Sussex police, at least, there is no need for them to follow their own guidance as it is only guidance. Even more worryingly, complaints about comments made in this House by hon. Members can be registered as a hate incident by police despite our parliamentary privilege.
Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Pete Wishart
The hon. Gentleman is becoming awfully exercised about the Liberal Democrats, but the party about which he should be most concerned is UKIP, because it will probably trounce the Conservatives in the European elections. What will the Conservatives do in that event?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not want to speculate on what will happen in the European elections. We do not want to speculate on whether they will be won by the Liberals or by UKIP. I think that we want to hear about the point of the debate.
Mark Reckless
The debate is about the opt-out, Mr Deputy Speaker, and other Members have spoken at length about what we might opt back into. I merely suggest to the House that, having opted out, we should not opt back into anything. A number of arguments support that view, but I believe that the most important argument is that anything that we opt back into will be judiciable by the European Court of Justice, and will be subject to the decisions and the enforcement of the European Commission. It is for that reason that the Home Affairs Committee concluded unanimously:
“If the Government proceeds with the opt-in as proposed, we note that it will not result in any repatriation of powers. Indeed, the increased jurisdiction of the ECJ may result in a net flow of powers in the opposite direction.”
We in the Conservative party, at least, have set our face against that, because we believe in bringing powers back from the European Union and, ultimately, putting the choice to the British people in a referendum. It would be entirely inconsistent with that if, having exercised this opt-out, we sought to push through opt-ins as a result of which the European Court of Justice and the European Commission took charge of areas that had previously been intergovernmental.
In 1990, our party negotiated the pillar structure of the European Union, but the Lisbon treaty puts an end to those pillars, becoming the “tree” that has stemmed from the earlier Dutch draft. We said that we would change Europe, and that there would be subsidiarity and intergovernmental pillars, but that will end if these opt-ins take place, and the European institutions and integrationists will have won. We have already voted to exercise the mass opt-out. We should leave things as they are, and then let the British people decide.
Immigration Bill
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
We have heard thoughtful and powerful speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I want to link my views with those of the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who made a compelling and well-informed case about the cruel, counter-productive and ill thought out nature of the Bill. I also associate myself with the views of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who spoke with his customary eloquence and reminded us that we should be under no illusion that this miserable Bill has very little to do with national security, but everything to do with out-toughing UKIP. No one would argue that our immigration system does not need fixing or that it is not blighted by inefficiency and error, yet rather than taking positive steps to fix the problems, the Government have brought forward proposals that will drive standards down, not up.
All the amendments in the group that I support would make the immigration system fairer and more accountable, such as amendment 1, which would delete clause 11. It is important that we support that amendment because the latest figures reveal that 32% of deportation decisions and 49% of entry-clearance applications were successfully appealed last year, yet the Government’s depressing response to that large margin of error is not to try to improve the quality of decision making, but to reduce the opportunities for challenge by slashing the scope for appeal.
Amendment 79 was tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who spoke movingly about it, and co-signed by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). The basis of clause 3 is utterly flawed, given that it sets out the idea that directions for removal within 14 days are somehow sufficient grounds to assume that bail should not be granted. On any common-sense analysis, there are factors that bluntly challenge that assumption. Plenty of people suffering from psychological or physical illnesses, or who have been bereaved or have caring responsibilities, should not be detained, but will not be able properly to challenge that detention.
I support amendment 60, which would retain the status quo on the use of force, not least because there are serious gaps in the training provided on the exercise of force, especially regarding the use of restraint techniques, by immigration officers and contractors. That is just one reason why it is completely unjustifiable that the Government are extending the use of force without any reference to the type of power exercised and the necessity of that force, and without parliamentary scrutiny.
I get the sense that you would like me to conclude my speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I shall oblige, but let me simply say that this is a miserable Bill and that I hope the House will take every opportunity to vote against it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sorry, but both new clauses, which are Government new clauses, go together. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to vote against, he has to vote against them together.
Question put (single Question on new clauses moved by a Minister of the Crown), That new clauses 12 and 18 be added to the Bill.—(Mrs May.)
Psychoactive Substances
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think it is time that we left the subject of caterpillars and lettuces and got to the matter in hand.
John Mann
I implore the Minister to reject this European Union attempt further to weaken our approach and to resist what his predecessor did, which was to go around these EU countries looking for ways to weaken our drug laws—precisely what this Government are sneakily doing in order to justify cuts in policing and the closing of police cells in areas like Bassetlaw.
