Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. She has seen at first hand the incredible and remarkable work in Jordan—a host country and a host community. It is under great strain and pressure, particularly economically, but also in providing the vital support that is needed. What more are we going to do? Post the London conference is the Brussels conference. I have been clear—this is exactly why I was in Jordan—about the additional support that we will give to Jordan, not just as the UK but through the international community, with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and through many of the reforms taking place in Jordan itself.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

9. At DFID questions on 11 January, the Secretary of State told my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) that her Department was actively pursuing the possible use of drones to drop emergency aid in Syria. Will she update the House on what progress has been made since then?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. In besieged areas inside Syria, there are enormous problems of access to humanitarian aid and things of that nature. On drones, we are examining all options for getting aid into besieged areas in Syria. That includes the possibility of using drones to deliver aid directly.

Humanitarian Crisis: Greece

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are taking a constructive, proactive approach within the European Union. We are not part of the Schengen area, but that does not prevent us from clearly setting out our views on a more effective way of dealing with this crisis. Speaking in my capacity as Secretary of State for International Development, I think that one of the most important elements to that response has been to tackle the root cause of what is making people feel that they have no alternative to putting their lives in the hands of the people smugglers. That involves doing a better job of supporting those people in the region, closer to home and closer to their families.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We certainly welcome the financial commitments that the UK Government have announced and are already providing. I echo the calls for the rest of the international community to match those commitments, but the fact is that no amount of money will ever provide enough schools, hospitals and homes to enable the 4 million-plus refugees to settle permanently in the small number of countries that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned earlier, given that those countries are already looking after millions of refugees.

Information from Eurostat shows that, relative to the population of each country, Greece receives twice as many asylum applications as the United Kingdom, while Italy receives two and half times the number and the EU as a whole receives five times the number. Some countries, such as Hungary and Sweden, received 30 times as many asylum applications as the United Kingdom does. Does the Secretary of State agree that those figures destroy once and for all the myth that the refugee camps are full of people whose chosen destination is the United Kingdom?

[Justine Greening]

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, we have an ambition to get every Syrian child who is missing school because of this crisis back into school by the end of the forthcoming academic year. One of the key outcomes of the London conference on Syria was to get the funding for those plans. We know that we can achieve this because we have already helped half the children to get back into school. We now need to finish the job. More broadly, he talked about the intentions of refugees arriving in the EU. The reality is that there are large Syrian diasporas in Germany and Sweden, and many of the people arriving on the shores of Greece might want to join their families in those countries. In the end, however, we need a more co-ordinated approach that recognises that countries such as the UK are not in the Schengen area and that we want to take our own decisions. There is no getting away from the fact that as a last resort people are putting themselves in the hands of people smugglers, but their first choice is almost always to stay in the region. Following the Syria conference in London, we need more action taken internationally to deliver on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

In the provisional local government settlement that will come very shortly, we will announce changes to the local government finance system to rebalance support, including to those authorities with adult social care responsibilities, by taking into account the main resources available to councils, including council tax and business rates.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

21. What recent progress has been made on the proposed Edinburgh city deal.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (James Wharton)]

We are speaking with Edinburgh and south-east Scotland to look at proposals for a city deal there. It is welcome that so many parts of Scotland are keen to be part of the process of delivering city deals. We must ensure that, when they are agreed, they are agreed in such a way that will drive economic growth, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Peter Grant]

Despite the obvious wealth that exists in some parts of Edinburgh and south-east Scotland, there are also significant areas of very severe deprivation. Some 21% of children in the proposed city region live in poverty just now. The economy of the area has not been helped over the past few months by Government decisions on renewables. Rather than just talking about this deal, will the Minister tell us what the timescale is, first, for a decision and, secondly, for actual action on it?

[James Wharton]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the diverse nature of the area about which he talks. We see great potential for growth across Edinburgh and south-east Scotland. We want to ensure that we can realise that potential and deliver that growth. We will continue to have talks, which have been productive and are constructive, with interested parties on the city deal. We will continue to work constructively to deliver that city deal if it can be delivered in the right way. These things must be decided properly and after due consideration. That is the process that is currently under way.

Immigration

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[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 ---

[Peter Grant]

If we have a petition signed by a significant number of, presumably, genuine people that is based on utterly untrue statements, would it not be better to bring the petition in here and to allow the Government to tackle it head-on and say, “This petition is based on untrue statements”, rather than being seen to be stifling debate and not allowing it to be spoken about at all, because that would just allow untrue statements to gain currency?

