Immigration

Luke Akehurst Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

rose—

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I cannot give way—I have no time.

Ordinary Labour voters have good, liberal values, but just now they have a party that is not representing their views. That is why they are moving on.

In Scotland, we take on Reform. We are one of the few parties across the United Kingdom that has steadied its own position, and we have even improved it slightly. There is a big gap between us and Reform. That is because we take on Reform’s arguments and we do not appease the party or go on to its agenda. I encourage Labour colleagues to think about that.

We now have an immigration policy that is the exact opposite of what we need in Scotland, and it is contrary to our national interest. Scotland is in the early stages of the population and demography crisis, and it will only get worse because of what this Government are going to impose on us. We will soon have too few working-age people available to look after an ever-increasing older population.

For all three parties—Labour, the Conservatives and Reform—immigration is a burden and is out of control. For us in Scotland, it is essential to the health of our workforce and our economy. That is why we will never stop calling for a separate Scottish visa. We need the tools in our country to face up to our crisis. I will leave the Government to get on with their grotesque race to the bottom and to pander to Reform in a vain attempt to get some votes, but Scotland does not need their new “island of strangers” policy. It is contrary to what we want, so please leave us right out of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)]

It is a pleasure to respond to this important debate, which I welcome, because it is time to restore control over the UK’s immigration system. Coincidently, that is the title of our 76-page White Paper, which is a serious plan, and one that the Conservatives should have thought more about bringing forward when they were in government.

Let me reassert the fundamental point made by my hon. Friend the Minister for Border Security and Asylum in her opening speech: the Government are picking up the pieces after years of chaos and dysfunction. The Conservatives can talk all they want, but they cannot rewrite history. When it comes to small boats, the worst day, the worst week, the worst month and the worst year all took place on their watch in 2022—after the Rwanda deal had been signed. They gave us record net migration, they gave us record small boat arrivals and they gave us record numbers of asylum hotels, so we will take no lectures from them.

It bears repeating that what we inherited was, by every possible measure, a failing system. Net migration had risen to record levels, driven in large part by overseas recruitment, despite the public being assured that it would come down. Order and control utterly vanished from the legal immigration system as net migration has quadrupled in recent years to record highs. That was at the same time as investment in training went down: total investment in training per employee fell by 19% in the decade to 2022. It is this Government, in the spring statement, who announced £625 million to go towards skills training. Those important points were made by hon. Members across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash).

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for talking about this issue. There is a debate to be had about cause and consequence, but we cannot deny that apprenticeships in engineering halved while visas doubled on the Conservatives’ watch. That is a serious issue, which the White Paper is tackling. I urge the Conservative party to engage with the substance of that White Paper and the serious reforms we need to make.

The dramatic increase in net migration has had serious and far-reaching implications across a range of areas, from public services and community cohesion to housing stock, the economy and our domestic labour market. Perhaps most damagingly of all, it has badly dented the confidence of our constituents, who want an immigration system that is fair, controlled and managed. They want to see opportunity for themselves and for their families.

Migration is an important part of our national story—none of us should deny that—because for generations people from all over the world have come to Britain to live, to study and to work, from members of the Windrush generation who helped rebuild our country following the second world war, to the doctors and nurses working in our NHS. Indeed, they enrich our society and culture, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) outlined, but recognising the value and contribution of legal migration is not the same as having no controls. For far too long, a persistent and abject failure to exert control has undermined the system, with grave consequences. That is the situation we inherited on legal migration, and we must now have the important debate about why that has been the case and what we must do to bring it down.

The picture on illegal migration and border security was no better. Under the Conservatives, small boat crossings grew in number from a few hundred in 2018 to tens of thousands. Hotel use peaked with 56,000 asylum seekers in 400 hotels in the autumn of 2023 when the shadow Home Secretary was at the Home Office.

[Luke Akehurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. This has not been touched upon in the debate, but there is an issue of asylum seekers not just in hotels but in houses in multiple occupancy. That is causing a lot of community cohesion problems, with unscrupulous landlords buying up HMOs in cheap terraced housing in the towns and villages of County Durham. Does the Minister accept that that is also a problem that rose and rose under the previous Government?

[Seema Malhotra]

That is indeed an issue that the Minister for Border Security and Asylum is working on with local authorities, so that there are caps and we have a well-managed process.