Syria

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

We are doing a range of things. As a general principle, I am keen that, whether in respect of humanitarian or more traditional forms of economic development, we join up the different programmes that we run—that we join up our maternal health provision with our early years provision and our education provision—and that we build systems as we go. There are many things that we can do to strengthen the healthcare and education systems of those countries in the region that are hosting refugees. I hope that one day we will be able to make similar contributions and give similar technical advice to Syria.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

As a Government, we should resettle the people who are most vulnerable and those with the most complex needs, but the fact is that to go beyond that risks diverting resources from literally thousands of individuals and driving people towards the human traffickers and the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the strategy to support those in the region will allow Syrian refugees to go home safely when it is safe for them to do so?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Yes, and my hon. Friend enables me to make a further point, which is that many of the refugees who are resident in these host countries are not there passively receiving aid, but are actively contributing to those societies. They are running businesses and engaging in economic activity. We need to ensure that people who have been there for many years and may remain for some time have the best possible future. It is right that we in the UK take in those who need additional protections and additional care and support.

Aid Sector: Safeguarding

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. It is good that the message has gone out from this House that we recognise the good work that is done by many people working and volunteering for Oxfam. We can all go into our local Oxfam shop and give them our support at the weekend, and we should do that. We should recognise that our armed forces have already done a lot to raise the standards of peacekeeping troops. We do a huge amount of capacity building. We do a huge amount of work to address gender-based violence and exploitation and to enable people to recover in the aftermath of conflict and war. We have huge expertise and I am very interested in how we can use that expertise. I have spoken to other nations with similar programmes, such as Canada, to see what we can do to help to raise standards. I am open to ideas, but that is the nature of the conversation I will be having with the Defence Secretary.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on taking a firm and robust stance from day one. Some charities may feel that there is a disincentive in the system to being open and transparent because of the need to bid for Government money and to appeal to the generous British public. Does she agree that the reputation of the big charities, as well as their outcomes, depends on being open and transparent, and not having obfuscation and cover-up?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend. If any charity thinks that it is a good idea to put their reputation before their beneficiaries, they need to look at what is happening to Oxfam now. It is also important to set a culture in which people are not afraid to report. Ironically, Oxfam is one of the better organisations for reporting numbers to the Charity Commission. I am also looking at where there are gaps, with organisations not reporting incidents and concerns. Reporting and numbers are not necessarily a bad thing, but it is about the practices surrounding that and what organisations do when they know that something has gone wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady raises an important point about funding and resourcing for such crisis appeals. As I have said, the UK has stepped up and led the way. On my visit to Somalia six weeks ago, we managed to convene more funds—yes, from the UK, but we are getting others to do likewise. We cannot continue to put the debt burden on countries that are struggling, or on a Government who are so new that we have to continue to support them. Of course, we have the Somalia conference coming up very soon.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to tackle famine, hunger and food insecurity in east Africa.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Priti Patel)]

The humanitarian crises facing the world in 2017 are unprecedented. The UK is leading the response and stepping up life-saving support across east Africa.

[Paul Scully]

On a recent visit to Kenya and Uganda with the Select Committee on International Development, I met children who had walked up to 10 km just to get to school and 10 km to get back, many of whom were lucky if they had one meal a day. While we were at the school, we discussed associated educational and developmental issues. What consideration has my right hon. Friend given to supporting food programmes aimed at school-age children?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that, and I am glad that the Select Committee saw the strong work DFID is doing, in partnership, on education in both Kenya and Uganda. We of course provide a range of support, and in our education support and our programme work we look at all aspects of water, food and provision of healthcare, and at how we can support vulnerable households.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

We have, as a Government, been encouraging the procurement of British goods and services. The right hon. Gentleman asks what we can do for local authorities; if people around the country want local authorities that take their best interests to heart, they should vote Conservative.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on invoking article 50 today. Does she agree that this needs to be the end of the phoney war—the end of the posturing we have heard from Members on the Opposition Benches—and that we must now focus on the detail for every industry, sector and community, so that we get a bespoke deal that we can all get behind?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Now is the time for us to come together, and to be united across the House and across the country to ensure that we work for the best possible deal for the United Kingdom, and the best possible future for us all.

Syrian Refugee Crisis

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the First Report of the International Development Committee of Session 2015-16, Syrian refugee crisis, HC 463, and the Government response, HC 902.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. In January last year, the International Development Committee released our first report of this Parliament, which focused on the refugee crisis that has arisen from the conflict in Syria. On 15 March, the Syrian conflict marked its sixth anniversary. The scale of the conflict has been well documented: it is enormous, in terms of both the humanitarian challenge and the number of lives lost. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that since the start of the conflict, 450,000 people have lost their lives. Last year, the United Nations identified 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance, almost half of whom—6 million —are internally displaced in Syria. In January 2017, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there are 4.8 million registered refugees.

I refer to my relevant entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: in 2015, I visited Jordan with Oxfam. A third of Jordan’s population are refugees. When I visited the Zaatari refugee camp alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), we heard the same message repeatedly from the refugees: all they want is the opportunity to return home to a peaceful Syria.

We have seen six years of repeated atrocities. Let me highlight two examples. Last September, the Syrian Government bombed a UN aid convoy, killing 14 aid workers. The convoy had been organised by the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and was carrying food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies destined for families in areas of the country controlled by the opposition. A UN report released earlier this month said that the attack was deliberate, meticulously planned and ruthlessly carried out. Then, of course, there was the long siege of Aleppo, which the same United Nations report called a war crime. It was reported that the Syrian Government and their allies were carrying out attacks on areas packed with civilians while the city faced chronic shortages of food, medicine and fuel. We have seen all those events unfold in real time on our television screens. We saw the shocking image of Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old Syrian boy sitting in the back of an ambulance. We need to work together to bring an end to this conflict as soon as possible.

As with all conflicts, there are many parties acting for good in both Syria and the surrounding region. I want to draw particular attention to and praise the work of the White Helmets—the 3,000 members of the Syria Civil Defence—who work tirelessly to protect civilians caught up in the conflict and are often the first on the scene after bombings. We should also praise the work of the various non-governmental organisations and United Nations missions that deliver aid on the ground in some of the most challenging conditions ever seen.

Our Committee’s report made a number of recommendations to the Government, and principally to the Department for International Development, including on increasing the opportunities for cash-based assistance to the region, identifying and developing opportunities for investment and job creation in Jordan, ensuring that vulnerable refugees outside camps receive appropriate levels of support, and pressing the Lebanese Government to resume the registration process for new refugees. We urged the Government to come to a quick decision on Save the Children’s proposal that 3,000 unaccompanied children from Europe be resettled in this country.

DFID has led the way with its efforts to alleviate the suffering and the ongoing humanitarian crisis that still grips Syria and the surrounding region. The UK plays an active role in encouraging other countries to pledge money and resources to the region. A year ago, in February 2016, the Government hosted the “Supporting Syria and the Region” conference, in which nearly $6 billion was pledged to help the UN co-ordinated appeals. An additional $5.4 billion was pledged up until 2020, bringing the total to more than $11 billion. That was followed up with an event this January, co-hosted by Finland and the United Nations, which launched a further appeal for $8 billion to relieve the humanitarian crisis. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what progress was being made towards achieving that, and what the United Kingdom’s contribution is.

In our report, we made it clear that we welcome DFID’s cash-based assistance efforts in the region and want them developed further. Many refugees exhaust their savings just to get out of the country, and many are heavily in debt. That is exacerbated by the fact that they are often not allowed to work in the country in which they have refuge. Cash-based assistance has proven to be a value-for-money approach to humanitarian assistance. I welcome the fact that DFID has already distributed nearly 1 million vouchers in the region.

Job creation, investment and economic growth are vital factors in ensuring that refugees in the countries around Syria are able to regain a sense of normality when the conflict eventually ends. During the Syria conference in London last year, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon—the main recipient countries of refugees—promised to open up their economies to help generate job growth, for both refugees and, very importantly, their host communities. I want to put on the record that the Jordanian Government and people have responded particularly positively to that. Syrian refugees are now able to apply for work permits in Jordan in sectors of the economy in which Jordanian participation is low— for example, construction, agriculture and other service industries. Those changes have allowed roughly 37,000 Syrian refugees to gain employment in Jordan—up from 4,000 at the time of the London conference. Jordan has also gained preferential access to European Union markets, which will give designated development zones the potential to provide more than 100,000 jobs to both Jordanians and Syrians in the future.

The United Kingdom is the second largest bilateral donor to Syria and the surrounding countries. As a result of the funding that humanitarian organisations have received, we are able to keep refugees close to home, so that when the conflict comes to an end they can return to Syria. Providing basic humanitarian assistance is vital, but it is not enough. There needs to be a sense of hope for a better future.

The UK Government, and DFID in particular, have taken some very positive steps to ensure that the humanitarian situation in Syria and the surrounding countries is well managed and well funded, but there are some areas where our Committee feels DFID could and should do more. In our report, we recommended that the Department make use of the Commonwealth Development Corporation’s expertise in that regard. We believe that the Government already have a good story to tell on job creation and investment, particularly in Jordan, but more could be done to provide sustainable job opportunities for both refugees and host communities if CDC’s expertise were engaged. Legislation has now gone through Parliament to increase significantly the amount of capital available to CDC. I urge the Government to look again at the question of whether CDC can invest in at least some economies in that region, particularly in the run-up to the forthcoming publication of the corporation’s five-year strategy.

Other outstanding issues were addressed in our report. The Syrian conflict has disproportionately affected certain minority groups, especially ethnic and religious minorities and disabled people. The best solution for them is often resettlement in other parts of the world, but for reasons of stigma or fear of persecution, many do not register, so they fall through the net. Only 23% of Syrian refugees live in formal camps, and there are no such camps for them in Lebanon or Egypt. There is the tragic situation in the berm, the area between Jordan and Syria, where a large number of refugees live, in often very desperate circumstances, in a state of limbo, unable to get out.

As the conflict has worn on, more people have sought out support from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I am keen to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing with UNHCR and civil society to ensure that support reaches everyone who needs it, whether they are registered or not. Registration is an important step, but more needs to be done to ensure that all those eligible for resettlement, either here in the UK or elsewhere, are granted it.

On 9 February, The Independent reported that the Home Office wanted a “temporary limit” on requests from people with mobility problems and learning disabilities because of a lack of “suitable reception capacity” for them in the UK. Will the Minister include in his response the Government’s position on the temporary limit, and will he say whether they are planning to lift it? I simply make the point that the most vulnerable are those who need our support the most.

There is also long-standing concern about a policy in Lebanon that has inhibited UNHCR’s ability to register new refugees in that country. DFID has allocated £46 million to UNHCR’s efforts in Lebanon, but I am concerned that the policy may prevent people from accessing basic services. The Lebanese Government say that there are more than 500,000 unregistered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and that more than two thirds of the Syrian children born in Lebanon have not even had their births registered. Will the Minister update us on that Lebanese policy? Is it still in place, and if so, what is the United Kingdom doing to work with the Lebanese Government to make progress, so that, ideally, all refugees in Lebanon are registered?

