Brain Family: Deportation

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

No. Again, that rule has been clearly set to show progression and, therefore, benefit to the UK economy, whether in Scotland or elsewhere. Obviously, we have provided certain exemptions in relation to certain sectors. However, I think that that rule benefits the UK.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Meal do naidheachd—I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on the passionate way in which he has represented his entire constituency. This family are desperate to contribute to the highlands, and the highlands are desperate to keep them. What gives anyone the moral right to impose a decision on the highlands that nobody in the highlands wants?

[James Brokenshire]

Ultimately, the family need to find employment at the appropriate level. That is why I have made the points that I have about the Scottish Government and the work they do to see that there is a strong economy that is creating the jobs that actually create the environment people need to stay and work in Scotland. That is the important part of this.

Child Refugees: Calais

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

These issues are often complex. The factor at the forefront of our minds is always what is in the best interests of the child. When we receive applications under Dublin or under family reunification, we always have to assess what is in the best interests of the child and whether the parents or other close family members can support the child. We give that focus to every case.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Exactly a week ago, I asked the Prime Minister for an assurance that the United Kingdom Government’s response to the refugee crisis would be driven entirely by humanitarian need and not influenced in any way by considerations of the impact that it might have on the referendum that is likely to happen at the end of June. The Prime Minister was either unable or unwilling to give such a general assurance last week. Will the Immigration Minister please give that assurance, at least in relation to these most desperate and vulnerable young people?

[James Brokenshire]

I think that the hon. Gentleman can see from the Government’s actions that we take our responsibilities very seriously. With the funding that we have committed not just in and around Syria but in Europe, and with the additional £10 million fund that the Department for International Development is operating to ensure that children in transit who are in need of help, counselling or other support can receive it, that is precisely what we will do.

Litvinenko Inquiry

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are very clear that it is not business as usual with the Russian state. Our relationship with Russia is heavily conditioned. As I have indicated, there may be some issues on which it is necessary to engage with Russia very carefully, but it is not the case that we are lifting or changing the relationship. Successive Governments have been clear since 2007 that it was necessary to take action. That action has remained.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

What we are looking at here is an act of terrorism sponsored and carried out by the Russian Government. The report leads only to one possible conclusion: we now have to regard the Russian state as an organisation actively involved in commissioning, funding, supporting and directing acts of terrorism against UK citizens within the United Kingdom.

I appreciate that the Home Secretary cannot go into detail about everything that is happening in response to that, but may we have an assurance that, in the pursuit of justice, the Russian terrorist organisation and those involved in directing it will be pursued with exactly the same vigour as anyone else who directs acts of terrorism against United Kingdom citizens?

[Mrs May]

We are very clear that we want to ensure that those responsible for the murder are brought to justice. That is why, as I have indicated, every effort is being made in relation to the two individuals named in the report as having conducted the act here in London. The investigation is ongoing and every effort is being made to ensure that they can be arrested and brought to justice here in the UK.

European Agenda on Migration

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

As has been mentioned, there is a fair amount of overlap between this motion and the previous item, so I will not repeat some of the comments I made in the prior debate. Unlike the previous motion, we will not be forcing this one to a vote, although one or two parts of it give us significant concern. I shall discuss those in a few moments’ time.

Yet again, I am disappointed, because we are talking about a refugee crisis, yet everything in the papers talks about migrants and migration. This is not a crisis of migrants or migration; it is a crisis of refugees fleeing for their lives. If we could get that into the mindset of not only our Government, but Governments across Europe, we might start to address this emergency in the correct terms. The terminology is important. We fully support the fact that we need to have co-ordinated and firm action against the criminals who are exploiting the vulnerable and desperate through people smuggling and people trafficking, but, as the Immigration Law Practitioners Association is keen to point out, people smuggling and people trafficking are not the same thing. They are very different in the eyes of the law, although it is sometimes difficult to tell them apart in practice in individual circumstances. This means that they need to be addressed in different ways.

