Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years ago)
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The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. Perhaps I should underline the facts about the good work being done by UKTI. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has helped to deliver some £37.6 billion-worth of business wins for UK industry. We also have the GREAT campaign, which emphasises that this country is a great place to visit, a great place in which to study and a great place to do business in.
Syrian Refugees
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Bates
I recognise, of course, that the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that many people have been touched by the needs of people fleeing the violence in the region. Of course, many of the people that we are particularly looking at have been victims of torture and violence, have acute medical needs and are some of the most vulnerable and the offers that have been made may not be appropriate in those cases. However, Richard Harrington, the Minister with responsibility for Syrian refugees, is working to compile a register of churches, faith groups and charities which want to make that generous offer of assistance. We want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for people to take advantage of that.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the most effective thing that the British Government can do is to help those Syrians in refugee camps around Syria? Much as we would like to have many thousands of refugees here, that is peanuts compared with the number actually suffering. To pick up the point he made earlier about the politics of this, we must work for some kind of solution in Syria. However, does he agree that if the Alawite regime in Damascus were to fall, there would be three dreadful consequences: the first would be the most appalling revenge killings; the second would be a massive increase in refugees; and the third would be a huge boost for ISIL, which is our enemy, which the regime in Damascus is not?
Lord Bates
On the first point, about what we are doing to help in the country, of course, that is absolutely right. That is the position which the British Government have taken. We are saying that we do not want people to make this perilous journey across sea and land. We want people to stay in safe places within those countries. That is the reason why we are giving £1.1 billion—more than any other country in cash terms apart from the United States—and why we are urging our European partners to give another €10 billion to help in that area. We want to stop people feeling the need to make that journey and put themselves and their families at risk.
Asylum
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Green of Deddington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the scope for those currently claiming asylum in other European Union member states subsequently to move on to the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the UK operates rigorous border controls to prevent illegal migration. The Government have already introduced tough new measures and are negotiating with the European Union further to prevent the abuse of free movement rights by EU citizens. We can also refuse EU nationals at the border if we consider that they present a genuine threat to society.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Will he confirm that EU directives require that protection be granted not just for those in fear of persecution but also where there is a,
“serious … threat … of indiscriminate violence”,
to a civilian due to “armed conflict”?
Does he therefore agree that member states will be obliged to grant protection to most of those now fleeing from the terrible events in Syria as well as many from Iraq, Libya, Yemen and some countries in Africa? Given that the EU border controls have now almost collapsed, the numbers could be considerable. Finally, as most of those concerned will later become EU citizens, will the Government, in this new situation, now seek to require work permits from EU citizens migrating to Britain so as to reduce the numbers overall?
Syria: Christian Refugees
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Green of Deddington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to prioritise Christian refugees from Syria in their plans to resettle further refugees in the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has already announced that over the course of this Parliament the United Kingdom will resettle up to 20,000 more Syrian refugees. The expanded programme will prioritise the most vulnerable refugees, particularly children and women at risk of abuse. It will not distinguish on the basis of religion.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer from the Minister. Is he aware of an article in the Sunday press by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton? He reported that Christians have been targeted by ISIL for crucifixion, beheading and rape. Even now, they are not to be found in the UN camps because they have been attacked by Islamists and have had to find refuge in private houses and churches. Will the Government now assure this House that they fully understand the plight of Syrian Christians and that they realise that they are not in the camps for the reason I have given? If they reach an agreement with the UNHCR that does not take account of that fact, they are discriminating against Christians, who have suffered from these events at least as much as anybody else. It can be done; it is a question of the small print. Let it be done.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I assure the noble Lord that the Government take all persecution against any minority very seriously. In his consideration, he mentioned the Christians; and we have seen the appalling scenes against the Yazidis. All minorities who are suffering such persecution at the hands of this hideous ISIL entity will be dealt with in the proper way, by ensuring that their vulnerabilities are protected and they are given the protection they deserve.
UK: Population
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Green of Deddington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to prevent the population of the United Kingdom reaching an unsustainable level.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a matter that is crucial to the future of our society, but which does not remotely receive the attention which it deserves. I thank the House of Lords Library for its comprehensive briefing pack on this subject.