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful for that remark. In asking for stronger guidelines, I think we are asking for something similar. I acknowledge that the Petitions Committee is new and that we have started a process that will take time to settle down. However, if the abuse of it is such that we spend all our time discussing things that are nonsensical, untrue or misleading, that is not what anyone had in mind when the system started.

I am glad that we have had the opportunity to debate immigration. I really take issue with this petition. Its wording will not advance many of the arguments a great deal. At least we have the opportunity here to debate it. I hope that the Petitions Committee can consider ways in which it may be possible to tighten up the e-petitions system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This is one of those occasions when I am pleased to get the chance to speak but wish it was in significantly different circumstances. I agree that we need to have a rational debate about immigration, but it is impossible to have one based on the petition submitted to us. It is perfectly in order for anyone to ask for an immediate end to immigration and all borders to be closed immediately, as the petition does—although, as has been pointed out, a border cannot be closed only one way; immigration can only be stopped in both directions—but the rest of the petition is a series of statements, most of which are demonstrably untrue. They are inflammatory, xenophobic, Islamophobic and just about every kind of phobic that someone would care to avoid having to be involved in, and that is not how we should conduct a debate about immigration.

The debate on immigration has descended to that level because the kind of nonsense in the petition has been around for a long time and none of the major UK parties before we became a major UK party was prepared to deal with that in the way that they should, which is to stand up to it and tackle it head on, rather than allow it to become an argument about who can be tougher on immigration. I am bitterly disappointed that the Conservative party, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats did not take the chance to stand up and say, “This demonisation of foreigners, immigrants and people because of their religion or creed is utterly wrong. It is un-British for those who believe that being British is a great thing to want to hold on to.” As a Christian, I believe that the attitudes shown in the petition are fundamentally un-Christian. I know for a fact from speaking to a great many friends who are followers of Islam that those narrow-minded, xenophobic ideas run counter to the philosophy and truth of Islam.

[Steve McCabe]

I know that one thing the Conservative party and the Scottish National party have in common is the desire to kick the Labour party, but does the hon. Gentleman not see any slight contradiction between on the one hand being accused of opening the floodgates and letting 2.5 million flow into the country and on the other being accused of demonising immigrants? Does he not think there may be a contradiction there?

[Peter Grant]

I think the contradiction is between the hon. Gentleman’s comments and the fundraising mugs that his party was selling during the election with the slogan, “Controls on immigration.” As soon as one starts to play the anti-immigration line in the context of anti-immigration political parties—one such political party has been reduced to one Member in the House of Commons—we have lost the chance to have a proper debate about a serious issue that concerns a lot of people.

Belatedly, I need to declare an interest. In fact, we all need to declare an interest, because one day not that long ago, we were all immigrants. This place operates on alien immigrant principles that were introduced by a bunch of illegal immigrants called the Normans. If we all go back far enough—some of us do not have to go back far at all—we are all descended from immigrants. My great-grandparents were immigrants. My father-in-law is an immigrant. My dear departed godmother, Auntie Mary, was an immigrant. I have a brother and a sister who are immigrants—not a half-brother and half-sister or step-brother and step-sister. We have the same mum and dad. We were born a few miles apart, because a new hospital had been built by the time they came along.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the report, “Community Cohesion and Migration”—in fact, I suggest he reads it—that the Communities and Local Government Committee produced. It is the pace of immigration that concerns a lot of communities. Controlled immigration, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) was saying, is what most communities say they want. They are not anti-immigrant; they want control.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has been watching the recording of the sitting of the Home Affairs Committee last week; the Chair of that Committee brought up the same point and asked me repeatedly to come up with an actual number. I do not think that giving a running commentary is correct but, as the Prime Minister mentioned today on the Floor of the House, we intend to have settled 1,000 people by the end of the year. It is difficult to average it out on a month-by-month basis, although the numbers per month would be what the hon. Gentleman said.

I am confident that we can do it, but am wary of the pitfalls. Some were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, such as people coming fraudulently, but we must also have the proper preparations for when people get here. Those will include having housing, the correct medical care for both mental and physical health issues, education where appropriate and English lessons, which are very important.

I commend those local authorities that have helped us with resettling the smaller numbers of people we have resettled so far. I visited Bradford; the council there—a Labour council, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) will be pleased to hear—and its leader, Councillor David Green, really are a model for other councils in what they have done for the refugees they have taken. I also commend the response from the Scottish Government and local authorities in Scotland. Generally, the response has been pretty good and we are confident that, at the moment, the number of places being offered is broadly commensurate with the numbers of people. Very many small local authorities have emailed to say that they would be happy to take refugees. That is a credit to this country and all parts of it, although while we very much appreciate what has been said by some of the smaller Scottish islands, in some cases the offers may not be practical. That makes no difference to the validity of those authorities’ comments, however.