Last December, the UK Government co-sponsored a UN General Assembly motion that sought to establish an independent mechanism to assist in bringing to justice those responsible for the most serious crimes in Syria. The UK has also worked closely with the French and American Governments on a motion to hold Daesh and the Assad regime to account for their use of chemical weapons. Unfortunately, the motion was vetoed by Russia and China. Will the Minister update the House on that, and in particular on the potential for an independent UN mechanism that would enable us to make progress in bringing to justice all those who have used illegal weapons in Syria?

The UK clearly has an important role to play in diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the Syrian conflict. It is promising to see that the UN-mediated political talks between the Syrian parties resumed in Geneva last month, and the next round is due to take place later this month. There have been calls for the 30 December ceasefire to be strengthened, so will the Minister tell us what role the UK will play in ensuring that the ceasefire holds and that we can make progress through diplomatic means?

The final issue from the report has probably attracted the most attention and public debate, and that is the Save the Children recommendation on 3,000 unaccompanied children. Last year, before the Government had an opportunity to respond to our report, Lord Dubs put forward an amendment to the Immigration Bill that would have legally bound us to resettle 3,000 unaccompanied children from Europe. Ahead of the vote, the Government announced that they would resettle 3,000 vulnerable people from the middle east and north Africa over the course of the Parliament. Those people would not solely be unaccompanied children, but that was nevertheless very welcome.

When the Bill became an Act, it stated that the number of children to be resettled

“shall be determined by the Government”.

By September last year, no child had been brought to the UK as a result of the provision, which is still known as the Dubs amendment. By November, according to what the Home Office’s Minister for Immigration told the International Development Committee, about 140 children had been resettled, including 80 from France. We welcomed the progress. Last month, however, the Government announced that a total of 350 children would be resettled over the course of the Parliament, with 200 already in the UK. The Immigration Minister told the House in a written statement that the 350 number met

“the intention and spirit behind the provision”.

That figure is of course a fraction of the 3,000 proposed by Save the Children, a figure that was based on an estimate of the UK’s fair share of the 30,000 unaccompanied children who had made their way to Europe by 2015—and estimates suggest that the figure has since trebled. The Government can do more to ensure that children who have made the journey to Europe alone are protected. In 2014, an estimated 13,000 unaccompanied children arrived just in Italy, about 4,000 of whom have gone missing. There is real concern that some of those children might have become the victims of people traffickers and been forced into prostitution, child labour or the drugs trade. We cannot stand by while that happens on our doorstep.

Meanwhile, in the past two months, President Trump has signed two executive orders that prevent Syrian refugees from claiming refuge in the United States. The US has a positive and progressive track record of resettling refugees from many conflicts around the world; President Trump has broken with that. He said that European countries had made “a tremendous mistake” by admitting millions of refugees from Syria and other middle eastern “trouble spots”. How can giving people refuge from conflicts that are destroying their country be described by the President of the United States as a mistake? President Trump’s executive order does nothing but further complicate the humanitarian situation in the region. It is vital that the United Kingdom does not follow the Trump Administration’s lead.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Would the hon. Gentleman, like me, welcome clarification of whether the Dubs amendment scheme is in fact closed? There seems to be uncertainty about that. Will the Government welcome any additional contributions offered by local authorities that feel that they may have more capacity in future?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman is a relatively new member of the International Development Committee but already an active and committed one. I thank him for his work on it. I absolutely agree with him. If the Minister could respond to that point, I would be delighted. I agree that it is not entirely clear whether the scheme has been completely closed. I hope that it has not, and that there will be further opportunities for unaccompanied children to be resettled, beyond the 350 to which the Government have already committed.

I am grateful to the Liaison Committee for the opportunity to debate our report and the Government response. I thank fellow members of the International Development Committee for their work—a number of members from all parties are present for the debate—and I put on record my appreciation of the fantastic team of staff who support the work of the Committee. I look forward to listening to all contributions to the debate, which—this is my final point—we are holding in the context of great public and media concern about, and scrutiny of, international aid and development. I and other members of the Committee from different parties have argued consistently that those of us who believe in UK aid, and who defend the 0.7% target and DFID as a stand-alone Department, have a particular responsibility to demonstrate that that aid is being delivered and makes a real difference to the most vulnerable—that we truly have value for money.

In her statement to the House last week on the counter-Daesh strategy, the Secretary of State for International Development said that our work in Syria and the region

“shows Britain at its best and exactly why we have UK aid. It shows not only how the British Government lead across the world, but how we influence security and stabilisation”—[Official Report, 15 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 448.]

in many of these areas. I echo her remarks; she is absolutely right. The investment that this country has made in aid to Syria and its neighbouring countries in recent years is one of the finest examples of how humanitarian aid can make a real difference in a crisis. Our aid is crucial, but it is equally important that we redouble our efforts to find a diplomatic solution, so that the people of Syria can at last have the peace and justice that they deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain]

Of course I welcome that, and it is a point well made. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that there are at least that many unaccompanied children in Europe who are at serious risk. Some have already been exploited and many are at serious risk of exploitation through criminally organised gangs. I believe we have an absolute duty to those children. To say we will accept a very small number is not the right way.

[Paul Scully]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important to address capacity? If people and children can be abused and exploited in a developed, peaceful country such as France, things could happen over here if we do not organise ourselves in the UK. We need to ensure they have the best care, and we can only do that by addressing capacity, which is what the Dubs amendment that was actually agreed and voted on in this House was there to do.

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree that capacity is important. Whether or not we have the capacity is something we could talk about further. I certainly believe we have more capacity than the cap that has been put in place. The hon. Gentleman raised the point earlier that some local authorities are coming forward to say they believe they have more capacity, but he makes a generally valid point. My strong view is that if we do not reverse the cap and address this issue, history will not forgive us.

In conclusion, we broadly support the work that DFID is doing in Syria and the region to resettle and support refugees. The Government are providing a substantial level of funding and ensuring that refugees are properly supported as a result. However, they can put more pressure on our friends and allies to do more, and they need to ensure that countries such as Lebanon are not overwhelmed. We also need to meet our obligation to provide a safe refuge for vulnerable Syrian children fleeing conflict. I hope and am sure that the Minister will address all those points and elaborate further.

Counter-Daesh Update

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. She will be the first to recognise the extent of not only DFID’s work, but the British Government’s combined effort, including our first-class diplomacy, how our military and defence teams come together, and our work on the ground in difficult and challenging parts of the world to deliver humanitarian support and, in particular, protect the lives of civilians. Everyone in the House today would pay tribute not only to those on the frontline and the civilians who see the horrors of Daesh day in, day out, but the aid workers and many others who deliver life-saving and life-changing humanitarian support in country.

Our work shows Britain at its best and exactly why we have UK aid. It shows not only how the British Government lead across the world, but how we influence security and stabilisation in many of the areas that the hon. Lady touched on, and how we can work together, including with the United Nations, to bring about peace and address the atrocities and the horror of the crimes of Daesh and the Assad regime. Much of that work is already under way. There is no doubt that it will take time—the evidence-gathering and investigations could take many years—but the entire House can commend not only the work of everyone on the ground in country, but the important international leadership work of the British Government.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Last year, I met a Yazidi Christian in a refugee camp in Athens who had brought five children, including a 10-year-old boy, over on a dangerous boat trip. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right for the UK to provide general financial support for refugee centres throughout the middle east? That support must continue for humanitarian reasons, so that families such as the one I mentioned do not have to extend their suffering.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is right. As I mentioned, I have visited the region several times, meeting many refugees who have experienced nothing but trauma on their journeys. The whole House should commend the host countries that are doing tremendous work, and I pay particular tribute to the Governments of Jordan and Lebanon for their outstanding contributions. Through last year’s London Syria conference and the forthcoming Brussels conference, we are giving those host countries every ounce of support, in terms of our pledges and our work to ensure that they can support refugee communities in a sustainable way and to help bring peace and stability to the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I want to ensure, through the education system that we provide, that there is a good school place for every child. I am pleased to say that under Conservatives in government, we have seen 1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools. We are looking at the funding formula for schools and listening to the comments that have been made, but everyone across the House will recognise that it has been said for some time now that the existing formula is not transparent or fair. We are looking at a new formula, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that our education policy is about ensuring that every child has the opportunity to go as far as their talents and their hard work enable them to go.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you saw at first hand what a cup run means to a town and a club such as Sutton. With AFC Wimbledon out of the picture, I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will join me in congratulating Sutton United on such a spirited performance on Monday, and in wishing Lincoln City well for keeping the non-league spirit alive in the next round of the FA cup. Finally—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must be heard.

[Paul Scully]

Finally, will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating and thanking Arsenal for their generosity in allowing Sutton to keep a little extra slice of the FA cup pie?

[The Prime Minister]

If I may say so, that was a neat reference to pie at the end of the question.

I am happy to congratulate Sutton on their extremely good run in the FA cup. It makes a huge difference to a local area when its football club is able to progress to that extent, to be up there with the big boys, and to do as well as Sutton did. I am also happy to congratulate Lincoln City—I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln is sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)—on their success. We wish them well for the future.

Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill

Paul Scully Excerpts

Programme motion: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

The focus and priority needs to be on poverty alleviation. At the beginning of my speech, I gave the example of a project we visited—the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) reinforced the point. That project undoubtedly delivered things beyond poverty reduction, but at the heart of that investment and its impact was the reduction of poverty. Keeping the reduction of poverty in mind is a useful lodestar for DFID when it approaches the work of the CDC. I would need some persuading that a project should be funded that did not have some connection to the alleviation and reduction of poverty.

Let me now turn to the issues of scrutiny that were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). The recent NAO report, as was rightly said by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), revealed that the target development impact score is on average being met, but only on average. The CDC is making some investments that fall below the target. Some 23% of investments since 2013 have fallen below the target score based on their investment difficulty and propensity to generate employment. Given that the objective stated in the CDC’s current investment policy is to

“focus its investments into the geographies and sectors where there is the most potential for development impact”,

it is unclear why the CDC is investing in projects that achieve lower scores. So I say to the Minister that, along with a more robust approach to measuring development impact, I would like a minimum threshold for impact implemented in the new investment strategy.

As with all DFID spending—and, indeed, broader aid spending by other Government Departments—the International Development Committee will scrutinise very closely the CDC’s work in the months and years ahead. It is vital that we ensure the British taxpayer gets value for money for every pound spent on international development. As has been said on all sides of the House, the CDC has become more transparent following the Committee’s 2011 report and the NAO report in 2008, but more can still be done to ensure that money is being spent as well as possible. One way that could be achieved—I ask the Minister to explore this—is to allow the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to play a bigger role, for example carrying out a regular assessment of CDC investments, allowing scrutiny so we can really ensure full effectiveness and value for money of the programmes in which the CDC invests.

I think we can say that the CDC has been a world leader among development finance institutions in publishing details of its investments since 2012 under the International Aid Transparency Initiative. That is very welcome, but I suggest it would improve transparency further if it published similar details on its entire active investment portfolio, including those made prior to 2012. I ask the Minister to address that point when he responds to the debate. That would enable greater scrutiny of the CDC’s entire portfolio and hopefully provide assurance to the public that all the CDC investments are focused where they need to be: on the goal of poverty reduction.

