Rural Depopulation

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond on behalf of the Opposition. The hon. Member told us about his deeply rural and very special part of the world and the unique challenges that it faces in terms of childcare and labour shortages.

I echo right hon. and hon. Members’ comments highlighting just how important our countryside is to the United Kingdom. We heard about the challenges of ensuring that young people are not forced out but can afford to live locally with access to jobs and housing, and about the challenges of access to schools, doctors, banks and other public services when there is no longer a critical mass.

Not only does the countryside make up 90% of the UK’s land, as well as being home to millions of people, it contributes over £270 billion to our economy in England alone. As many speakers have observed, our labour market in rural areas has for a long time been constrained by a lack of supply, particularly with regard to certain skills. The supply of financial capital has also been limited by the structure and regulation of financial services. Historically, poor connectivity—both physical transport links and digital infrastructure—have added to the challenges in rural areas. That is why the last Government made it their core mission to level up parts of our country that had been traditionally overlooked, and I was proud to support the previous Administration’s investment in rural communities.

In government, we introduced local skills improvement plans and a new local skills improvement fund to counter rural depopulation. We delivered the £3.6 billion towns fund, boosting investment to create jobs and opportunities across the country and grow the economy. We committed £110 million in extra investment to rural areas as part of the rural England prosperity fund to create jobs across the country. We invested in rural economies by helping farmers with an investment of £2.4 billion a year while EU land-based subsidies were phased out and new schemes were introduced that aimed to work for farmers, food producers and the environment. The farming investment fund will help to improve productivity and efficiency within farming businesses and animal health and welfare in the years to come, and bring forward more environmental benefits.

As well as supporting farmers, ensuring they have access to training to meet the needs of local communities and backing Britain’s farmers, the last Government also made progress in tackling challenges to living in rural areas. I represent some of the most beautiful rural communities in the country—although not as deeply rural as others—so I know the challenges of poor broadband connections, limited public transport and rural crime only too well. Poor broadband connections create huge challenges for youngsters in education, impede rural businesses and put blocks on remote working. There is a long way to go on broadband roll-out but we are making huge progress. The last Government invested £5 billion to roll out and it is expected that by 2025 85% of homes will have high-speed gigabit broadband.

Another huge concern for those I represent in rural communities is public services, particularly public transport and bus services. Limited services prevent youngsters from getting to school, adults from getting to work and elderly people from accessing health services and social activities. The obstacle to commercially sustainable services in some of those communities is obvious, but we cannot leave rural communities cut off and isolated. There is much more to do. The last Government put forward an additional £150 million to local authorities to help them to introduce new routes to unconnected areas or introduce demand-responsive transport services, such as my local Tees Flex service. We also established a new national rural crime unit, delivering our plan to crack down on crime and make our rural communities safe.

Yes, the previous Government invested and made progress in tackling the concerns and challenges facing many rural communities, but there is a lot more to do. I hope the new Administration will continue to look at how we support those communities, maintain investment, mitigate challenges and spread opportunities. The signs so far are not promising. Under the previous Labour Government, rural unemployment doubled in the last year of their Administration; at the general election, Labour’s manifesto barely mentioned rural communities; and barely two months into the new Administration, we hear that Labour is looking to claw back £100 million from the farming budget.

Given today is Back British Farming Day, will the Minister provide some clarity on the Government’s intention for the farming budget? The Government can make a substantial difference to our rural communities through protecting their distinct way of life. In the light of recent proposals to change house-building targets, will the Minister clarify how the Government will listen to rural communities with the new planning framework so those communities have a say in their future? There is much more still to do to support our rural communities. It is vital the new Government continue to work quickly to build on the work of the previous one and develop a vision for the countryside, to spread opportunities to all areas of the United Kingdom.

Illegal Immigration

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) for securing this very important debate. As he says, people are arriving here confident in the belief that they will get to stay, and that must change. The cost to the taxpayer is increasingly beyond scrutiny, and we have yet to see the targets set out by Labour.

I echo the comments of colleagues about the concerns associated with illegal immigration, which are undoubtedly incredibly serious and shared by many of those we represent. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards) talked about the real and horrendous human cost of this issue, as we have seen in recent weeks, which is one of the many reasons we need to work urgently to get a grip on it. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) talked about the bizarre creative accounting put forward by the Government in an effort to defend the scrapping of the deportation deterrent, and the fact that moving the cost from one Department to another will not solve the problem.

The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) made valid observations about the nature of the many people arriving and their motivations. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) asked why it is that people are fleeing from France. He talked about the important need to stop the pull factor that draws people to get into the small boats. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) told us of his learnings about escorts and the issues created by the ECHR, which have been debated many times in this place and will continue to be debated in the coming weeks, months and years. He talked about the concerns that those issues rightly pose for national security.

