Commonwealth Immigration and Visas

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to introduce the debate. There is no doubt that immigration is a sensitive and often controversial subject. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss ways in which we might reshape our immigration system so that we have control not only over the numbers coming into the United Kingdom, but over the nature of those individuals wishing to work, study and make our country their home.

To be absolutely clear, I am not advocating an increase in immigration. I am, however, seeking to establish ways in which we can have better immigration. What do I mean by better immigration? I am referring to the re-establishment of the United Kingdom’s ability to be selective about who enters and settles in our country and the ability to favour immigration from countries with which Britain enjoys long-standing cultural and historical links, where English is the common language and with which we share values and principles, the rule of law, and common judicial and parliamentary systems. I am of course talking about the countries of the Commonwealth of nations, most notably the 15 realms with which we have an even closer bond and shared constitutional link in Her Majesty the Queen, who remains as much their Head of State as she does ours.

In spite of those special ties, since our accession to what was known at the time as the Common Market, Britain appears to have discarded the potential for trade, immigration and co-operation with the Commonwealth to accommodate the new European political union, which dominates so much of how we are governed today. It is time for a radical rethink.

Our immigration system is in need of complete reform and the British people are demanding change. Indeed, the time has surely come to enforce a total overhaul of the way we operate immigration in the United Kingdom, but we can do so only if a British Government, elected by the British people, can decide what British immigration policy is. We have a broken immigration system—a system in which we have neglected the possibility of positive immigration from our wider Commonwealth family to accommodate uncontrolled and indiscriminate immigration from within the EU. As a result, for example, over the past 13 years immigration from Australia and New Zealand—two nations with which we have a shared history and culture like no other, expect perhaps for Canada—has almost halved, whereas immigration from EU continues to rise at a rapid pace.

The members of the Commonwealth network of nations and territories are not part of the EU, apart from Malta, Cyprus and Gibraltar, so they have been the losers as our UK Government have sought to reduce immigration. Meanwhile, the citizens of any country that happens to have been accepted into the EU can freely enter our country without restriction.

Immigration has always been a feature of Britain’s social and economic development, over many centuries, and it has been without doubt overwhelmingly positive, with the vast majority coming to our country to work and contribute as hard-working people. It must surely be, however, the absolute right of every nation—especially a country the size of the United Kingdom, where there have to be limits—to control its own national borders and to determine its own immigration policy. With free movement from the EU, though, we have given up that right.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some strong points. He mentioned the 15 dominions in which the Queen is still Head of State. Does he agree that because those countries have decided to keep the Queen as Head of State, their citizens should be afforded certain privileges on arrival at our ports of entry? It is ridiculous that they are confined by those barriers that accommodate the rest of the world. Those people should have special privileges afforded to them.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. When he was a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he was a champion of Her Majesty’s realms and territories. I feel that it is shameful that subjects of Her Majesty arriving at Heathrow airport are treated as if they were from any other country in the world. There are no special privileges, nothing whatever, and that is wrong. It is time for us to look at things afresh. He will recall my 2012 United Kingdom Borders Bill, which highlighted this very issue and asked the Government to take action, which, sadly, they have not done so far. I will come back to that.

The truth is that, if we are serious about restoring control of immigration and widening the base of potential future migrants to our country so that our friends from the Commonwealth may again have opportunities to live and work in this country, the EU doctrine of free movement without any control or restriction whatever must end. That would not prevent the UK from agreeing bilateral reciprocal arrangements with other EU nations, or indeed from continuing to accept EU citizens who met the criteria decided by Her Majesty’s Government and who came here, as the vast majority do, to work and contribute to the economy of our nation. Britain would, however, have the opportunity to set the rules in so far as who did and did not come in. Those from Her Majesty’s realms and territories and from the wider Commonwealth would have the greater opportunities that are reserved now only for citizens of the EU.

Surely it makes sense to establish a system with substance and purpose—one that continues to allow the brightest and best from Europe to come to Britain, but no longer alienates or excludes those from places around the world with which Britain has enjoyed much longer and closer historical links. Being a subject from one of Her Majesty’s realms or being from a Commonwealth nation should count for something when looking to visit, work, study or live in the United Kingdom. At the moment, it appears to count for little. That is our fault and we should not be proud of it.

The Commonwealth is an underutilised resource for the United Kingdom. It offers vast opportunities outside the uncertainty, stagnation and turbulence that we have endured over the past decade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As a vice-chairman of the Conservative party, he does good work with Commonwealth countries, and I commend his enthusiasm. We need to decide for ourselves, as a nation, what we want to do not only with Europe but with the rest of the world. Part of that process should perhaps be to consult our Commonwealth friends on how our relationship can be developed in tandem with a renegotiated arrangement with the European Union. They are two sides of the same coin. We all want trade and co-operation with Europe, and good immigration from Europe as well, but sadly we have gone down that road to the exclusion of developing all those things with our Commonwealth friends. A reconfiguration is well overdue.