In conclusion, I believe that the CDC has helped the UK to be a leader in global development, but as with any area of Government spending we need to ensure that every penny is going where it can have the greatest effect: the right places and the right people delivering value for money for the taxpayer. One way to achieve that is by regular scrutiny of the CDC, including by Parliament. I give a commitment that the International Development Committee will play its role in ensuring that we scrutinise and hold to account both the Department and the CDC as the additional money is allocated. Most importantly, as with all areas of development spending, we need to ensure that the ultimate goal is poverty alleviation and eradication, and that we never lose focus on that.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for your generosity in allowing me to contribute for a short time.

The CDC has a really important discrete role in our international development portfolio. There are few organisations with the skills and abilities to manage such risk in the most difficult markets. Often, it will bring an economic frontier country, area or sector the opportunities leading towards a risk profile that more established and traditional investment vehicles can get involved in. That is to be welcomed. It supports more than 1,200 businesses in more than 70 developing countries to create jobs.

We discussed a number of issues in Committee, including the fact that investments are not necessarily direct. Amendments tabled both in Committee and on Report address whether that serves to divert resources from the least-developed countries. I would say that it is sometimes necessary to invest in opportunities in other countries as long as the outcomes go to the most needy and the least-developed countries. At the end of the day, that is what we are trying to do with our international development effort.

As many Members have said, it is important to concentrate on our core goals and the SDGs. In Committee, the Minister was explicit in saying he did not believe we needed more legislation. The International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 already enshrines in legislation the need to focus on poverty reduction and the SDGs, and they are already enshrined in DFID’s own principles and processes, so I do not believe that we need to have yet more primary legislation.

On the limits referred to in relation to some of the amendments, we have to remember this is effectively an enabling Bill, which is why it is so short. It is not an immediate call to spend. It is not a case of saying, “Here’s £6 billion tomorrow and then we’re going to raise it further the day after.” The Bill simply seeks to bring the CDC in line with other organisations that have similar requests of Departments. In Committee, the Minister said that any requests for money would have to be subject to DFID’s strategy and have to have a robust business plan that was considered fully before any money was handed over. That can easily be done on a departmental level. I totally agree with my colleague and Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). As a new Member, I look forward to being able to scrutinise the work of CDC.

I note that the CDC has changed. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) that some amendments address problems that may not occur or rehearse old problems from before 2010 when the then Secretary of State reorganised the CDC. I do not support amendments on problems that may or may not happen, or have happened in the past but have been largely sorted out. The CDC has moved from pre-2010 looking at low impact, high return investment programmes, to a far more proactive viewpoint to ensure we take into account the SDGs and poverty reduction. I will be scrutinising that along with my colleague the Chair of the Select Committee, but I will not be supporting the amendments, for the reasons I have set out. This can best be done at Department and Committee level through post and pre-decision scrutiny. In conclusion, I look forward to the Bill becoming an Act.

[Stephen Doughty]

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 7 and the other new clauses and amendments in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

It is fantastic to see so great a consensus in the room around the 0.7% aid target and Britain’s role in international development—in contrast, perhaps, to the shriller debate in the media in recent weeks. It might surprise those hon. Members who have criticised my amendments that there is actually much agreement around the role of CDC; I believe it has a vital role to play—I made this clear in Committee, as I am sure the Minister would acknowledge—in the wider portfolio of our international development effort and in the spending of our official development assistance.

I would like to thank my fellow Co-operative party MPs and the shadow Front-Bench team, as well as other Members from across the House, for adding their names to many of my amendments. It shows the level of very reasonable concern around the many unanswered questions concerning the priorities and operations of CDC. Those questions need to be addressed before we can countenance such a large increase in the official development assistance resources it receives from DFID. I am not suggesting that CDC should not get any more resources—it has reached the cap of £1.5 billion set in 1999 and clearly needs some increase and headroom to expand its activities—but it is worth recognising that it has coped well by recycling resources within itself, partly thanks to some of the investment successes it has enjoyed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. Our work with civil society is not only important for the impact that it can have in driving accountability on the ground, as he mentions, but is one way in which we can tackle corruption. It is also vital in changing attitudes towards women and girls, a matter that I care about and that we must make progress on.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

2. What support her Department provides for projects which involve working with young people in the developing world.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

With Africa experiencing unprecedented growth in its young population, DFID has prioritised job creation for young people. That is good not only for young Africans but for Britain, because in the end we are tackling a root cause of migration.

[Paul Scully]

Will my right hon. Friend outline what the impact might be on the number of Syrians trying to reach Europe if aid spending in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and other neighbouring countries hosting Syrian refugees were cut?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises a pertinent question. If the refugee camps that we support in countries around Syria were not funded and were closed, do we think the people there would stay in Syria? They would not; they would almost certainly look to come to Europe. The irony is that parties such as the UK Independence party that want to cut back on aid have, in effect, a pro-migration policy.

Non-EU Citizens: Income Threshold

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 118060 relating to the income threshold for non-EU citizens settling in the UK.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I want first to read out the petition so that people who read the debate in Hansard later can see what we are talking about. It is entitled “Scrap the £35k threshold for non-EU citizens settling in the UK”. It goes on:

“In April (2016) the Home Office and Theresa May are introducing a pay threshold for people to remain here, after already working here for 5 years. This only affects non-EU citizens that earn under £35,000 a year, which unfairly discriminates against charity workers, nurses, students and others.

This ridiculous measure is only going to affect 40,000 people who have already been living and working in the UK for 5 years, contributing to our culture and economy. It will drive more workers from the NHS and people from their families. This empty gesture will barely affect the immigration statistics. It’s a waste of time, money and lives.

This is the first time the UK has discriminated against low-earners. £35k is an unreasonably high threshold. The UK will lose thousands of skilled workers.”

I will now return to using my own words; my own views may be slightly different. I should add that the Select Committee on Home Affairs has considered the issue as part of a wider report on skills, and on how the tier 2 and other visa categories affect skilled workers coming into the country, to which the Government responded in February.

I have been a member of the Petitions Committee since it was set up in May, and the petition before the House is one of a number that have hit the public’s imagination since the e-petition system began. However, from memory, I think this is the first pro-immigration petition to be debated. I have led on one that wanted a stop to all immigration now; and we had a quite interesting discussion about a certain Mr Trump, relating largely to his comments about immigration in the US. This is the first to look at immigration from a positive point of view, and to deal with a specific part of immigration policy. I hope that we will have an interesting debate on how the policy affects people, the contribution that people make when they come to this country and bring their skills here, including economically and culturally, and what we need to do to control mass uncontrolled immigration. I think that there is, largely, consensus that we always need to do more to address that.

I have a few general concerns about the wording of the petition, which are the sort of thing I would say to anyone considering putting something on the e-petition website. Some of the wording was not what I would have chosen—such as referring to a “ridiculous measure” and saying that it

“is only going to affect 40,000 people”.

I think a lot of people who are concerned about immigration will say that 40,000 is effectively just over 10%—about 15%—of the current net migration figure, which is quite a lot. It is quite a high percentage that the Government are looking at, when we are talking about trying to control immigration as a whole.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government cannot apply such a measure to European Union citizens precisely because we are European Union citizens and are consequently prevented from discriminating in the matter of free movement of EU citizens? Does he agree that it would be better, fairer and more just to everyone if we operated migration on the basis of British citizenship, so that we could treat people fairly, wherever they came from?

[Paul Scully]

I very much agree and will speak about that later. I think we are acting with one arm tied behind our back within the structures of our immigration policy.

The petition also calls the policy an “empty gesture”, which

“will barely affect the immigration statistics.”

However, if we are talking about 40,000 people, it will do more than that. I do not think it is a waste of time. The petition says:

“This is the first time the UK has discriminated against low-earners. £35k is an unreasonably high threshold.”

I suspect that the debate will tease out the various types of occupations that may or may not be affected.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Of course, the occupations that will be affected are key to the debate. It will not be possible to recruit nurses, or teachers of science, technology, engineering and maths, from abroad. Gaping holes in those areas will not be filled.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady is second-guessing what I was going to say, because I contend that the shortage occupation list, which is the second part of the tier 2 visa rules, takes that into account. Although the petition goes on about nurses, they are on the shortage occupation list. It also mentions charity workers, who tend to be dealt with on tier 5 visas, for temporary workers; and students, who tend to have tier 4 international student visas. Therefore there are a few factual inaccuracies in the petition, but none the less there are some real concerns within various occupations, and it is right that the people in question should make representations so that we can consider them. We should bear it in mind that the Migration Advisory Committee regularly looks at the list, and it is important that it should continue to do so.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

The economy relies on a wide variety of skills, and not all are paid at similar rates. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a banker in the City will earn much more than, say, a classical musician? The blanket application of one threshold for all industries is inherently unfair.

[Paul Scully]

If that were the case, then yes, it would be, but I think that is where the shortage occupation list comes in. For example, a classical ballet dancer has an exemption of £20,800 and so will not be affected by the £35,000 limit. The threshold is far lower. I cannot say what the market rate is for a classical ballet dancer, but there are such exemptions. That is why it is very important that the Migration Advisory Committee should keep the list under regular close inspection and review, covering such examples as the hon. Lady has mentioned.

Tier 2 is intended for skilled workers. The majority of reasonable people—if we can get past the people who say we should stop all immigration now—would consider immigration to play a positive economic and cultural role in the country. We bring in some fantastic migrant entrepreneurs and, as has been said, nurses, as well as pharmacists and people who work in the cultural industries such as music, dance and the arts. Those people contribute to the UK and the fabric of the country. In some cases they do jobs for which we cannot find the skills in this country, and they can help to train and upskill our own citizens.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

In response to an intervention by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), the hon. Gentleman talked about extending the policy to European Union citizens. Would he allow other European Union member states, where 1.26 million UK citizens live, to do the exact same to UK citizens?

[Paul Scully]

At the end of the day, when we talk about the European Union, we are talking about being able to control our own borders. We are talking about the skilled people we want in this country. My personal view is that I would like the UK to leave the EU, in order to get skilled people from other countries across the world. However, in the context of our debate, the best we can do is look at tackling immigration from outside the EU, work out the skills we need and the various industries that need particular help from outside, and work through the tier 2 visa rules in terms of the threshold and the various exemptions we have talked about.

[Mr Baker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the key point is that the burden of proof lies with those who wish to continue to discriminate against people who are from outside the European Union, in favour of people from the European Union? That is the crucial point. The EU puts us in a position where we are discriminating against non-EU citizens; that should end.

[Paul Scully]

Yes. I have dealt with the curry industry—this may sound slightly random, but bear with me for a second. A lot of people representing that industry complain of the fact that two curry restaurants a week are closing down, out of the 10,000 or so around the country. There are lots of different reasons for that, one of which is that the restaurants are failing to attract skilled chefs. The associations and the trade bodies tell me that the restaurants can hire an unskilled person from another European country; that person can therefore come over here and get a job at the expense of a skilled chef with experience from, say, Bangladesh.