Immigration Bill
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. If we seriously want to get everybody in, we will have to average about 10 minutes a speech. If we carry on in the same way, a lot of Members will drop off the end of the list.
Jeremy Corbyn
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I heard what you said, but would it not be more useful to put a time limit on speeches so that we can all get in?
Mr Deputy Speaker
That is up to me, but I thought that hon. Members would have enough respect for each other to ensure that everybody gets in. I thought that they would help each other by taking a little less time in order to allow others to take part, which is why I did not want to be dictatorial about it.
Mr Jackson
No, I am not saying that, but if the hon. Gentleman is attacking the Government side for being racist, as he did in his Westminster Hall debate, I say that chauvinism and nationalism are bad and that he should be mindful—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think that I need to help a little bit. In fairness, we are on immigration, but independence for Scotland has not happened, so the immigration part will not apply at the moment. It will obviously help us all if we can carry on with the debate.
Mr Jackson
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
With regard to the rationale for immigration, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee found in 2008, as indeed did the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, that large-scale immigration had a minimal impact on the economy holistically. I pay tribute to the Government for having the guts to listen to people and take appropriate action in a responsible, reasonable and measured way. They have taken action before on things that have caused real problems for all communities. The hon. Member for Brent North is not the only one who represents a diverse, multicultural society; I have 10,000 eastern European migrants in my constituency and 10,000 voters of Pakistani heritage. The question is what is good for the whole community. We all know that when we go to those wonderfully moving citizenship ceremonies at the town hall there is a feeling of cohesiveness about being a British citizen. Those people who have followed the correct route and done the right thing are just as angry and concerned about the impact of illegal immigration as anyone else, irrespective of their race or ethnicity.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that there is a danger that, by placing yet more strictures on potential international students, the Bill will send a signal that they are not welcome in the UK? This is such an important export industry for the UK, if I can put it like that, and it is important that the mood music—
Paul Blomfield
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is rightly highlighting the concern that has been expressed from both sides of the House in previous debates. UK higher education is a major export earner, contributing about £8 billion to the UK economy annually.
I remember an exchange with the Immigration Minister when he was newly appointed, at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary university group, in which he pointed out that we should be talking not only about the income that international students brought in but about the costs that were incurred, including the cost to the health service. I went back to Sheffield university and said that we needed to look into that issue. The university commissioned Oxford Economics to carry out the most rigorous assessment possible into the income involved and the costs for our city. That assessment did not just cover the NHS and education; it went to the nth degree, covering every conceivable cost including traffic congestion. It concluded that international students were worth about £120 million a year to the Sheffield economy in net terms, which probably equated to about 6,000 jobs. Measures such as those in the Bill will serve only to discourage students from coming to the UK.
The Minister will argue that the health surcharge will bring us into line with our major competitors, which require health insurance as a condition for obtaining a student visa, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) pointed out, it comes on the back of other changes introduced by the Home Office that have done huge damage to the competitive position of our universities. This will simply be seen as another signal that international students are not welcome in the UK.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed students’ concerns many times. Does he agree that a similar argument applies to the student visitor visa? Will he join me in opposing any proposal to clamp down on those arrangements, on the ground that it would also damage our colleges?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I point out to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) that quite a lot of Members are waiting to get in, including Dr Huppert? Perhaps if he takes fewer interventions, we might get to the hon. Gentleman.
Paul Blomfield
I will take that advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, and take no more interventions.
We need to look carefully at the student visitor route to see how much is displacement and exactly what is going on within those numbers.
My major concern, and that of our universities, is that we are losing market share as regards university students coming to the UK. The health surcharge obviously comes on top of a number of measures that the Government have introduced, and it is not just about the health surcharge. The universities are concerned about the provisions on landlords. They are worried, as other Members have been, about what will happen and that landlords—we know that 83% of them do not want these measures—will take the easy way out. We have seen the evidence in the reports over the past couple of weeks of letting agents in London who are discriminating against people on racial and ethnic grounds and on grounds of their appearance. The danger is that that will happen in this case and that international students, often leaving home to come and study here for the first time, will be discriminated against and will find an unwelcoming environment in this country.