The Government recognise the significant migratory pressures on the UK. Immigration puts pressure on public services. It can damage our labour market and push down wages—all points that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) said so eloquently in her speech, worry constituents. She mentioned the Brighton main line, which I know is very typical. However, she also mentioned that in parts of her constituency there are critical shortages of labour. In the past, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) mentioned with regard to Cornwall, labour shortages have been met with willing, able, hard-working and decent immigrants. The issue is therefore very complex.

There have been many really decent speeches. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant)—I will get into trouble for my pronunciation of his constituency’s name.

[Peter Grant]

That was near enough.

[Richard Harrington]

I am very grateful. The hon. Gentleman asked me to make it clear on behalf of the Government that the petition’s wording is unacceptable and undesirable, and I have done that. He also made the valid point that such wording is not new, and, in that respect, I must tell hon. Members a story.

I am Jewish by birth, but I am not religious. However, I attended a Saturday morning service during the election, although that was not for electoral purposes. I had been invited to a bar mitzvah in London—that is the service that happens when a child is 13. This was about the time that Nigel Farage was making his comments about people talking other languages in train carriages. The rabbi’s sermon was very moving and very unusual. There was no Bible; instead, he read out a leader from The Times, which said, “Parts of this country have overwhelming numbers of people who speak different languages, who eat different food and who are taking our jobs at lower pay.” That article, he said, was from 1896. Of course, he was talking about Jewish people—this was a Jewish religious service—and he read the article to shock people, because Nigel Farage had commented that week on how he felt in a railway carriage where people were using different languages. The rabbi did what he did to show that things have not changed. That is very relevant to the issue before us.

This is, however, a general debate about immigration, so I should discuss what the Government are doing to bring migration down to what they and many others believe are sustainable levels. The policy is that we have obviously welcomed the brightest and the best. We have done that by slashing the student fraud I mentioned in response to the shadow Minister’s comments. We have removed about 900 bogus colleges from the sponsors register and toughened access to welfare and housing. Non-EU immigration is 10% lower than it was in September 2010.

Over time, exit checks will begin to provide significant new insights into, and give us a more complete picture of, those leaving the country. We will be able to establish an individual’s immigration status, confirming those who have departed and identifying potential overstayers.

On EU migration, we are cracking down on the abuse of EU free movement and making our welfare system fairer and less open to abuse. We have also scrapped housing benefit for EU jobseekers and limited benefit claims for EU migrants with no prospect of a job. We will negotiate with the EU, and we will bring in further reform to reduce incentives for people coming to the UK from within the EU. It is on the record that the Prime Minister is working with his European partners to achieve those things, and there will be further discussions at the December European Council.

An important aspect of the economy, which several hon. Members mentioned, and which is one reason for immigration, is the shortage of training and skills in terms of people leaving school. I should declare an interest because my previous job was as the Prime Minister’s apprenticeship adviser. The target of 3 million people doing apprenticeships is achievable. The skills arena is the future of the economy, and although the Opposition have made some points about apprentices—there has been talk about some of them not being full apprentices and about there not being a high enough standard—I think there is a consensus that improving this country’s skills is important for the future and may counter the need for immigration.

[Peter Grant]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) mentioned, the Scottish Government are firmly of the view that the right kind of immigration, in what might be seen as quite large numbers, can have a very positive impact on Scotland’s economy. Was the UK-wide target figure that is now being spoken about agreed with the Scottish Government, or was it simply decided, as a reserved matter, without consultation?

[Richard Harrington]

I am afraid I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman, because I do not know the answer—I am not hiding it from him. Like most other people, I saw the announcement of the 20,000. However, I can tell him that I met representatives of the Scottish Government—

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry. Perhaps I should make it clear that I am talking about the Government’s target figure for net migration, not the 20,000 places for Syrian refugees.

[Richard Harrington]

I apologise for that misunderstanding. I was about to say that I met representatives of the Scottish Government straightaway to discuss Scotland’s share of the 20,000. However, I am afraid that I genuinely do not know the answer to the question he has just asked either—that has got me off the hook.

There is a lot of co-operation between the British and French Governments on the situation in Calais, which has received a lot of publicity. That situation is important, but I should make it clear that it has nothing to do with the refugees we are talking about or with our humanitarian policy of taking refugees from places adjacent to Syria.