[Carol Monaghan]

In what way would raising the pay threshold to £35,000 alleviate that problem?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

Frankly, it would not, which is why I am not going to make that case. Leaving the EU would mean that we did not have to pinpoint all our immigration policy on tackling immigration from outside the EU, which at the moment is the only lever we have to pull. We cannot do anything about immigration from within the EU because of rules on the free movement of people. People from, say, Bangladesh or India—countries that are going to dominate the world economy for the next few decades—are therefore at an unfair disadvantage to unskilled people from within the EU. I was therefore not going to make that case.

The threshold will apply only to workers in graduate occupations. Given the way our skills and skills agenda have changed over the past few years, more and more occupations are falling into that category. Years ago, nurses did not need a degree, but now they do, as nurses are taking on more and more responsibilities—responsibilities akin to those of doctors, in many cases. They are highly qualified and highly skilled, and rightly so. We certainly need to ensure that we can attract the very best nurses to this country.

Any employer that wants to take someone on under the skilled work category needs to carry out a resident labour market test, in order to prove that the job cannot be filled from within our domestic market. PhD-level jobs are exempt, and as I said, shortage occupation list workers are also exempt.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the domestic market. Would that exclude Ireland, with which we have had a free movement agreement since the early 1920s, and every Irish citizen?

[Paul Scully]

That is an interesting point. All I was saying about leaving the EU is that we would have control of what we do. We have had control of what we do with Ireland for a number of years, well before we were members of the European Union.

The Migration Advisory Committee looked at this issue in December 2015 and recommended a salary cap of about £30,000. It acknowledged:

“The Government’s core objective is to significantly reduce the level of economic migration from outside the EEA.”

The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government’s focus is on training domestic workers. That is the right long-term plan. I talked about curry chefs earlier. I know that the Government have talked about setting up training colleges, apprenticeships and that sort of thing. In the long term, that is absolutely the way to go. The curry industry and a number of other industries have struggled to get to grips with and adapt to the change in Government policy over the past few years. Those industries have been trying to push against the changes, but now that the rules are starting to come in and bite, they have realised that it is too late to make changes that they could have made over a number of years.

Even if the Government do not reverse their policy, I hope that they will be understanding and sympathetic to these industries, working with industry leaders and trade bodies to ensure that, where possible, compromises can be made to help the industries cope. The curry industry that I keep talking about is worth £3.5 billion to the UK economy and employs around 100,000 people. It would be a tragedy to see a UK industry of that level wither on the vine.

Tier 2 has a role to play. When I was campaigning, immigration was certainly the No. 1 issue on the doorstep. It came up time and again. Everybody was saying to me, “You know what? We need a points-based system.” Well, we have one; we have had one since 2008, and the tier 2 visa system forms part of that process. To work out whether someone can get a tier 2 visa, they need to be able to show their income, and information in a number of other categories, and they then get points on the basis of that information.

Several Members here will have received the briefing from the Royal College of Nursing. I know that the threshold is of concern to the RCN, and nurses have already been mentioned today. I am glad that nurses are on the shortage occupation list; that is important, especially when we are trying to recruit more nurses and bring more of them into the national health service. Obviously, it takes time to train nurses, so we have to find them from somewhere. According to the RCN, 3,365 nurses would have been affected if they had not been on that list. The shortage occupation list has to iron out unintended consequences, but it still provides the default position that the UK should supply its own workforce wherever possible. That is the right thing to do.

We must bear in mind that the tier 2 visa system is only one tool in controlling immigration. The Government have done a number of very good things on immigration, such as closing down 920 bogus colleges, slashing 45,000 visas from the further education route, cutting family visas by a third, restricting access to public services through the Immigration Act 2014 and cutting abuses of those services. All those measures have had an effect, but there is still more we can do, and we must do so for the reasons I have given.

There are only a certain number of avenues that the Government can control. The issue of unskilled labour from the EU is not one of them, unfortunately. The UK economy is the biggest pull factor for migration. We have talked a lot in debates in the main Chamber about welfare changes, but ultimately the biggest pull factor for migration is the state of the UK economy—it is the fact that we have had the fastest-growing economy in the western world and have been creating more jobs in the UK than the rest of Europe put together. When there is double-digit unemployment in parts of southern Europe, of course the UK will be an attractive place to come, so we need to do more on immigration.

It is important that we have a good debate. We have to keep on controlling mass immigration, which affects infrastructure and can often affect social cohesion. I hope that the Minister will look kindly on some of the industries and occupations that are struggling to keep up with the pace of change, and at least acknowledge that they need comfort, support and the right words, so that they realise that they are valued in the UK economy and throughout our public services. I look forward to a vibrant debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsten Oswald]

I do. The measures could cause difficulties in many sectors, including the one that my hon. Friend mentions.

This policy seems to be more about portraying an image than the effect that it will have. Even its proponents admit that it will have little, if any, effect on the actual level of immigration to the UK. In its initial report on this topic, the Migration Advisory Committee said that

“it is likely that, to some extent, migrants prevented from staying beyond five years will be replaced by new migrants.”

[Paul Scully]

Does the hon. Lady not consider 40,000 fewer people coming to the UK to be a reasonably significant reduction?

[Kirsten Oswald]

I point the hon. Gentleman to what I said before; there will be churn, with people coming in and out of the UK.

The Migration Advisory Committee went on to say that

“the impact on the UK migrant stock of applying a pay criterion will probably be lower than…estimates suggest.”

Indeed, the Home Office’s own impact assessment talks of the policy potentially leading to a “churn of migrant inflows”.

Many commentators have expressed reservations about applying such a simplistic measure as a single pay benchmark to the granting of settlement. Many of the consultees see the need for greater flexibility than is reflected in the Government’s policy. Perhaps not surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with the Scottish Government, who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said, have criticised the crude use of wage levels, because many essential occupations are not necessarily well paid. In addition, as the Scottish Government and others have pointed out, there are significantly different wage levels across the UK. In most cases, people with the same occupation and the same skill level are paid different amounts in London, for instance, compared with other parts of the UK.

The Migration Advisory Committee report on the impact of the policy highlights the fact that only London has a mean wage for graduate occupations that is higher than the UK average. All other nations and regions are below the average—in some cases considerably so. The spread from the mean graduate wage in London to that in Wales is more than £15,000, and it is difficult to see how a standard wage requirement of £35,000 for tier 2 applicants for residence can meet the needs of all areas. The notion that there is a single UK economy and demography, which can be managed by one-size-fits-all policies, is a fiction that should have been abandoned long ago. Of course, it is possible to construct models and reports that treat the UK as a single economic entity, but that does not make the whole UK the appropriate level at which to apply policy change. It is a long hard struggle to get this House to recognise that.

Since devolution, Scottish Administrations, regardless of party, have highlighted that our demographic experience does not match that of the rest of the UK. No country with which Scotland shares either a land or sea border has seen such low population growth, but as with other issues of particular interest to Scotland, this place has shown a long-term lack of interest in the causes of that relative decline. In 2000, Scotland’s population was lower than it had been in 1970. By contrast, the rest of the UK, Ireland, Norway and Iceland had all experienced significant population growth over that period. The coincidence of a booming oil industry off Scotland’s shores with population stagnation represented gross mismanagement of Scotland’s economic potential. Other parts of the UK, outwith London and the south-east, have experienced similar problems.

It was disappointing to see just how little consideration the Migration Advisory Committee gave to the regional impact of the policy. When we see that the committee contains seven members, none of whom are based north of Birmingham, we perhaps get some idea of their perspective. With three of the committee members either currently working at the London School of Economics or having studied there, it begins to look like a committee with a particular outlook and remit. With the growing level of devolution of economic decision making across the nations, regions and even the cities of the UK, there is no justification for such an influential committee reflecting so narrow a perspective on such a vital topic as immigration policy.

Given the importance of demography, and particularly the impact of work-related migration on the economic future of all parts of the UK, it is vital that a wider perspective is brought to bear on this issue. Perhaps the UK Government will live up to their promise of treating devolved Administrations with respect and put the question of immigration rules and the make-up of the Migration Advisory Committee on the agenda of the Joint Ministerial Committee. I would welcome confirmation from the Minister that he and his colleagues in the Department will consider that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. An ageing population and a declining birth rate have disproportionately affected Scotland and various regions of the United Kingdom. That goes back to my point about immigration policy being designed to placate voters and political parties in parts of the country that do not have such a situation.

Bodies in a number of sectors have expressed a wide range of concerns about the policy. The Government have responded to some extent to the concerns expressed by the Royal College of Nursing and others about the impact on the health service, but my understanding is that the proposal to put nursing into a skills shortage category will be temporary, with no guarantees about what might happen in future.

We have heard about the impact on other sectors that rely on special skills but do not necessarily pay above the £35,000 threshold. My background is in the international development charitable sector. People come to that sector with a whole range of skills and experiences, but £35,000 is a pretty high salary in such a field.

We have heard quite a bit about the catering industry. I was reminded of a video that was doing the rounds on social media at the weekend: the famous Rowan Atkinson sketch from the 1980s in which he speaks as a Conservative politician saying, “Well, you know, we welcome these people from different parts of the world, and they brought us exotic cuisine such as curry, but now that we’ve learnt the recipe, there is no real need for any more of them.” That was supposed to be satire, yet here we are hearing exactly that sort of sentiment expressed by today’s Tory Government.

I have just come from the all-party group on music’s live music briefing. Our creative sectors benefit hugely from people being able to come into the country to share their expertise, drawing on our rich cultural heritage and bringing their own. Again, £35,000 is a significant salary in those sectors, especially in the early years of work. My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) made a point about churn in such sectors. As a result of the policy, people might come for five or six years and then have to leave, only to try to come back 12 or 18 months down the line.

[Paul Scully]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that whether it is in the catering industry, the music industry or any other industry, the Government’s default position on lower-paid jobs should be to train our own people first, and then to attract the skills we need beyond that?

[Patrick Grady]

Yes, but those things need not be contradictory. People can come here with specific skills, and learn, develop and share their skills in different ways. The system will allow people to be here for five or six years precisely to develop professional skills and, hopefully, work their way up the ladder, but if they do not meet the arbitrary threshold they will face having to leave the country, forcing potential employers to start again, ultimately with more cost. The Government’s paper on the issue, signed on 14 March 2012 by the Minister who was responsible at the time, states that there will be a reduction

“in economic output—estimated at £181m to £575m over 10 years”.

Even the Government’s own estimate is that the policy will have a negative impact on the economy, but clearly they believe it is a price worth paying to hit their arbitrary target.

The impact on the economy, society and culture as a whole is important, but so is the impact on individuals. I suspect that all of us—certainly all SNP Members—have had constituents in similar circumstances. If they are not directly affected by the income threshold, they are certainly victims of other pernicious aspects of the UK Government’s immigration policy.