The UK has the largest Commonwealth diaspora in the world and many people in all our constituencies come from a Commonwealth background or have Commonwealth ancestry, yet it is much harder for someone to come to the United Kingdom if they are a citizen of the Commonwealth than if they are a citizen of an EU member state. Britain needs a renewed sense of balance, fairness and opportunity in our immigration and visa regime.

The Prime Minister has a difficult task. Having pledged to cut net immigration numbers, he has discovered that although he can reduce immigration from the Commonwealth and wider world, he is unable, under current treaty obligations, to reduce it from the European Union. That means that the only policy lever left open to him is a reduction in immigration from outside the EU—meaning, of course, the Commonwealth. The Minister will understand that that has created unintended consequences for Commonwealth nationals. For that reason, I call on her to lead a significant review of Government immigration policy and to establish a system that works for the United Kingdom, not one that is imposed on us and over which we have no ultimate control.

Apart from the restoration of British control over immigration, which would require a fundamental change in our relationship with the European Union, there are many other things that could be done in the meantime gradually to rebuild our partnership with the Commonwealth and, most especially, Her Majesty’s realms. Here are some ideas to get the Minister started. First, we should look at the UK’s tier 5 youth mobility visa. With over 60% of the Commonwealth population under the age of 30, that visa is of fundamental importance. Before 2008, the UK had a youth visa that included all Commonwealth nations and allowed any young person in the Commonwealth the chance to apply to visit and work in the United Kingdom for two years. After 2008 that visa was reformed and only four nations were granted such access: Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. The scheme has now been extended to Monaco, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I would like the Government to consider a more Commonwealth-oriented view when looking at extending the youth visa. Working towards restoring Commonwealth countries to the visa would make young people see the Commonwealth as something of value rather than an abstraction. Importantly, the youth visa is based on reciprocal quotas—the numbers of young Britons leaving the UK should balance the number of people entering, thereby keeping net migration stable. Equally, the visa’s very nature is transient; it is not a route to remain. The changes that I propose would rejuvenate the UK’s Commonwealth policy, repair relations and replenish our soft power, so I urge the Minister strongly to consider such a plan.

The second policy proposal is the creation of a Commonwealth concession for tourist and business visitor visas. Citizens of 21 Commonwealth nations need a tourist visa to visit the UK, while citizens of 50 need a business visitor visa. Both visas, which last for six months, cost £83. That fee is perceived as making it more difficult for many Commonwealth citizens to enter the UK for tourism or business. A Commonwealth concession, set at the discretion of the Home Office, would go a long way towards building UK-Commonwealth relations.

Whatever their reason for visiting, Commonwealth tourists are important contributors to the UK economy. Commonwealth Exchange is a think-tank that promotes the trading, educational and strategic potential of the Commonwealth in the UK, and I am proud to serve on its advisory board. It has highlighted that official figures for visitors from a number of Commonwealth nations, and for those visitors’ average spends, nearly match, or else equal or even surpass, the figures for Chinese tourist visitors. There is certainly a strong economic case for increased Commonwealth tourist and business visitor visas, which I hope the Minister will also consider.

However, I put forward that idea against the backdrop of a preoccupation with Chinese tourists, the most recent demonstration of which was the Chancellor’s announcement that the Treasury will refund the first 25,000 visas for Chinese visitors between 2015 and 2017—Chinese visitors, but not Commonwealth ones. That policy is wrong-headed, especially at a time when the Foreign Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, has been refused entry to Hong Kong by China. We should not be awarding China free UK visas when it refuses entry to democratically elected parliamentarians and is not acting in the spirit of the joint declaration. Does the Minister agree that there are Commonwealth nations that are far more deserving of favourable visa policies?

In addition, it has been reported to me that the British Bangladeshi community has experienced unnecessary delays, lack of communication and inefficiency in the processing of visa applications, among other things, since the visa section was transferred from Bangladesh to New Delhi. Two years ago, the Prime Minister and I attended the British curry awards, which were founded by Enam Ali MBE. Some of the guests who were invited to that event could not obtain their visas in time. A similar thing happened at last year’s world travel market event in London, when several business delegates could not attend because of the delay in processing their visa applications at the New Delhi office. I hope that the Minister will look at that matter because Britain is losing business and good people who want to come to our country for legitimate reasons are being preventing from doing so.

