Oral Answers to Questions

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I am happy, as is my right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for policing, to ensure that we do more of what we are already doing, which is talking to people who have experienced this problem at first hand and therefore gaining more understanding of the issue. This matter has been addressed not only by the Home Affairs Committee but by the Health Committee, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), which has produced a report making exactly that point about young people. It said that children should not be taken to police cells as a place of safety when they have mental health problems.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment she has made of the likelihood of the next migration target being met.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Where we can control migration, our reforms have cut non-EU migration to levels close to those not seen since the 1990s. However, EU immigration has almost doubled to unprecedented levels in the past two years. Many EU migrants are coming to the UK to work because of this Government’s success in rebuilding the economy and creating jobs.

[Nic Dakin]

Does the Home Secretary agree that when the Prime Minister said “no ifs, no buts” about getting net migration down to tens of thousands, he made a promise to the British people that he now appears to have broken?

[Mrs May]

I have been very clear and said publicly that yes, we have been blown off course in respect of our net migration target. I have just indicated that in the figures I mentioned in relation to EU migration. The Prime Minister has set out a number of ways in which we intend to address that particular issue, but it is this Government who have been addressing issues across the immigration system that have led to non-EU immigration coming down to levels close to those of the 1990s.