The first time I was drawn to ask a question in Prime Minister’s questions—in fact, the only time—I raised the case of my constituent Steve Forman. I do not expect the Minister to have the details in front of him, but Dr Forman is a highly skilled musician, percussionist and teacher at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He did not meet a particular income threshold, so he was being forced out of the country. He was not costing the taxpayer a penny. He was earning an income on which he was paying tax. He has access to a private income from his considerable years of work and experience around the world. He was a musician for David Bowie, among many of his contributions, yet the Home Office saw fit to try to deport him. That is what is costing the taxpayer money. A fortune is being spent on appeals, tribunals and further legal processes. My constituent could have been allowed to stay in the country. He is still here, but with a massive question mark over his appeal, which seems to be snarled up. I do not expect an immediate response from the Minister, but a letter telling us where we are with his case would be much appreciated. That is but one of the many examples that come to our surgeries daily.

Immigration is essential to the strength of our economy and greatly adds to the social and cultural fabric of the country. This proposal is, sadly, one more aspect of an ideologically driven Tory policy that is all about pulling up the drawbridge irrespective of the needs of the economy and society across the United Kingdom. When I raised the case of my constituent at Prime Minister’s questions, I said that if the UK Government did not want to introduce an immigration policy suitable to Scotland’s needs, they could devolve immigration powers to Scotland and let us develop a policy that would work in Scotland’s interests.

Our vision is of a fair and sensible system of managed migration, with a measured strategy to make the most of the huge benefits that immigration can bring to the UK and Scotland. That stands in stark contrast with the Conservative approach. I have no doubt that we on the SNP Benches will continue to stand up for that, whether in Westminster Hall or during discussion of legislation on the Floor of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I agree that this country has benefited significantly from immigration, in labour markets and in every other aspect of life. It is true that a significant level of net migration comes from the EU —172,000 people in the year ending September 2015. However, what is often not said—I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe is not in his place at the moment, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam will pass this on—is that an even larger amount, 191,000, is the result of non-EU net migration. The Office for National Statistics estimated that there were 67,000 non-EU long-term immigrants for work, an increase of 2% compared with the previous 12 months.

[Paul Scully]

Just as a full stop on the European point, we have talked a little about the fact that the threshold may apply to European citizens. If we left the EU, the threshold might not apply in quite the same way, because we would have greater flexibility within our immigration policy.

[Richard Harrington]

I do not think anyone could dispute that we would certainly have greater flexibility if we were not in the EU, but many of us would argue that the benefits of being in the EU are so significant that that would be a small point. For the record, that includes me; I totally agree with that view.

It should also be placed on record that numbers of those using tier 2, the skilled work route, have increased by 35% since 2010. Even if we were not experiencing high levels of migration from the EU, I argue that we would still need to reform the rules leading to such large population flows into the UK. I have dealt as much as I can in this debate with the EU issue. I have certainly given the Government’s view, which—luckily for me —coincides with my personal view on these matters.

In the past, it has been too easy for some employers to choose to bring in workers from overseas rather than invest in training for our existing workforce. On average, employers in the UK underinvest in training compared with those in other countries, with a marked decline over the past 20 years. In an increasingly global economy, it is not surprising that many skilled workers come to the UK for a short time to fill a temporary skills gap, or perhaps to experience work in another country, but—this is an important point—reducing migration is not just about reducing the numbers coming here. It is also about being more selective in who we allow to settle permanently. In 2015, some 44%, or nearly half, of all migrants granted settlement in the UK—

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

We have had a good and constructive debate, and I think that we all agree on the benefits, both economic and cultural, of immigration. I am the son of an immigrant. My father moved to England from Glasgow, where he completed his apprenticeship on the docks, but he was born in Burma. I have therefore seen the good side of immigration, but mass uncontrolled immigration, when it affects infrastructure and social cohesion in some areas, needs to be tackled. It is important that we see the tier 2 visa situation as one of a range of elements in the Government’s armoury for tackling that.

I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. Very interesting points have been made, and I know that the Minister will take away hon. Members’ reflections, especially those of Scottish National party Members, who have taken time out to make their points eloquently. I pay tribute to the petitioners themselves, who encouraged so many people to sign a petition about which they feel so strongly, and also to those people on Facebook—mentioned by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald)—who engaged with the process that we, as the Petitions Committee, started in the lead-up to the debate, so that we could hear directly from people who believed that they might be affected by the policy, or had concerns about it. Their points have definitely been listened to and taken on board.

I am sure that the debate will run and run. When we talk about petitions, we always say that they are the start of a process, the start of a campaign and the start of raising a profile. They should not be seen as a full stop, as a final move. I am glad to have been able to put people’s voices across today, and I thank everyone who has contributed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 118060 relating to the income threshold for non-EU citizens settling in the UK.

Immigration

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

Mr Speaker has agreed that for this debate, members of the public may use handheld electronic devices in the Public Gallery provided that they are silent. Photos, however, must not be taken.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to immigration.

It is a privilege, an honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Percy. Given the petition before us, the members of the Petitions Committee wanted to ensure that we addressed immigration fully, despite the fact that we have already had a number of immigration debates in the House—not least last week, on Second Reading of the Immigration Bill, which allows us to go further in tackling mass uncontrolled immigration. As a Committee, we thought it important that, although some of the petition’s wording was not quite what many Members would support, we did not just brush these issues under the carpet. We must tackle immigration in a responsible way, in a full and frank debate, to ensure that we can get the resolution and result that we all want: measured, controlled immigration.

This is a really serious issue. We wanted to ensure that we reflected the concerns of the population as a whole. I know from going around my constituency of Sutton and Cheam that immigration probably became the No. 1 issue during the election campaign—its last month in particular. That is reflected in opinion polls. It was Ipsos MORI, I believe, that recently came up with immigration as the No. 1 issue for people at the moment.

There are a number of areas in the petition, and I will take them in turn. One point is that there is a belief among the 198,000 who have signed the petition to date that many people are trying to convert the UK into a Muslim country. I do not particularly subscribe to that view. I can understand people’s fears given some of the headlines in the tabloid press and some of the comments on Twitter, Facebook and other parts of the internet, but we need to look at the situation as a whole.

Given such headlines and the reality of what is happening in places such as Syria and Iraq, and that we see people from the UK travelling to Syria to join ISIS, it is not surprising—indeed, it is very welcome—that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has come up with his statement on countering extremism. We are looking at taking tougher action against individuals. We are going to ensure that there can be extremism disruption orders on individuals who foment and preach hatred and encourage people to decide to remove themselves from their families and travel to those foreign areas to fight alongside people who, frankly, have a disgusting doctrine and no sense of respect for human life at all.

There is tougher action on premises as well: any premises that are hosting such extremism can be closed down. We are giving Ofcom more powers so that it will be able to close down TV and radio stations that are repeating those sorts of messages. We are reviewing schools and other public institutions—colleges and the like—where radicalism and extremism might be fomented. It is also important, and I welcome the fact, that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is having a review of sharia law in the UK. That review is a very important cornerstone of our counter-extremism policy.

I can understand people’s views in certain parts of the country where multiculturalism may have failed and stalled somewhat, sometimes because of the fact that so many people are coming into one area. We can look at Tower Hamlets and parts of the north, for example, where extreme groups have actually built up no-go areas for white British people. It was quickly stamped down on in Tower Hamlets, which was welcome. Vigilante gangs were walking around that area picking on people just minding their own business. That sort of thing has no business in the UK at all. However, only a tiny minority of people are committing such actions. We need to do more to stamp such behaviour out, hence the counter-extremism.

I will give one quick example of where community cohesion slightly breaks down, on a small scale, in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam. In the lead-up to my election, there was a controversial planning application for a small mosque on Green Lane in Worcester Park. I objected to it, as did a number of people, purely and simply because it was in totally the wrong place. There was no parking around and it would have been on a really busy junction that was already at capacity. It was rejected by the planning committee for that reason. However, it was conflated into anti-Muslim feeling among a few people around that area; the two issues got conflated.

There is an Ahmadiyya mosque nearby, in Morden. It is the biggest mosque in Europe; about 15,000 people worship there. A lot of residents in Worcester Park who do not particularly know the ins and outs of Islam thought, “Why do you want this small mosque on the corner of Green Lane? Why can’t people go to the massive mosque round the corner?” They did not understand that Ahmadis are one group that actually unites the Sunnis and the Shi’as, who both dismiss Ahmadi Muslims as not being of the faith, as apostate. Sending Sunnis and Shi’as to that mosque would be like sending someone from the Church of England faith to a Mormon church, frankly, given the different doctrine that they perceive the Ahmadis to have, even though in many cases that is just not the reality at all.

The mosque in Morden recently suffered a fire, which destroyed a lot of its administration offices—back offices. Fortunately, the mosque itself was not damaged. It happened on the day after Eid; if it had been the day of Eid, there would have been 10,000 to 15,000 people in the building. As it happened, there were, I think, 10—there were no injuries and certainly no fatalities. However, 70 firefighters put out that fire.

The police and a number of community leaders organised a number of community events to try to calm the situation down, because it was not clear at the beginning whether it was a race hate or religious hate crime. We believe that, fortunately, it was not such a crime. It was a couple of teenagers, one of whom has been given bail and is coming back in the new year; we are hoping that it was nothing quite as sinister. None the less, the fact that people had to go round the community and set people’s minds at rest shows the unease that there is sometimes and the awkwardness when it comes to keeping a cohesive community.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

We also had an incident just before the election in my constituency, where stickers appeared on lampposts—I gather that this happened nationwide—saying “Voting is shirk”, implying that Muslim people should not vote. My religious community quickly took those down, so that was not representative. Again, it is a small group, trying to stir up trouble.

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example. As she rightly says, situations around the country are sometimes exacerbated by a breakdown of community cohesion but are in no way reflective of the population, whether the Muslim or the indigenous British population —the Church of England population. Actually, I will correct myself. It is really important that, in describing the Muslim population, we do not bring together religion and ethnicity or race, because Muslims are not limited to Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Arabs. There are a number of British-born Muslims. There are a number of people who have converted. There are a number of American Muslims and African Muslims. Muslims are represented in countries right across the world. It is important that we make that distinction even though, as I have demonstrated, it is easy to bring the two together by accident.

To return to my example, the final piece of the jigsaw in Worcester Park was a third group of Ismaili Muslims who bought a pub, not far from the controversial planning application site, called the Worcester Park Tavern, where they wanted to build a community centre. There were some issues surrounding the proposal—purely from a planning perspective, to do with things such as parking and traffic. However, because of the other two mosques, a lot of people in Worcester Park were whipped up—I felt that there was a bit of an undercurrent—into opposing the application because they were anti any Muslim group taking over the pub. In reality, however, Ismaili Muslims do not pray in the same way, and a number of them drink alcohol; they are a very different group.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman intend during his allotted time to refer to the majority of immigrants to the United Kingdom who are not Muslims? Does he intend to use the opportunity to talk about the positive benefits that migration gives and will continue to give to the United Kingdom, rather than playing into the hands of the xenophobes by constantly talking about the problems caused in some communities?

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely I do. I am trying to set the scene by reflecting some of the concerns, which are the reason why 198,000 people have felt the need to sign a petition. We must bear in mind that the reference to Muslims is only one part of the petition; there are references to a number of concerns about immigration, such as benefits. I will come to those, but first I will finish describing the example that I was giving.