The Bill is the kind of measure that brings politics into disrepute. It is gambling with our economy and our reputation just for a cheap headline. People deserve better.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
I declare an interest as a landlord, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
This has been a good debate with eloquent speeches from Members on both sides of the House, including excellent speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and many others. Like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I welcome the Bill, which is—let it be said—the first major Immigration Bill of this Government and one that contains a number of sensible measures that I believe should have a beneficial effect.
I welcome the reforms to charge for national health service use, to deal with sham marriages and to reform article 8 as it relates to foreign criminals. I think that reform will strike a better balance with the public interest, for which I have called for a long time. It is worth pausing to remember that the people whose cases we are discussing have come to this country and have committed serious offences, sometimes really serious offences, which should call into question the public interest of allowing them to remain here.
I also welcome the measures that are designed to streamline the appeals system, as effective immigration control has, I believe, all too often been undermined by multiple appeals and procedures. To be fair to the previous Government, they made some well-intentioned efforts to reform the appeals system. In some cases, they made it less complex, but it remains a complex system. I can remember the expression “a one-stop shop for appeals” being bandied about under the previous Government. That was their aim, but they did not entirely fulfil it—although, to be fair to them, they did try. Some Labour Back Benchers would do well to remember that.
I welcome the fact that the Opposition are not opposing the Bill and will examine the measures in Committee. That is the proper approach to take. I would part company with the Opposition, however, on the question of net migration and effective immigration control. During the course of the debate, Opposition Members have made a big point about whether net migration has fallen by a third or a quarter, and have argued over the statistics. That shows a little brass neck, to say the least, given what happened to net migration under the previous Government. It increased from 50,000 to 250,000 per year over the lifetime of that Government. I would calculate that as a fivefold increase, yet now Labour is debating whether net migration has fallen by a quarter or a third while often opposing some of the measures needed to bring about that reduction.
I believe the issue should be an important objective of government and that we should have proper immigration control. I recognise the contribution of immigrants to society and their worth as individuals, and I believe that when they come to this country and are legally entitled to be here they should certainly be welcome. We must bear in mind, however, that demand to come to this country from less economically developed countries is almost unlimited. It is one of the major duties of a Government to impose proper immigration control in the light of that demand, which our constituents know about and can see reflected in news stories and developments in other parts of the world.
As the demand to come to this country is almost unlimited, to keep our quality of life we must have regard to population growth and population density. Immigration is a major driver of population. Our population is 62 million, and to keep it below 70 million net migration must be carefully controlled, and certainly brought down from 250,000, which is what it was at the end of the previous Government’s time in office. Otherwise the population increase—5 million, as has been said, would be due to migration—would produce a population of 70 million, which is equal to the populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Oxford added together, and accommodation would have to be made for that.
On the Opposition’s policy, I was not encouraged by the response from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to my question about whether the Labour party would have a target for net migration. The Opposition draw attention to the fact that we cannot control all the factors that relate to net migration. Of course we cannot control how many people choose to leave the country, but that does not mean that we should not control those factors that we can control, including the number of people who are permitted to enter the country. If we give way to the demand for lots of people to come to this country, net migration will run much higher than the figure to which it has been brought down by the Government.
I am not encouraged by the policy on migration adopted by the Leader of the Opposition. In his first foray into that policy area, he told readers of the Sunday Mirror that he wanted a new policy on migration linking foreign workers to apprenticeships. He said:
“We think that can create up to 125,000 new apprenticeships over the course of five years. And that is a massive boost in skills of our young people and that is really important.”
No doubt it is: many of us would say that that is something that we should do anyway without linking it to migration. The right hon. Gentleman also made the point that he wanted to link every one of those apprenticeships to the admission of a foreign worker into this country, which means 125,000 extra people, as well as their dependants, as it is the custom to admit dependants with foreign workers who are allowed into this country for work.
With other things being equal, and without any change in policy in other directions by the Opposition—there has certainly been no indication that there will be a reduction to compensate for this in other migration flows—over the lifetime of a Parliament we would see an increase of 125,000-plus in net migration, or 40,000 a year, which would go a considerable way towards doing away with the reduction achieved by the Government. That puts into context the Opposition’s quibbling about whether net migration has fallen by a quarter or a third. If he has time, I invite the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who speaks knowledgeably on these matters, to confirm that that is the Labour party’s policy, and that 125,000 foreign workers would be admitted in line with the 125,000 increase in apprenticeships. Will he confirm that in addition to those foreign workers, their dependants would be admitted, and will he provide an estimate of how much extra net migration would result? In my calculation, that would produce at best some several hundred thousand net migrants over the course of a Parliament.
