Lord Soames of Fletching
Main Page: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Soames of Fletching's debates with the Home Office
(14 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Green
The right hon. Gentleman is always energetic in pursuing individual cases for his constituents, and I will of course look closely at that one, as he knows I always do.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Department’s work on this difficult matter? Does he agree that one of the most important steps he could take is to break the link between people coming to work here and people’s ability to settle here? That would very substantially reduce numbers.
Damian Green
My hon. Friend has done distinguished and sterling work on immigration with the all-party group on balanced migration in the past few years. I hope to reassure him by saying that in the speech I will make at the Royal Commonwealth Society this evening, I will make the point that we need to look at all routes to migration—not only the work route, but the study route and other routes that lead to settlement—so that we can achieve not an immigration policy that is discussed in the usual way, when we ask whether it is tougher or more liberal, but a smarter immigration policy. That is what this country needs.