The Ismailis in the area decided not to take that planning application any further because they felt that if they were not wanted in that area, they would go somewhere else. That is to the detriment of Worcester Park, because the members of the Ismaili community around the area, whom I know personally, play a positive role in society. They are successful businessmen, and successful in their various other fields. They play an active role in their communities through charity and philanthropic work, and they have fantastic support networks.

To pick up on what the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) said, that is the case for so many people who follow the Muslim faith in this country. Their religion dictates that they should be charitable and philanthropic, and that they should look out for people more vulnerable than themselves. Looking wider than that, many immigrants, especially from the Arab world and Asia, share the values to do with the importance and benefit of a fantastic education, the need for hard work, the need to succeed and look after their families, and the need to build up support networks. I absolutely echo what the hon. Gentleman has said. Immigrants from a number of different backgrounds play a hugely positive role—not only economically, but culturally—here in the UK.

I want to cover the statement in the petition:

“Foreign citizens are taking all our benefits, costing the government millions!”

There is no doubt that a number of people who have come into the country claim benefits—either out-of-work benefits or, more likely, in-work benefits. People tend to come to this country to get on; they do not come for the fun of it. They do not move halfway across the world simply to do nothing in the UK. Often, they want to take a job, look after their families and make the most of the opportunities that the UK has to offer.

In the UK, immigrants from within the EU often get the same level of benefits as they would in their home countries, although that is something that we, as a Government, are trying to change. To most people from outside the EU, we do not make available recourse to public funds, and rightly so. Since April this year, we have introduced an NHS surcharge of £200 for each year of an immigrant’s visa, because NHS tourism becomes less likely if people understand that there is a cost attached to coming over here for healthcare.

Those facts do not stop people holding the view, which I have heard from some of those I have spoken to on the doorstep, that many immigrants come into the country just to claim benefits. They do not want to work; they just want to claim benefits. Sometimes, the same people also told me, “They are taking all our jobs.” It is a kind of Schrödinger’s immigrant, and we cannot have it both ways; there cannot be lazy people taking all our jobs. I do not know whether hon. Members saw the viral spoof Donald Trump quote the other day:

“I’m sorry Clinton, but my ancestors didn’t make their way to this great country to have immigrants come in and take their jobs!!!”

Although that quote was a spoof, it reflects some of the arguments that we hear around the country, which is why it is incumbent on us as politicians to make the case that some immigration is very good for the country, both economically and culturally, but that we need to address mass, uncontrolled immigration full on.

I have met, as I am sure have many of my colleagues in the Chamber, people in the construction industry and the trades—carpenters, plumbers, electricians—who find the situation incredibly difficult because they feel that they are being undercut by European workers or workers from further afield. I absolutely understand their concerns, but we must also understand that we, as people who use those trades, take such workers on. I have employed a Polish plasterer, and I know colleagues who have used Romanian builders. Why do we do so? Because they are cheap. If their work is good and they can undercut the market, that represents open competition, which I absolutely subscribe to as a free-market Conservative.

One thing that drives people to the UK is the fact that we have the fastest growing economy in the developed world and in Europe. Yorkshire created more jobs than France last year, and the UK has created more jobs over the past few years than the whole of Europe. While our economy is doing okay—better than it has been over the past few years—and there is double-digit unemployment in several southern European countries, it is no surprise that people are attracted by the UK and that they come here to better their lives and those of their families.

There are two ways to tackle that. Either we can tank our economy—I do not believe that anyone here would subscribe to that solution—or we can make our immigration policy less attractive to unskilled economic migrants or people with skills that we do not particularly want to attract. That will allow us to concentrate on attracting the very best skilled workers and migrant entrepreneurs to the country.

The final point that I will cover from the petition is the mention of footage showing foreigners desecrating British soldiers’ graves. I am not sure why that was put in the petition. There is some footage showing people kicking over the graves of a number of soldiers, not all of them British, in Benghazi, Libya, two or three years ago. It is a shame that, because we sometimes shy away from talking fully and frankly about immigration, such issues can be conflated into what amounts, often, to a non-sequitur. It is important that we concentrate on the policies that the Government are introducing and those that we need to go further and introduce.

My own background is one of the big drivers for me when I think about immigration. As many Members know, my father was born in Rangoon in Burma. My grandfather worked as a port commissioner and was in charge of scuttling the docks in Rangoon before the Japanese came in. During that time, my grandmother and my two aunts were refugees at a camp in India and, by chance, they managed to find my grandfather in a fort in India.

My father came over here when he was 18. He finished his apprenticeship on the Glasgow docks. The docks, either in Rangoon or in Glasgow, gave him the welcoming present of asbestos inhalation, which unfortunately killed him 25 years ago. None the less, when my father came here, he made a real success of himself. He came with no money but with a great education from a Jesuit school in Amritsar. He worked incredibly hard, instilling in me the importance of a good education, and the need for hard work and family, which set me in good stead. When I look at my Burmese family, I see the support network that they have built around them. They do not look to the state to look after their own. My grandmother was a real matriarch and looked after a number of our extended family well into their old age. We can spread those values across the nation and we must herald some of the values that they hold dear.

I mentioned the fact that immigration is good because many of those people do jobs that others simply do not want to do. Of the NHS, 11% is staffed by people from abroad and 26% of NHS doctors are from abroad. The curry industry is an amazing industry that most people like, whether they are British or first-generation immigrants to the country. A lot of people enjoy their curry. I had tandoori chicken, which was served up by the café in Parliament, a little earlier on. It is our national dish. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) has some strong views on that, as do I as Chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the British curry catering industry. I have that role because the curry catering industry is a massive industry for the country, although it is struggling at the moment, partly because of some unintended consequences of our immigration policy, which we will perhaps hear more about later. I mentioned that there are jobs that people do not want to do. We have an ageing population so we need to bring people in. We need skilled people to come in to do those jobs so that we can create the wealth that helps to pay for pensions, freedom passes, our health service and all the services that older, retired people rely on, as we all do.

I will give one example of a migrant entrepreneur. A friend of mine and the Minister—a chap called Atul Pathak—came over here when he was young with very little money. He worked hard day in, day out in Southall on some pretty arduous jobs. Over the past few years he has gone from the ground floor of the hospitality industry to becoming McDonald’s largest franchisee, running 26 restaurants around London and turning over £50 million. He employs 2,000 people and has given 450 of those the opportunity to gain GCSEs in English and maths. He has provided a number of apprenticeships and some of his staff now have degrees in hospitality. He has helped to bring on thousands of people to follow something that was a job through to being a really satisfying career. He is a fantastic example and does a huge amount of charitable work. A lot of entrepreneurs who have come here from other countries come with a slightly different philanthropic view from ours as businesspeople in the United Kingdom. They are far more active in the charity environment. It is really important that we learn those lessons and share them.

I have talked about the fact that immigration is good for culture, which is important, but let me turn for a second to the fact that mass, uncontrolled immigration is bad. There are tensions when too many people come into the country, like the 2.5 million people—twice the population of Birmingham—who came in under the last Labour Government. That provided a big shock to our infrastructure, including to hospital beds, school places and housing, which are all issues that we are now having to tackle. There are various community tensions in certain areas—I mentioned Tower Hamlets and other towns—so we need to control numbers.

I am pleased that the policy of the previous Government, which we are carrying on now, has started to address the issue. It is like turning an ocean liner around: it cannot all be done particularly quickly. None the less, we have been slashing student fraud. We have struck off nearly 900 bogus colleges and made access to welfare and housing tougher, but there is plenty more to do. I am glad that the Immigration Bill will make it far harder for illegal immigrants to work and access public services, and far easier for us to remove people who should not be here.

The one area in which we need to go further is the European Union. The Prime Minister is trying his hardest to renegotiate a number of terms with the EU, especially regarding freedom of movement. My opinion is that we need to leave the EU. That would ultimately give us far more flexibility to control our own borders, which are strong. Bear in mind the fact that we have the channel; there is sea between us and the rest of Europe. There are tensions in the some of the central and eastern European countries, where we hear about border issues every day. We have a sea and a strong border, which we could do something about if we had the policies in place to do so. Leaving the EU would give us more flexibility to control our borders and tackle some of the unintended consequences of immigration from outside the EU. Things such as the curry industry—bringing curry chefs over—might benefit.

In conclusion, I want quickly to talk about refugees because we are in the middle of a full-blown crisis. We do not want to go back to the position of the early 2000s, when all the talk about immigration was of bogus asylum seekers. We need a situation where we can have strong borders, bring in the people we want and also fulfil our moral obligation—we have a rich history in this—of bringing in the refugees who are most in fear of their lives, so that they feel welcome.

We must have a welcoming environment for legal migrants and refugees, and a hostile environment for illegal immigrants. That needs to be distinct so we do not conflate two issues, but it is a difficult situation to turn around. I fully support the Government’s plans for immigration and the Immigration Bill. Now that we have a majority Conservative Government, we can do things that we could not necessarily do under a coalition Government. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how immigration policy will develop over the next couple of years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Lady is right. I make it clear that I do not consider people who are concerned about immigration, or who object to it, to be bigots, but I have a problem with the petition. Some of the people who contacted me had a legitimate right—they were not constituents, by and large—to say that they did not like what they had read in the press, whether or not it was what I had actually said. I understand that. The vile nature of some of the other people’s comments probably justifies what I said about them—in fact, what I said about them was probably mild compared with what I read from them.

I will pick up on what a couple of people said. A Mr David Harrington, who I understand owns or works for PressLine, a marketing consultancy, extended my criticism to say that I had accused all signatories of being of a racist tendency, which is quite worrying if he runs a marketing consultancy. That may have been what Mr Harrington heard, but never did I say it. The danger of petitions that deliberately set out to pander to people’s fears is that people end up reading things that are not there and hearing things that have never been said.

Mr Harrington, a bit like the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, advised me that it was Labour that had opened the floodgates to mass migration. Members may not be surprised to hear that I do not entirely share that view, but people have legitimate concerns. We all know that there is pressure on some of our services at the moment and that people fear such pressure. There is pressure on health services and on access to school places. Certainly as far as European migration is concerned, I have more faith in the Prime Minister than it appears the hon. Gentleman has, because I do not want to plan to leave the European Union; I want the Prime Minister to succeed in his negotiations. I hope that one of the things the Prime Minister will seriously consider trying to negotiate is a migration fund so that, where we have a significant influx of people into a particular part of the country from Europe, we can draw on it if the influx is putting pressure on our services. That would be a welcome and useful proposal, as has been made clear in my extensive consultations with my constituents on immigration.

There is clearly an issue in relation to the benefits system. The vast majority of immigrants come to work, so we should not be entirely concerned when the petition says that foreigners are “taking all our benefits”, but it is reasonable to ask questions about benefits. For example, most people would recognise that it is absurd that people who do not have children resident in this country are able to claim child benefit. That is a reasonable point. I am not sure that I support the idea of transferable benefits. It is probably also legitimate to say that there should be a reasonable qualifying period for accessing benefits.

The hon. Gentleman drew on the example of curry shops. The balti business is very big in the Birmingham area. The issue is not about whether one should have to bring over a chef from the Indian subcontinent in this day and age. It would be better to put a bit more support and funding into our sixth form colleges and further education colleges so that they are not at risk of collapsing. If we cannot train people as balti chefs and curry chefs in this day and age, there is something badly wrong with our skills training in this country.