We should also remember that the House of Lords EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee has recommended to the European Commission that when setting the legislation and directives that deal with people smuggling and people trafficking, we should make a distinction when it is clear that the smuggling has been carried out for humanitarian motives. Some may question whether that could ever be the case, but if it is clear that the act was done not for criminal purposes or for financial gain, but possibly through a misguided belief that it was a humanitarian act, would it be appropriate to classify such smugglers as international criminals? I certainly would not think so and the House of Lords Sub-Committee did not think so either. I would therefore be interested to know what the Government’s attitude to that is.

The motion also refers to action to tackle the “root causes” of migration, and I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks are the root causes of 800,000 refugees arriving in Greece over the past year or so. What are the root causes of 4 million people being in the refugee camps in and around the Mediterranean coast? Unless the Government can prove to us that there were 4 million people last year and the year before, and every year for the past 10 years, the unescapable conclusion will be that the root cause of this crisis is war, violence and persecution in Syria and in other countries in that region.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

In the previous debate, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) said that the risks families take when trying to leave a situation such as my hon. Friend has just described were “foolish”. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Gentleman does not understand the situation and his comment speaks to the mindset that my hon. Friend was discussing?

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments and I fully agree with them. I had wanted to say more in response to what the hon. Member for North East Somerset said, but as he is not here I will not respond to him just now. There may be people taking risks that could be described as foolish, but they are not foolish risks—they are desperate risks. These people are not stupid. Some of them are very highly educated, highly skilled workers in their homeland, and the reason they are risking their lives and, even more remarkably, those of their nearest and dearest, including their own children, is because they have taken a calculated risk that leaving them behind in Syria puts their lives at even greater risk.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is that there is no means of safe passage across land once borders have been closed, which means that there is no option for many people but to go by sea?

[Peter Grant]

Absolutely. One thing that drives people into the unseaworthy boats of the criminals is that they have no other way of getting out. If the only way they can get out is by risking their lives with the smugglers, that is what they will do. Sadly, all too often the evidence is washed up on the beaches of Europe and north Africa.

Does the Minister accept that the root cause of this emergency is not the benefit system or the wonderful economic growth that is happening in Britain, but the desperate, desperate tragedy that is unfolding in Syria and some of its neighbouring countries? That is the situation that must be addressed once and for all if we want this emergency to be resolved, even in the longer term.

The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned the £3 billion of aid that is going to Turkey. We want to know what transparency and accountability is attached to that money. How do we know that it will be used for the correct purposes? I am not as enthusiastic a friend of the Turkish Government as some of those on the Government Benches. I cannot forget what the Turkish military are doing to the Kurdish people right now, and until they stop, there must be a limit to how willing we are to accept them as fully fledged respecters of human rights and of the rule of international law.

In the letter received by the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee on 11 December, the Minister addressed this question of how the UK will respond to specific calls for assistance under the EU civil protection mechanism. In his final comment he said that he believed that there was more that other member states could do to support all this work and the various funding strands among the UK’s contribution. It made me remember a story that used to be popular a few years ago in certain management circles about the four workers called Anybody, Somebody, Nobody and Everybody. There were various versions of the story, but the nub of it was that there was always a vital job that had to be done. Everybody agreed that Somebody had to do it, and Anybody could have done it, but Nobody actually did. I just wondered whether what the Minister was saying was that they all agree that everybody else should do a lot more, but they cannot agree on who that is. Perhaps the Minister, either here in the Chamber or in the Scrutiny Committee, will clarify and amplify his comments. Which specific member states should be doing more? What more is it realistic for them to do? What are they doing already? We cannot judge whether other member states should do more unless we have an indication of what they are already doing.

One part of the Government’s motion gives me a great deal of concern. It talks about the need

“to break the link between rescue at sea and permanent settlement in the EU.”

I did not realise that there was an automatic permanent link of that kind. If somebody is rescued from the sea, they are almost by definition a refugee. They are claiming asylum. We have to assess whether they are entitled to asylum. If they are here solely as an asylum seeker, they do not have an automatic right to live here forever. In theory, they can be asked to go home when it is safe to do so. I just wonder whether we are seeing yet another acceptance by the Government that the emergency situation in Syria will continue for years and years. People have come here because they want a safe haven for a few years before they go home. Are we accepting that it will be years, possibly decades, before Syria is fit to take them back? I will look for clarification from the Minister on that—not necessarily this evening, but hopefully in the near future. I hope that we do not have to wait as long as the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee has had to wait for some of his answers.