With the other business going on in the House today, it seems apt to start by looking at the cost of illegal immigration. Asylum accommodation is costing the taxpayer over £8 million a day and now looks set to keep rising. We have seen this Government grant an asylum amnesty to 100,000 arrivals, without any proper costing in their impact assessment. Government is about priorities. This amnesty is seeing the Government pulling up a chair for people who have entered the country illegally, at the same time as turning off the heating for our pensioners.

Journeys by small boat across the channel are illegal, dangerous and unnecessary. They are unfair on those who are in genuine need, and the country’s finite capacity is taken up by people coming into the UK from a place of safety in France. Furthermore, they are unfair on the British public, due to the huge impact that they have on public services. Thanks to the measures brought forward by the last Government, migrant returns in the year from June 2023 to June 2024 rose by a fifth, enforced returns rose by a half, irregular arrivals fell by 26% and there was a 36% reduction in the asylum backlog. Most importantly, the previous Government changed the law so that when people arrived here illegally, they should not have been able to claim asylum in the UK and so they could be returned to their home country or a safe third country.

We need a deterrent to discourage people from paying the criminal gangs of people smugglers who profit at the peril of others; to prevent people from leaving the safe country that is France, on the assumption of a soft-touch approach here in Britain; and to protect our already overburdened public services and housing supply. This Government’s first act on illegal immigration was to scrap that essential deterrent. It is a deterrent that the National Crime Agency says is essential to tackling the issue, a deterrent whose removal the former chief immigration officer says will create open season for small boats, and a deterrent that is now being looked at by 19 EU countries.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the shadow Minister for allowing me to intervene. Does he agree that if the previous Conservative Government had had the political backbone and courage to get that first Rwanda flight off and ignore the ECHR, it might have stopped this?

[Matt Vickers]

The hon. Gentleman has walked through the Lobby with me and has been as frustrated as I have in trying to look for a solution to this problem. With the removal of the deterrent, we are basically doing a U-turn on everything that we have put forward and everything that looked as though it could make a difference. We have seen what is happening in Ireland as a result of it. The deterrent would work. If people can arrive in this country and know that they are never going to be sent back, we are going to have a problem.

Just this week, Germany asked the EU if it could use the accommodation that we—British taxpayers—have built in Rwanda, so that it could send asylum seekers there. It is clear that the Conservative Government were making progress on this issue and that Labour is behind the curve. Labour has wasted taxpayers’ money on scrapping this deterrent, and now the EU wants to copy the UK’s scheme. Usually it is the Labour party that wants to copy the EU. The reality is that the new Government have no plan to stop the boats and nowhere to send asylum seekers who cannot be returned home. Where are they going to return the people from countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Syria? If it is not Rwanda, is it Romford? Is it Richmond? Is it Redcar?

Labour got through this election talking tough and saying that it would smash the gangs, but it is quickly realising that it is not a workable policy. Over 8,000 small boat arrivals have landed in the UK since Labour took office, and it still has not even appointed a head of its new border command. More press releases and warm words simply will not cut it now that Labour is in government. In recent months, most people in this room will have knocked on thousands of doors and heard real concerns from residents about what uncontrolled illegal immigration can mean for their community, the pressure on public services and housing, questions around integration, and the tough choices that have to be made about public spending.

When the Minister gets to her feet, will she finally tell hon. Members when the new Labour Government formally told the Rwandan Government that the Rwanda scheme was scrapped? What advice has she received from the National Crime Agency about the need for a deterrent? How many more small boats will cross before the Government appoint a new border command? Will asylum hotels be reopening in the autumn? Where does she plan to send asylum seekers who cannot be returned home?

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

As a Back Bencher and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on retail, I campaigned alongside retailers and the likes of USDAW to up the ante on protecting retail workers. I know that retail workers welcomed my party’s action on the retail crime action plan, particularly the use of tagging and facial recognition technology. Can the Minister assure us that there will be no let-up in the use of facial recognition and tagging to clamp down on this and other crimes?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the shadow Minister for his question, and I can confirm that we are continuing to look at this issue. We welcome the operational commitments that have been made by the police in the October 2023 retail crime action plan and, indeed, the commitment from police across England and Wales to prioritise attendance where violence has been used towards shop staff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

At Manchester airport this past week we have seen how antisocial behaviour can quickly spiral into serious violence. We have also seen how police officers can become subject to trial by social media with only partial information. The previous Government brought forward the use of force review to give police the clarity and confidence to act in the most challenging of circumstances. Will the right hon. Lady assure the House that she will continue this important work and stand on the side of our brave officers?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I would just say to the shadow Policing Minister that one of the incidents he is referring to is clearly still under consideration by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and it would be wrong for me to make any further comment on that at this time. Of course the police have our backing in the difficult job that they have to do, particularly around antisocial behaviour, and we will of course do what we can to support the police when they need that support.