I recommend to the hon. Gentleman that, as was Labour policy at the last election—the Chancellor is now keen on some bits of Labour policy—where an employer asks for a visa to bring someone into this country because they argue that they genuinely cannot fill the skills gap, and where it is practical to create an apprenticeship, we should say, “You can have the visa, provided that there is an apprenticeship to train someone from here for the future.” That would be a useful and practical way of addressing that particular problem.

The Government’s targets need a bit of realism. I liked a lot of what the hon. Gentleman was trying to say—he was trying to be fairly balanced—but then I heard him say, “Oh, the last Labour Government let 2.5 million people into the country.” Where has that figure come from? How many of those people are permanent residents of the UK? How many of them does he know anything about? The reality is that that figure has been conjured up for propaganda purposes, just as the Government’s target to reduce immigration is now becoming a straitjacket for the Home Secretary. It would probably be better if the Government were to set out clear principles for the areas of concern on immigration so that people across the country can work together. That would be more fruitful than setting unachievable targets that lead to further disillusionment, which would be a mistake.

Of course, including refugees in the target, thereby confusing refugees with conventional economic migrants, is a dreadful mistake. I hope the Minister, who is responsible for refugees, will take advantage of this debate to tell us a bit more about what is happening with the Syrian refugees. How many orphaned and abandoned children can we reasonably expect to have been resettled in this country come Christmas? An answer to that question would be helpful, and it would also be helpful if he made it clear that he sees a clear distinction between refugees and economic migrants and that he is willing to consider not mixing the two in the numbers.

It is preposterous that this country wants to make it hard for high-value students to come to our universities. I do not know why we should discourage people who pay good money to come to our universities, and who help to subsidise our own students. Such students will not stop going to university; they will just go to Australia, Canada or the United States. The losers will be our universities and research programmes. It is a dreadful mistake to include students in our immigration targets, and the Minister will have no difficulty getting support from the Labour party, and maybe from other Opposition parties, if he were to come clean and make that distinction. Students are not coming here to settle permanently. They are people who come here for a time-limited period and who we actually want to come here.

This petition is misleading in a number of ways. It ignores the fact that the number of permanent visas being awarded is currently down by about 15%; it ignores the fact that many of our most welcome immigrants come on fixed five-year work permits; and it does not take account of what they come to do or where they come from. We are talking about doctors, nurses, scientists, social care workers, digital engineers—the very people the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam wants to come here to help, support and invigorate businesses, and to start businesses—and they are coming from places such as India, Australia, the USA, the Philippines, Canada and New Zealand. They are the main countries that we are taking immigrants from at present, which is hardly the picture conjured up by this particular petition.

Of course, the petition also ignores what the impact would be on our agriculture and hospitality sectors, for example, if we were to end immigration immediately. The effect would be to close down those sectors. I do not know whether the person responsible for originating this petition thought about the implications of that, or whether the 190,000 or so people who were so keen to sign it have considered that, but I understand that closing our borders would mean that it would be quite difficult to leave the country as well as to enter it. As I have said, I have no problem with discussing and debating immigration. There are immigration issues that we should tackle. There are some where we could find quite a bit of cross-party consensus. However, I for one have no desire to have to go around telling my constituents, “I’m sorry. You’re not going on holiday after all this year, because we have decided to support a petition that says we are going to close our borders.” I do not think that things have got quite that bad in the UK.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue. There is a persuasive argument, I say to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, to consider whether we should issue further guidelines on the wording of petitions. That might be helpful. That is no criticism of the hon. Gentleman or his Committee but there may be times when the current e-petition situation has unintended consequences.

Is it not reasonable to ask that we be given a bit more information about the person originating the petition? It is probably fair to know who they are, where they live, whether they are a registered British voter, for example, whether they have any party political association or any history in relation to a particular subject. It would not be unreasonable to know that. The idea of the e-petition system, of course, was to give a voice to the public and to ensure that we in this place did not ignore issues that matter.

[Paul Scully]

I will quickly answer that point. As the hon. Gentleman said, the Petitions Committee is a new Committee and we are developing and looking at reviewing our processes as we go through. This is the third debate that has arisen from an e-petition and we will always continue to review the system. We certainly know the people who are signing the petition, because we are in contact with them and informing them about the result of their signing the petition, whether it is just a Government response, whether we will have a debate such as this one or whether there will be some other action.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful for that intervention. My point is that we should know, not just the Petitions Committee. Indeed, all the other people who might be tempted to sign a petition should perhaps know in advance, as well. That would be quite useful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry if I am not making the point clearly enough, but by conducting the debate on the terms of UKIP and those even more extreme than UKIP, it allows people like the gentleman who started the petition to believe that they are in the ascendancy and on the front foot. I do not know anybody—it is certainly not the policy of the SNP—who thinks there should be utterly open, uncontrolled immigration into Scotland, and I would not imagine that any UK parties would want the same for England. One of the big problems is how the controls are defined. For example, the salary control prevents qualified nurses from getting into the country. How ridiculous is that? It has been pointed out that the controls that were set up supposedly to stop bogus students coming in to go to bogus universities seriously affected the financial viability of some of our great and most ancient seats of learning.

To finish the comments I was making on my links to immigration, my Auntie Mary was born in Scotland. She was an immigrant. My wee brother and wee sister were born in Scotland, and they are immigrants, because one lives in Ireland and one lives in Germany. Why is it that, as part of the demonisation process that is so built in that we do not even recognise it, when other people come here they are immigrants, but when we go there we insist on becoming expats? Some of the biggest and most concentrated immigrant communities that can be found anywhere are of British immigrants in parts of southern Spain, Portugal and France. If we allow the debate to be carried out in the terms expressed in the petition, we are inviting the far right and other countries to demonise and discriminate against British citizens in exactly the same way as some people would want us to discriminate against the citizens of other countries.

Among the other great disservices of the past few weeks is what I can only assume is a deliberate strategy of conflating the humanitarian refugee crisis with controls or lack of controls over immigration. Those are two completely different issues. We are not required to take Syrian refugees or refugees from anywhere else because of our membership of the EU. That is not affected by our signing up or not signing up to Schengen or anything else. A fundamental requirement of international law is that we give proper succour to refugees if they come in fear for their lives. We allowed the Home Secretary to make a statement about the Syrian refugee crisis headed, “Immigration”, which was an utterly shocking piece of bad naming, misrepresenting the true situation in the Mediterranean. Where people want to come here because they are in fear for their lives, that is not immigration. I fully agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that it is utterly and totally wrong to include hopefully short-term or temporary succour to refugees in an immigration figure.

[Paul Scully]

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Government’s approach to the Syrian refugee crisis, which concentrates our help on the camps and taking people from there, directly helps refugees? Taking more people who are landing on these shores by crossing the Mediterranean risks giving support to human traffickers, who are bringing economic migrants as well as refugees.

[Peter Grant]

I had not intended to get into a debate about refugees, because the debate is not about refugees—that is what I am trying to say—but the direction I approach the matter from is that 4.5 million people have fled Syria because they would have died had they stayed. The United Kingdom takes 20,000 people. Who do we morally think we can tell to take the other 4,480,000? There are not places roundabout Syria that are stable enough to take those kind of numbers. That is why I welcome the Government’s moves so far. I am on the side of the bishops. The Government have not gone nearly far enough, but let me repeat: the petition should not be allowed to be about refugees. This is about immigration, and the two have got to be kept utterly and completely separate.

I was as shocked and offended as anyone when I saw footage a few years ago of people desecrating war graves. The desecration of any grave or any site of religious or spiritual significance is a terrible thing. What was done in the footage was done to create disharmony and conflict and to set communities against one another. That is why the militants did it. As has been pointed out, the petitioner was incorrect in stating that British war graves were desecrated. There were some British war graves and there were war graves of other nationalities who fought alongside Britain when Britain most needed them. They gave their lives in the service of the values that so many of their countries share with the nations represented in this hall today. A lot of them died in the uniforms of countries from which citizens would not be allowed to come if the petitioner got his way and if some of the reforms that the Government have talked about were implemented.

Let us not forget that, whether we talk about immigration or foreigners who have no intention of coming here even temporarily, we are talking about people whose countries suffered desperately in the fight against Nazism and about people who have come to settle in the UK whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought, risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives fighting for exactly the same values that our people did. It is wrong to start driving barriers between people based on the country they were born in, on the language that they speak, on the colour of their skin, on the god they choose to worship, on the way in which they choose to worship their god, or on their belief that there may not be a god at all. To discriminate against people on any of those grounds is rightly unlawful. More importantly, it is indefensibly immoral. There are no circumstances in which it is acceptable to discriminate on such grounds.

Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, I have been on the receiving end of some very unpleasant emails from my constituents. I have had about 100 emails asking for an anti-immigration debate since I got elected this year and I think 99 of them have come from the same place. I got hate mail almost handed over to the police some years ago. I wrote a letter to one of our local papers in response to what I saw as xenophobic comments about immigration and refugees. I pointed out that in a few weeks’ time some of us would celebrate our patron saint. I was not referring to St Andrew, who comes a couple of weeks later. Being an adoptive Fifer, I am proud of the connection that we have with St Margaret.

I can understand and I share a lot of the feelings of those who earlier this year celebrated the achievements of the present monarch, and I can understand why English people celebrate the incredible achievements of the previous Elizabeth, who also reigned for a long time, but I believe the finest monarch that we had in our days of independent monarchy was Margaret, who is now a patron saint. She came to Scotland as a refugee. She did not choose to come to Scotland. She came as a refugee and became by far our best loved monarch of all times, certainly in the pre-Union days. When I have commented on that before, I have had hate mail accusing me of being a traitor to my country and of being a traitor to my cause. I made those comments because we just never know what outstanding acts of good can come from somebody who has come here in the most desperate of circumstances. We never know what exceptional contribution someone who comes here as an immigrant may or may not make, just as we can never know who the next great migrant emigrating from these shores might be and what good they might do in other countries.

In exactly the same way as closing down all international trade would harm us all, closing down all immigration would be a desperately sad step to take. In practice, that is what the petitioner is asking for. We cannot close Britain’s borders to anybody trying to come in without borders going up against anyone trying to go from Britain to other countries.

A couple of people have asked who the petitioner was. They have been identified. In fact, they were interviewed by a news website not far from the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. It was somebody in Walsall. They are not a registered voter because, ironically, at the time the petition was started the young gentleman was only 17. Although some of us would have been happy to allow them to express their views through the ballot box, a majority of people in here would not have allowed them to do so. Perhaps he had to set up the petition because other people would not allow him a vote. When he was asked where he got the information in his petition, he said he got it off the internet, so perhaps that is an issue we need to look at.