There will be many views on what would be a sustainable population for the UK, but what is clear is that our current population growth of half a million a year is simply unsustainable—socially, practically and politically. Indeed, the speed of our population growth is propelling the train towards an inevitable crash. It is not a case of signal failure. The Office for National Statistics is flashing orange and red lights, but at rather a low intensity. It seems that the train crew, in the shape of Governments past and present, are determined to ignore them. They seem to fear that they will be accused of seeking to impose on the passengers a Chinese-style one-child policy. Or perhaps they fear that they will be accused of blaming those passengers who have only recently joined the train.
Whatever the reasoning, the whole issue of the growth of our population needs revisiting. It is now increasing at the fastest rate for nearly a century. In the year to last August, the UK population increased by nearly half a million—that is the equivalent of the entire population of the city of Manchester, or, indeed, of Bradford
It is important to be clear that our birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 since 1972. Mortality is gradually falling, but in the long run immigration will be responsible for almost all our population increase, either directly or indirectly.
It is surely common ground that migration in both directions is a natural, necessary and desirable part of an open economy and society. Indeed, many immigrants have made an extremely valuable contribution to our society, including, of course, a considerable number of noble Lords.
Immigration becomes an issue only when its scale becomes excessive, leading to unacceptable increases in population. I believe that that is now the case in the UK, certainly in respect of England, and in recent years successive opinion polls have confirmed that three-quarters of the public share my view.
Until 1998, net migration was not much more than 50,000 a year and was even negative in some years. However, decisions by the Labour Government led to that flow increasing by a factor of five. Unfortunately, there was no substantial reduction under the coalition Government. As a result, average net migration over the past 10 years has been at an extraordinary 240,000 a year. If that level were to continue, as it might well, our population would grow from the present 65 million to around 73 million in 15 years. That is an increase of almost 8 million, which is the equivalent of the combined population of the cities of—wait for it—Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Leicester, Coventry, Glasgow, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Portsmouth, Bolton and Doncaster, all in 15 years. That is frankly absurd; we cannot allow it to happen. Indeed, of the almost 8 million I mentioned, 7 million in that 15 years will be in England. It could even be worse. Last year, net migration reached 318,000. At that rate, the numbers are even greater. The UK population would soar to 75 million in 15 years and to 80 million in 25 years. That would make the UK the most populous country in Europe, overtaking Germany some years before that.
There are, of course, some who continue to claim that Britain needs migrants because our population is ageing. It is surely obvious that immigration is not the answer, for the very simple reason that immigrants themselves grow older. The effect, therefore, is to add to our population in some kind of giant Ponzi scheme. In fact, it is well understood by demographers, including UN demographers, that population ageing cannot be solved by immigration.
There are many ways to tackle an ageing population. The most important is for people to work longer in their longer and healthier lives. So the Government have been exactly right, in our view, to raise the retirement age in the way that they have. England, the destination of the vast majority of migrants, is already one of the most crowded countries in the world, almost twice as crowded as Germany and nearly four times as crowded as France. Yet successive Governments have ducked the issue of population. They are happy to discuss it on a world scale but are not willing to address it as a national problem, despite the fact that there are huge implications for all parts of our society and government.
One immediate impact is on education. In many parts of the country there are already shortages of places in primary schools. The Local Government Association estimates that three out of five local authorities will have a shortfall of places by 2018-19. Even now more than 100,000 primary school pupils are being taught in classes of more than 30 children. Only yesterday we learnt that the proportion of children born in England and Wales to foreign-born mothers reached a record level of 27%.
Collective heads are buried even deeper in the sand over housing. Successive Governments have long failed to ensure the construction of the estimated 250,000 new homes that are required every year. Last year, only 140,000 were completed. The most recent publication on household formation from the Department for Communities and Local Government did not even consider the impact of immigration on housing. It was left to the Office for National Statistics to estimate that 95% of the growth in households since 2010 have been households with a foreign-born head—technically a “household reference person”. That is the source of most additional housing demand and has been for some years. Indeed, in the previous debate the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, spoke of the need for more housing in rural communities.
Certainly, we need to build more homes, but equally, we must tackle demand and in practice that means bringing down the scale of immigration. Effective action of that kind would help very greatly in tackling the housing crisis. Otherwise, the situation is perfectly clear: we shall quite simply have to go on building large numbers of dwellings indefinitely. That seems to me to make very little sense.