We need a much more serious approach to the question of migration control. I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their approach. This is something that is important to our constituents—certainly to my constituents—as we do not want to live in a grossly overcrowded country, with all the consequences that would flow from an increase in population to upwards of 70 million as a result of the policies that have been outlined by the Opposition. This is an important subject. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends for their approach. “Firm but fair” is an expression used by the Opposition. I believe that this is a coalition Government with a firm but fair immigration policy, and I exhort my right hon. and hon. Friends to stick with it.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful for that intervention, and I am sure that when the right hon. Member for Tottenham has finished his private conversation, he will read it in Hansard in due course.
The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington referred to the 1905 royal commission on alien immigration. During the course of that commission, as she will know, one of the larger pieces of evidence was given by the then Member for Stepney, Major Evans Gordon. He had written a book two years before the royal commission, and in the preface he wrote:
“The Alien Immigrant has been the subject of prolonged and bitter controversy, in which both sides have been guilty of some exaggeration. On the one hand, there are those who uphold the newcomers as an unmixed advantage in this country; on the other, there are many who denounce their advent as an unmitigated evil.”
I have to say to Opposition Members that that is a debate from which we have moved on. There is no doubt, in 2013, that we have welcomed those who have come to this country to benefit the United Kingdom, and that we have always welcomed those who have had to come here as a result of threats to their health and safety because of events in their home countries.
It is impossible to be a constituency MP in 2013 without those we represent, on whichever side of the House we sit, talking extensively about immigration. They do so because of the damning record of the previous Government, who effectively had open borders and let 3 million people into this country. Three times as many people entered this country between 1997 and 2010 as came here between the Conquest and 1950. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members would stop shouting and actually listen to me and their constituents, they would learn why this is such an important issue. It is so important because of the pressure it has put on public services and because of the way the people of this country have reacted to that open border immigration policy, which has resulted in much of the tolerance for which this country is famed going out of the window. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I am sure the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) did not mean that and will withdraw the comment.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has made his point—he wants to get in—but it is up to the Minister to give way, and quite obviously he wants to make some progress.
Mr Harper
I am trying to do justice to the many Members who spoke in the debate, including the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).
I particularly enjoyed the remarks from my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and for Crawley (Henry Smith), all of whose constituencies I have had the opportunity to visit in my current role, and the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), from whom I am sure I will receive an invitation in due course.
The right hon. Member for Delyn is right about the issues that we will not have a chance to debate in the remaining seven minutes; I want us to have a good debate in Committee and to go through the issues in detail, and I am confident that when we lay out our aims, we will take Members with us, having first tested their concerns. We want the Bill to leave Committee and this House in good shape. As Members will know from my previous roles and challenges, I do not think we should leave it to the other place to put Bills in good shape. I want to ensure it leaves this House in good shape, and I look forward to the debate in Committee to do so.
In the time remaining, I shall try to deal with some of the issues raised. A number of Members raised important points about the proposals on health. To be clear, we are not talking about denying access to health care. We are talking about making sure that those who have no right to free health care have to make a contribution towards it. One of the points raised by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) was about public health and access to health for HIV treatment. I intervened on her to say that public health access will still be available for free. What I did not remember at the time was that this Government abolished treatment charges for HIV for overseas visitors exactly to protect the sorts of public health concerns she raised.
We are talking about making sure people pay a fair share. For those temporary migrants coming to Britain either to work or to study, we will collect the money before they come into the UK. It will go into the Consolidated Fund, and it is well above my pay grade, Mr Deputy Speaker, to tell colleagues in the Treasury how to do public spending. But if money is then distributed, any funds that go to the NHS in England will of course be distributed to the devolved Administrations in the usual way according to the Barnett consequentials. I hope that that is clear. We are not proposing to change the way in which the devolved Administrations can charge under the overseas visitors arrangements. Those aspects of charging are of course devolved. We will talk to the devolved administrations to make sure that there are no unforeseen consequences from different parts of the UK having different regimes for visitor charging.