[Mr Bellingham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need an explanation from the Minister about the hub-and-spoke visa issuing system? Certainly in Africa, a number of smaller Commonwealth countries are now spokes and have to feed through to hubs such as Accra, Pretoria or Nairobi. It is obviously incredibly important that that system is as efficient as possible so that people from smaller Commonwealth countries who want to come to this country to trade, for a holiday or to do business have their visas dealt with as quickly as possible.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have all heard of concerns in that respect. The creation of hubs in various parts of the world, which are not as accessible for people, has clearly been a cost-cutting measure by the FCO, but the system makes life very difficult for people who need to get visas quickly so that they can come to our country. I hope that the Home Office, together with the FCO, will try to find a more efficient way of dealing with the problems that we are speaking about.

The question of business visas is equally important. Commonwealth countries often share our language and have a similar business culture, with similar legal systems based on the common law. The Commonwealth has key developed and emerging economies, so it makes economic and political sense to place a high value on business visits through a Commonwealth concession. That is another idea for the Minister to take back to her Department.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to the United Kingdom Borders Bill, which I introduced in the House in 2012. Although the Bill did not progress to Second Reading, there was enormous support for the principles contained in it. The idea that there should be more accessibility for citizens from Her Majesty’s realms received widespread support from several political parties. Following the Bill’s presentation, I received many messages of support from across the UK and the wider Commonwealth. I sincerely believe that we must not fall into the trap of underestimating the significance of such a relatively simple change. It is a travesty that citizens from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Jamaica, together with those from all Her Majesty’s realms, have to queue up in the foreign nationals channel at London Heathrow airport and other points of entry into the United Kingdom while citizens from EU countries that have never had any historical connection to the Crown or the United Kingdom are allowed to enter alongside British citizens simply by virtue of their EU membership.

Since introducing my Bill, I have become aware of the SmartGate scheme in Australia and New Zealand, which allows for a separate queue for nationals from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US. That shows that a similar procedure could be adopted in the UK in the context of the Commonwealth realm, thus illustrating powerfully the renewed value of being a subject of Her Majesty’s realms. Interestingly, a citizen of the UK, as a realm, would also have the chance to choose which airport queue they wanted to go through. It could be the EU/EEA/Switzerland queue, or one for Commonwealth realms. It would be nice to have that choice because we are, of course, part of both. I might be pre-empting the Minister by saying that the UK has made it easier for Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians to visit the UK through the registered traveller scheme, but although that policy is welcome, its scope is too limited, and we could and should do better.

If the Government wanted to be bolder, they could consider the London Mayor’s proposals for bilateral mobility zones between economically developed Commonwealth nations—they are now dubbed “Boris bilaterals”. Commonwealth Exchange has found that that could work on a similar premise as the trans-Tasman travel arrangement, which exists between Australia and New Zealand. That might prove difficult, but I am aware that such a proposal has support from the New Zealand Prime Minster and the tacit backing of Tony Abbott’s Government in Australia. The UK holds the key to advance such a policy, so will the Minister undertake to examine the proposition and make a statement?

I would like the Minister to answer several key questions. Will she meet me and a delegation from Commonwealth Exchange to discuss Commonwealth immigration and visas in greater detail? What assessment has been made of the tier 5 youth mobility visa, and which nations is her Department looking at adding? Will she update the House on visa developments with Jamaica and South Africa, as those nations have had tourist visa restrictions for 11 and five years respectively? Will her Department consider ways to create a Commonwealth concession for the tourist and business visitor visas? Will she conduct a feasibility study for a pilot of a Commonwealth realm airport queue or smart gate at Heathrow and Gatwick? Has she made an assessment of the London Mayor’s labour mobility zone between Australia and New Zealand, and will she make a statement?

I believe that Britain has focused for far too long on the European Union, which I believe is distracting us from the rest of the world and the opportunities that lie beyond the shores of Europe. In 1973, we in this country turned our back on our Commonwealth cousins, which was the most short-sighted act carried out by any British Government in my lifetime. Let us begin to end that cold shoulder treatment in 2015. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be the one to lead that change of direction.

In 2010, the Government said that they were putting the “C” back into the FCO, but only with a concerted effort across Departments, and particularly the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Home Office, will the UK be able to state proudly that it has Commonwealth policies fit for the 21st century. We must remove ourselves from the unhelpful and unfounded mindset that association with the Commonwealth is nothing more than reminiscing about Britain’s colonial past and instead recognise that there are huge economic, cultural and diplomatic opportunities that are today being missed. That short-sightedness has done nothing to help our country or the countries of the Commonwealth, and we must move on from it once and for all. Let us begin today.