I would be against rejecting a petition that appeared to have been supported by a substantial number of people simply because we found it offensive or we thought it was wrong. If people bring forward ideas based on falsehoods and on facts that are simply not accurate, the way to deal with it is to get the inaccuracies out into the open and to expose them for what they are. So when we get the response from the Minister—spokespersons tend to read through what the Government’s record is and what their future plans are—I hope the Government will take the chance to say unequivocally that the request that has been made in the petition is unacceptable, because the comments, arguments and statements of fact on which the request is made are utterly and completely untrue and unjustifiable.

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I welcome the subject of the e-petition that we are debating this afternoon, even if I do not agree with the wording. My comments are similar to those of my hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) in that, if we do not have this conversation, we alienate a significant number of people whose views may become more extreme. However, if we have an honest, open debate with all the facts made clear, we can hope that sensible arguments will win and those with extreme views will be outnumbered. If we dismiss such views completely, we alienate a huge section of our population.

Immigration is the No. 1 issue in my constituency. It was before the election and still is when I knock on doors now, and the reasons are several. My constituency is quite divided. Due to a local skills shortage, those in Lewes town itself feel that we are not taking enough people from outside this country. A separate e-petition was started on 15 August with the opposite view to today’s, calling for the country to take on more migrants, particularly refugees, and a march in support of accepting more refugees is taking place in my constituency a week on Saturday. In the other part of my constituency, along the coastal strip, many residents would agree with the sentiments in today’s e-petition, so views on this topic are divided even within a small area in the south-east of England.

My constituency has low levels of immigration, so it is startling to find people who are concerned about immigration and its effects. Only 7% of my constituents are foreign nationals, compared with a London constituency such as Battersea where the figure is closer to 35%. For my constituents, the issue is often not immigration itself, but rather the fear of immigration. When I talk to people and drill down to find out what they are concerned about, it is the pressure on resources and infrastructure. Housing is at a premium in my constituency, both in terms of availability and affordability. People are worried that an increase of migration into the area will make the situation even worse.

Our road and rail network is also congested. A journey that should take 20 minutes by car or bus often takes an hour or longer simply because of the level of traffic on the roads. Westminster Hall debates have been held on the topic of rail issues along the south coast and on the Brighton main line. People know that those lines cannot take many more passengers. I was talking to a group of elderly people who told me that they were having to wait two weeks for a GP appointment, so the thought of more people living in the constituency is a source of great fear. It does not matter whether people are from outside or inside the European Union or from within the United Kingdom, parts of the south-east are at capacity. Until we address that issue, the fear of immigration will continue.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the movement of people from within the UK. I know that she used to live in London, which has expanded continually since Dick Whittington was a boy. The population is forecast to rise to nearly 10 million in a few years’ time, which is of particular concern to Londoners. Does she agree that it is important to address that as London expands?

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree. I migrated from London to Lewes over 20 years ago, and we are seeing an increase in people moving out but still commuting back into London, but London is definitely expanding. Some parts of the south-east coast are actually referred to as London-by-the-sea.

I speak as the daughter of Irish immigrants who came to this country for a better life, so I am by no means against immigration. I see first-hand the benefits that immigration can bring to local economies. I was a nurse right up until the election and saw the valuable contribution made by workers from other countries. If we stopped immigration and closed our borders tomorrow, the NHS would be brought to its knees and grind to a halt. My constituency is quite rural, featuring several vineyards, and local farmers tell me that the issue is not one of cheap labour. They cannot get people to fill their jobs. It is about workers’ availability and willingness, which is why they are so reliant on migrant workers for essential but seasonal work. Colleagues have quoted such figures already this afternoon, but European immigrants pay more in tax than they ever claim in benefits. It is estimated that such immigrants have contributed some £20 billion to our economy as a whole since 2001.

The concerns are genuine, however, and we should not ignore the many people who have signed this petition even if we disagree with the wording. As colleagues on both sides have said this afternoon, we need to ensure that people understand the difference between refugees and economic migrants, because they are in very different situations and need dealing with differently. We must consider the lack of integration over the past 10 or 15 years. While on a trip with the Women and Equalities Committee only a couple of weeks ago, we heard from various groups of migrants who had settled in places such as Birmingham, Manchester and Oldham that not allowing integration has had a detrimental effect on their communities. Members of Parliament should be doing more to support it.

Lack of space is another issue with which the south-east of England is struggling. We are building as many houses as we physically can as quickly as possible, but the south-east has only so much capacity, which is why I welcome the Chancellor’s support for a northern powerhouse that can take the heat off the south-east by creating jobs in other parts of the country, which would deal with people’s fears about the difficulties of managing our resources.

In conclusion, I am not against immigration, but as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said we need a managed approach. Immigration has risen dramatically in the past 10 years, completely uncontrolled. We must look at the skills that we need, rather than simply closing the border and not welcoming migrants. We must be clear about what skills we need and how to provide them. I know from working with doctors, for example, that there is already a shortage of doctors but a few years ago we used to welcome them from Australia, China and other parts of the world. Already people cannot get visas and come to this country to work, which is having a negative impact. We must also look at integration, so that people who come here are not setting up a whole new community, but becoming part of an existing one.

I am against closing the borders, so I disagree with the motives of the petition, but I welcome the debate. Unless we have an honest and open debate, we are storing up problems for the future. I will not continue, because most of the points that I wanted to make have been covered by colleagues. The debate has been excellent and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on securing it.

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[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Walker, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I assure you that I do not intend to take more than about 10 or 15 minutes. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for facilitating the debate.

I echo some of the comments made about the petition and urge the Petitions Committee to look again at how petitions are brought forward for debate. I do understand that it is difficult to get the balance right between petitions that we might think more worthy of debate and others. It is worth going back to have another look at the guidelines, but I do not mean that as a criticism for bringing forth today’s debate.

My party and I profoundly disagree with the petition. That will come as no surprise to anyone here—to some extent, it echoes many of the comments already made. May I start by emphasising the huge contribution made by so many people who have come to this country over many years? Without that, the UK would not be the country, or set of countries, that it is. Our economy and our society benefit from the talent and investment of people who come here, including students who come here to study. That cannot and should not be measured solely in financial terms; we must look much more broadly than that.

An example given by the British Medical Association reflects some of the comments made by hon. Members in the debate. In anticipation of the debate, it said:

“Much of the rhetoric about immigration has focused on the pressures that increased immigration has placed on public services including the health service, housing and schools.”

It believes that it is important to acknowledge the contribution made by

“highly skilled migrants, including doctors…in delivering and sustaining public services including the NHS and our universities.”

It draws on the example of international medical graduates—doctors—who have become essential members of the UK’s medical workforce. The NHS is dependent on them to provide a high quality, reliable and safe service to patients. It says that international medical graduates

“have enhanced the UK health system over the years, improving the diversity of the profession to reflect a changing population, and filling shortages in specialties which may otherwise remain empty.”

That is just one example of the contribution made by those who have come to this country over the years.

A number of hon. Members touched on the question of refugees. I appreciate that that is not the core subject matter of the debate, but may I say a few words on that? We need to celebrate our proud tradition of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution in other countries. In the light of the current crisis, we need to work with the UN to support vulnerable refugees, and those from Syria in particular. More needs to be done and we need to tackle all of the issues upstream.

I remind hon. Members that serious proposals were put forward last week by a highly experienced group of judges, ex-judges, lawyers and other experts in the field of refugee law and practice. Their proposals are worthy of serious consideration and we must find time to consider them.

First, the UK should take a fair and proportionate share of refugees from both within and outside the EU. We need to have that debate—we had some of it last week. Secondly, safe and legal routes to asylum need to be established. That goes to the heart of the discussion about whether refugees should be taken from within Europe having already arrived, or beforehand, but the key issue is safe and legal routes. Thirdly, there must be access to fair and thorough procedures to determine eligibility for protection. Those serious proposals have been put on the table by eminent experts in the field who think there should be debate, and I urge that we find time for that.

Although I have profound concerns about and disagree with the motion, I accept that we should debate immigration and the issues that lie behind the petition. That does not mean that those who drafted or supported it are right or that they speak with one voice, but we should not shy away from the questions raised for us to debate. It is therefore good that we have had this debate today.

In many ways the question is about how to get the balance right. We need an immigration system with controls that are properly administered and effective, but, equally importantly, we also need fairness and humanity. We need strong borders. Labour has argued for more staffing on the borders and better training for those staff. We also need fair rules to protect those who are exploited and migrant workers in particular.

[Paul Scully]

This is an opportune time to raise something that perhaps the Minister can discuss or take away. The Government brought in exit checks in about April, but we need more of a physical presence to police those checks. That may require investment.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. Labour’s position is that it is more appropriate to have more staff on the borders carrying out proper checks than to impose a burden on landlords to carry out checks later on, as proposed by the Immigration Bill, which will be in Committee from tomorrow morning.

On preventing exploitation of migrant workers, my party and I welcome the establishment of a director of labour market enforcement. There has been a very low number of civil penalties and criminal prosecutions over the years, so hopefully the establishment of that post will change the position considerably.

In terms of fairness and humanity, there are issues worthy of serious consideration: first, ending the indefinite detention of people in the asylum and immigration system; and secondly, ending the detention of pregnant women and victims of sexual abuse or trafficking. There is also the question of removal of support from those whose asylum claims have failed. That policy was piloted 10 years ago and ended in failure.

Finally, when looking at a balanced approach, there are the counterproductive issues. It is counterproductive to put such constraints on students coming to the country that many of our leading institutions fear that they will drop in the world rankings year on year as they fail to attract the students they need or fail to retain them thereafter. That needs to be looked at seriously. I will put in that same bracket the proposals in the Immigration Bill on employee offences. I have no difficulty at all with the provisions that come down harder on employers, but the problem with coming down on employees is that unless individuals have the confidence to come forward, the counter-effect will be that it will not be possible to bring the cases the Bill intends to allow.

In conclusion, we should celebrate the contribution of all those who have come to this country. We need to balance the strong and effective with the fair and humane, but I welcome the fact that we have had this discussion today.

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[Paul Scully]

It is a privilege and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker.

The title of the petition has been read out in parts, and not necessarily in its entirety, but for the benefit of anyone reading it in Hansard, I will explain that it is “Stop allowing immigrants into the UK”, and it was started on 25 August 2015. I am sure that readers will be able to find it on the petitions website.

I know that the Petitions Committee will take the feedback from the various Members who have spoken. We always consider the action taken on any petition, and this one will be no exception. Having given a reminder of the petition title, perhaps I should also clarify the fact that the extraordinary noise we heard a few seconds ago was the Minister clicking his fingers.

I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for this measured debate. I did not seek election just to wring my hands about any subject; in the current context, my aim would be, much as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) said, a better way to manage migration—and also to take the population of the country with us on the journey, and turn around the ocean liner. We must always call out xenophobia, prejudice and bigotry when they are in front of us, but I suspect that, as the Minister said, many of the 198,000 people who signed the petition may have done so out of frustration and anger at what they see, and what they perceive through tabloid headlines and things they read on the internet. When I have spoken in my constituency to people who have similar views about immigration, I have found that when the issue is discussed rationally and reasonably they tend to row back from their extreme positions.

We must not shy away from such debates. We must continue to debate such issues whenever they arise. I am grateful to the Minister and all those who have taken part in the debate for the measured way in which we have conducted it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to immigration.