As I said earlier in response to the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), these are significant sums of money. She asked my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary how much we thought was not collected from health tourists. In the report that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health published today, we say that we think that between £20 million and £100 million is the cost of deliberate health tourism for urgent treatment and between £50 million and £200 million for regular visitors taking advantage. Clearly there is a range, but this is an independent report that has been peer-reviewed and it is the best information we have. The hon. Lady is right; it is not a massive proportion of the overall NHS budget but £500 million that we are not collecting is a significant sum and it would make a real difference if we were able to collect it.
The Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), made some points about landlords, and we will test those issues in Committee. He also referred to e-Borders. He deserves a reasonable reply since he shared the blame around with the previous Government. We do already collect a significant amount of information on those coming into Britain and those leaving and we are working on improving that. I know that he will continue to question my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and myself when we appear in front of his Committee.
The hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) and I do not always agree, but she made an important point about refugees. The reason I think it is important to deal with people who have no right to be in Britain is that I want Britain to continue to be a welcoming place for those genuinely fleeing persecution. I fundamentally believe that we will only carry the public with us and have the public support a system where we protect genuine refugees—those fleeing persecution—if where we decide someone does not need our protection, and an independent judge does not think they need protection, those people leave the UK. By the way, we are not removing appeal rights for those where there is a fundamental right involved. If they abuse our hospitality by trying every trick in the book to stay here, they are damaging the interests of genuine migrants. It is our duty to make sure we do that.
Spousal Visas
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Andrew Percy
I thank the hon. Lady for making it unnecessary for me to read out a paragraph of my speech. I am grateful for that as time is pressing. She made a point that I intended to make myself.
As I said before the intervention, it concerns me that the policy is having an impact on immigration from countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and many other Commonwealth countries, from which immigration to the UK would probably cause the least impact. The people most likely to be able to integrate well here, who bring English language skills and similar levels of education, are excluded. It is timely that a Minister from the Canadian Cabinet is watching the debate. Her country’s citizens would be greatly affected by the rules.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We may not refer to people outside the Chamber.
Andrew Percy
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the same way as I should have apologised earlier for wafting my petition. This is not the appropriate time to present a petition so I offer my apologies to you for that.
There is huge concern in the country about immigration. I understand the Government’s response to the issue, as I said previously, but constituents in my town, Goole, cannot understand why they see EU immigration being dealt with differently from non-EU immigration. We understand the legal position. I understand that the Minister cannot do anything about that under the current terms of our membership. Fortunately, we are on our way out of the EU, but it is hard to explain to my constituents why a British citizen with a British child in Cambodia, who works hard and is paying tax in this country, is unable to bring his family into this country, whereas we see increasing numbers of citizens coming from any EU country, without any English language requirement. It may not be a comfortable thing for people to hear but that is what people in my constituency have been saying about the rules.
2014 JHA Opt-out Decision
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I hesitate to give way to the hon. Gentleman because I suspect he will quote from page 37, but I will do so briefly, then I want to make final progress.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will be brief.
Mr Cash
Basically, the European Scrutiny Committee, under the chairmanship of the Government at that time, said:
“The presentation of radically changed texts in the last days of a Presidency, with calls for their immediate adoption, does not appear to us to be an appropriate way of determining changes at EU level to the criminal law…The legislative process should be open and transparent and not one of secret bargaining.”
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I am grateful to be able to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland). I do not know whether I agree with much of what he concludes on this issue, but he has spoken at short notice so I clear him of the charge of tedious repetition.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) was in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate and his name was on the list.
Mark Reckless
So his remarks were also very well prepared, for which I give him credit.
Earlier, the Home Secretary responded to me on the issue of whether the opt-ins under the justice and home affairs provisions—if indeed we have opt-ins now—would trigger a referendum. She shared her view that they would not, but she did not give reasons and I do not believe she spoke to the specifics of the point. The European Union Act 2011 was ably taken through the House by the Minister for Europe, whom I am delighted to see in his place—he may be able to correct or assist me, or perhaps share some of the Government’s legal insight, which has eluded me to date on this issue. Section 4(1) deals with triggers for a referendum, and paragraph (i) refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of power to impose a requirement or obligation on the United Kingdom”.
An even clearer trigger is section 4(1)(j), which refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of new or extended power to impose sanctions on the United Kingdom”.
It strikes me that with those opt-ins, the Commission would have the right to enforcement action, and the European Court of Justice potentially to deliver fines.