There has been some criticism of our approach, and I would like to go on to the point the shadow Minister made about the letter from the lawyers and others published, I think, in The Guardian last week. I do not agree with what they say, because they give no credit to the Government for what they have done to try to help to deal with the refugee crisis. They talk purely about the number of people we are going to take into the country and say that it is inadequate. However, Government policy is clear: we are dealing with everything as part of an holistic, humanitarian issue. We are spending large amounts—about £1.1 billion—on helping refugees in the countries adjacent to Syria. I have been to Jordan, and I have seen the effects of what we are doing. We should be very proud of the money we are spending and of the British people, non-governmental organisations and other organisations that are working there—I could talk about the millions of food parcels and everything else. When I was there, I was told that, possibly apart from the Americans, we are the largest country doing these things. Our policy of bringing vulnerable refugees to this country is part of that, but those who signed the letter in The Guardian gave us no credit for it.

Sustainable Development Goals

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

Of course, and that is why I have never been particularly enthusiastic about setting a spending goal for international development funding. I would happily come here and vote to spend 1% of GDP if I thought that it would be spent effectively in countries with good governance. The problem is that there is a litany of development expenditure projects in countries where there is poor governance and where the money has not been spent appropriately or had the desired impact.

One of the goals on which I would concentrate is on healthy lives, but why not just have the simple goal of eradicating infectious disease? It is not simple to achieve, but it is simple to say and quantify. To eradicate infectious disease we must know where it is. I got into some trouble a couple of years ago for pointing out that we needed to know who had HIV and hepatitis among the migrant population. Unless we know where the disease is, how can we seek to eradicate it? I think eradicating infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis would be an admirable goal and shared by significant numbers of people in South Africa and the near vicinity.

My second goal would be to achieve gender equality. When I look at some communities in this country and some countries around the world, the absence of women in positions of power and female role models in communities and families is, in part, why those communities have problems. For example, I strongly believe that if we emancipated women in Pakistani, Somali and Bangladeshi communities in this country, they would be less likely to have problems with extremism and young men going on jihadi holidays to Syria and elsewhere.

My third goal would be to live within the means of the planet, which I think encompasses at least half a dozen of the goals that the report has sought to detail. If we live within the means of the planet we do not need to start talking about carbon dioxide emissions or anything else. If we live within the means of the planet we will be doing just that: the environment will be stable, biodiversity will be protected and we will all have access to sustainable energy and the like. Living within the means of the planet is complicated but something we can achieve, but let us keep the words simple so that we know what we are seeking to do.

My fourth goal would be to reduce inequality between countries, not within countries. If everybody was equal within a country, where would be the desire to better oneself? I do not believe in economic equality; it does not exist. We must have a sense of seeking to better ourselves and for our children to have a better life. That is human nature and part of the natural order of things. Inequality between countries is in part what is causing the current migration crisis. In fact, it is probably about inequality between continents. Anyone could have predicted 10, 20 or 30 years ago that there would be migrant pressure from Africa into Europe. It is economic migration because the population of Africa is growing at a much faster rate than that of Europe. If someone is born into Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria or wherever, they will migrate for a better life, job, house and future for their families. That is a statement of the obvious and among the recent migration flux, which undoubtedly has something to do with war, significant numbers of people are also travelling from Africa for a better life.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about some of the reasons why people in parts of Africa want to migrate to Europe. Was it deliberate or an oversight not to mention the idea that some or most of those people are migrating here to take advantage of the benefit system? Did he not mention that because he knows it is not the case?

[Dr Lee]

That intervention seeks to put words into my mouth that I did not say in an attempt to score a political point. Congratulations. I am not even going to address that point. The bigger picture is that people will move for a better life, and if there are more people on one continent and it is not as rich as another, it seems obvious that that will happen. That challenge will transcend not just my political lifetime but others to come, and it is something that we should discuss more.

My final goal would be to seek and disseminate knowledge. All these challenges require knowledge, understanding, innovation and invention. The challenges of peace and the stabilisation of the middle east and Africa require the dissemination of information to people there. If we are to have one goal above all it should be to seek new knowledge and disseminate it more widely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I do not have anything like the background or expertise in this matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) clearly has, or indeed that of some other speakers. My take on his comments is that he in no way intended to be party political but was simply pointing out that while it is correct and laudable and we should celebrate the fact that the UK is now contributing 0.7% of GNI in international aid, it is vital that we ensure that that aid is used to help the poorest people in the poorest countries on the planet and not for other purposes that the Government may believe to be valid but are certainly not a proper use of international aid funding.