We also have to ask whether we can really integrate 3 million immigrants into our society in the next 10 years. What would such an influx mean for our sense of community and identity? What is it doing to the character of our nation? How do we stop our society becoming less cohesive and, indeed, more fragmented? We cannot allow these matters to drift any longer. The train is hurtling along and it is time to apply the brakes. In practice, that means applying the brakes to mass immigration.
Lord Bates
I understand that the noble Lord is doing a good job of seeking to draw out from me a statement that X number represents sustainability and Y number indicates unsustainability. I am trying to say—I agree that it is a slightly nuanced argument even for a Thursday afternoon—that we want to talk about migration levels because, effectively, we can deal with those. He is talking about something in the future which we cannot control. We are interested in dealing with the now.
Lord Green of Deddington
My Lords, the key point is that virtually all future population growth is as a result of immigration. We need to be clear about that. Therefore, as a practical matter, we do not need to say that we want 80 million, 90 million, 70 million or 40 million. If we think the numbers are getting too great and if we understand that three-quarters of the public think that, we have to bring the level of immigration down, as the noble Lord was outlining.
Lord Rosser
I agree, to an extent, with what the noble Lord, Lord Green, has said, but what I was trying to establish—and I appreciate that net migration has an impact on the figures, as do birth rates and mortality rates—was whether it is the Government’s view that their own projections constitute an unsustainable level of population. I am unable to get an answer from the Minister as to whether the Government believe that their own figures constitute an unsustainable level of population.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of Migration Watch UK.
Noble Lords will not be surprised that I welcome the Government’s commitment to control immigration and their ambition, as they describe it, to reduce net migration to tens of thousands. Time is very short, so I will keep this speech to four minutes and will focus on three of the main consequences if the Government were to fail in achieving their objectives and their ambition: population, infrastructure and, especially, housing.
As far as the population is concerned, we are now 65 million in the UK. On current trends, that will rise to 70 million in seven years’ time and to 80 million in 25 years’ time. These are astounding figures. They are based on the present level of 300,000 net migration. In this Parliament alone, our population will increase by 3 million.
What does that mean for infrastructure? These additional millions are bound to require a whole range of infrastructure—hospitals, homes, schools and so on—at the very time that government departments are being asked to reduce their budgets more than ever before. Where on earth will the money come from for this infrastructure?
Lastly, I turn to housing. The discussion about housing is almost always about supply, not demand. I notice that four or five, if not more—maybe six or seven—noble Lords have spoken about housing and it has always been about supply. In the past five years, the number of households headed by a person born overseas—that is, by an immigrant—have increased by an average of 115,000 a year. That is 78% of the net increase in households. Surely it is blindingly obvious that an important means of tackling the housing crisis is to reduce immigration and therefore demand, and it is strange that so few people are prepared to say so.
What can the Government do to bring immigration under control? Of course, you have to divide the figures into non-EU and EU. As far as non-EU migrants are concerned, the picture is stark. Since 1998, arrivals have virtually trebled from about 100,000 a year to 300,000, but departures are pretty well flat at not much more than 100,000. We therefore have to redouble our efforts to ensure that migrants leave when their visas expire, especially—dare I say it?—students. I know that that is a matter of real concern for many of the vice-chancellors and so on in this House. However, the fact is that they have been arriving in the UK at an average rate of about 150,000 a year, but those who are recorded as leaving amount to 50,000, so somewhere there is a huge gap of 100,000 people. Some will stay on legally but we have to recognise that many will do so illegally, and that is why I think the Government are right to make the latter much more difficult.
That leaves EU migration, which is of course an entirely different story but it accounts for very nearly half of the intake. Negotiations have barely begun but it is no exaggeration to say that the Government’s success or otherwise will determine their ability, and that of all future Governments, to control our borders.
Finally, let us recognise that failure to bring immigration under control would eventually undermine our social cohesion and, indeed, our sense of nationhood. It would also undermine—seriously, I believe—confidence in our political system, which for far too long has turned a deaf ear to the genuine concerns of a very large majority of the electorate.
These issues can no longer be ducked. A focused and constructive discussion based squarely on the facts is absolutely essential, and I hope that it will take place in this House.