I can understand why the Government are concerned that 17 draft development goals might be too many, because managing a programme of that size and complexity, keeping an eye on 17 targets all the time, is a difficult task. Having looked at all 17, I would not have liked to have decided which ones to leave out, because it is very difficult to identify any one that we could afford to leave behind—clearly anything that is not listed among the sustainable development goals will not get a lot of attention from the international community in future. I like the way that Ban Ki-moon has suggested we look at them: to put them under six different categories such as “people” and “dignity”.

Perhaps the aspect that is most seriously missing is solidarity: the feeling that, as somebody once said, we are all in this together. The whole SDG process can almost be summed up by one statement and one injunction. The statement is, “We didn’t inherit this planet from our parents; we have borrowed it from our children—it is their planet.” The injunction is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I cannot believe that if any of us were in the position of a subsistence farmer in the Ganges delta who is in danger of losing everything if the sea rises by another few feet, we would be happy if it was going to take the wealthy, influential, powerful countries of the world 25 years to come up with a solution to a problem that might wipe out our family in 10 years’ time.

If we compare what has happened in Bangladesh and in India over the past 30 to 40 years, we will see that, although economic development will be part of the solution, it is not the whole solution. Economists tell us that India is a much wealthier country than Bangladesh—wealth per person in India is almost twice that in Bangladesh—but life expectancy is higher in Bangladesh than it is in India. Bangladesh has done more to improve the wellbeing of its people than almost any other country on the planet. It has certainly done more and moved more quickly than any of its immediate neighbours, despite the fact that its wealth, as measured by economists, has not increased at the same rate.

We have to keep our eyes on that. We cannot afford to let success be measured simply by economic wealth in the traditional sense. We certainly cannot afford it to be measured by what happens to the average, because the whole point of solidarity on a global scale is that we measure our success not by how well the wealthiest or the average are doing, but by how badly the poorest are doing. By that measure we are failing very seriously indeed.

Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world, excluding unusual examples such as city states. With a population of more than 160 million, it is by far the most densely populated of the larger countries in the world. If we do not deal with climate change very soon, anything up to 50 million of those Bangladeshis will be displaced within the next 10 to 20 years. The wealthiest continent on the planet does not know how to cope with 2 million or 3 million refugees from north Africa. How on earth can we expect the Indian subcontinent to cope with the prospect of tens of millions—possibly 50 million—who have no choice but to leave their land because it is underwater?

On a humanitarian scale and a security footing, we cannot allow the SDGs to fail. I think we are past the point where we can allow them to be delayed or held up any longer. Some say it is too late to prevent climate change from seriously impacting on all of us, but it is not too late to prevent it completely.

Finally, I want this to succeed not because it is in our interests, but because it is not acceptable to me, in all conscience, to be part of a planet where thousands of my fellow human beings will die of starvation every day while at the same time, as we discussed earlier this week, we are trying to stop supermarkets throwing away massive amounts of food every day. That cannot be allowed to continue. We should be doing this not because it is in our or America’s interests, but because it is in the interests of the planet. We are all in this together. The solidarity of the human race has never been more important.

Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

I have given way quite enough. Let me make a little progress in the time remaining.

I was a district councillor for 11 years, so I find it heartening that through the Department for International Development’s budget for the first year, funding will be made available to local authorities. I suggest that there would be an even more active response from local government if Ministers gave a further indication of the sources of funding for years 2 through to 5. That would be productive.

We should always continue to ensure that countries closer to Syria and the camps do their bit. We must ask Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and others to play their part, because the quicker we can get people back to a country that is peaceful and where civil government is reinstated, the better. It will be much easier to do that from countries nearer to home.

I fear that the slightly open-door policy advocated by the shadow Foreign Secretary and the SNP is the greatest recruiting sergeant to those whom the whole House abhors: those who profit from people trafficking. I think that it will just encourage people. [Interruption.] Opposition Members from a sedentary position shout “shameful”, and I absolutely agree. It is shameful that in the early part of the 21st century, we have people—fellow human beings—who seek to profit and make their living from selling and transporting human cargo in degrading and horrible circumstances, where they are ripping people off, cramming them into boats and causing even more unnecessary suffering.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I will not give way.

Finally—and this is where we should be careful not to be media-dominated—there are lots of humanitarian crises across the surface of the globe. Some have mentioned Yemen, and there are others. We need to be very careful that we do not do too much too quickly, because that raises expectation and gives the green light to those who are fundamentally anti-democratic and anti human rights.