At one point, we considered pushing this matter to a vote simply because of that comment about the link between rescue at sea and permanent settlement. We decided against it, but I do wish to put on the record our deep, deep disquiet about the wording of that part of the motion, because it is inaccurate and it continues to create an impression that a significant number of these 4 million desperate citizens are trying to come here because they are attracted to living in the United Kingdom. They are not; they are trying to get out of Syria because they do not want to die. I just wish that the terminology that has been used and the language of this debate would recognise that this is a crisis that has fundamentally been caused by war, violence and civil unrest. It has not been caused by an economic miracle happening in the United Kingdom or in Germany.

Relocation of Migrants in need of International Protection (Opt-in Decision)

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

There is the case of Germany, to come straight to the point.

At the meeting it was discussed whether the 28 member states represented there, excluding us and Ireland because we are not part of Schengen, would welcome the proposals that were set out in the motion. In a nutshell, the countries concerned—the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania—were being told that they should go along with these mandatory arrangements irrespective of their resentment about that, their parliamentary votes against it, and their application to the European Court of Justice. As the Minister said, Hungary and Slovakia had brought proceedings in the Court of Justice to challenge the validity of this. These countries were, in effect, being told that they were wrong, and that in saying that the motion should merely “take note” of the relocation proposals, which was almost over-generous of them in the circumstances, they were refusing to accept the notion that they should welcome it. That is what led to the explosion. The debate went on for nearly four hours. This must not be underestimated. It is not just something to be floated over as, with respect, the Minister did; I understand why he probably did so. It is fissile material. It is a perfect example of the total want of democracy in the European Union in imposing, by mandatory arrangements, a settlement on countries that simply do not want it. It is a perfect example of what I have described as the compression chamber blowing up in such circumstances.

That is the background against which we should consider this. It is not just a question of whether we like it or not, but of how the European Union operates in practice. One need only look at how the Greeks were treated by the Germans with regard to the whole austerity programme or how the Portuguese president, a few weeks ago, disregarded, ignored and refused to accept the decision of the voters by not acknowledging the new party of government. The list is considerable, and, as far as I am concerned, that is the basis against which this issue ought to be judged.

I am, of course, delighted, but not surprised, that the Government have decided not to opt into the arrangements. I say with enthusiasm that our policy of trying to deal with the problem of refugees at source, which I have applauded from the very beginning, is the best way to go about it, not to allow these people in. At Friday’s meeting, the issue was raised of why Germany took the line it did. The answer, as I have said on the Floor of the House on a number of occasions over the past couple of months, is that it was very much to do with its desire to have more people working in the country, not just for altruistic reasons but for economic reasons. It wants to compensate for the fact that it will soon have a much lower working-age population. It made the decision because that is what Germany wants, irrespective of the impact it will have on the European Union. Angela Merkel’s popularity happens to have plummeted over the past few weeks because, in my opinion and that of many other commentators, she has misjudged the situation.

The real point is that, to bring in 1 million people to Germany—that is basically what is happening—is not the end but the beginning of the story. Those 1 million people will themselves have their own children and probably bring their families over as well, because the charter of fundamental rights will be made available to them. This is, in fact, an opening of what I described the other day as a tsunami.

On top of that—I have referred to this on a number of occasions on the Floor of the House—nobody can doubt for a moment that there are a number, albeit perhaps small, of jihadists among those people who have come over. The reality is that only a few are needed in order to wreak the kind of carnage and havoc that we witnessed in Paris. To those who would criticise people like me for mentioning that, I say that it is a fact that that is what is happening, and on a scale unprecedented since the second world war.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am very concerned to hear what the hon. Gentleman has just said. Does he actually have hard evidence that jihadists are arriving in the United Kingdom under the disguise of migrants? Given that some people pose as police officers and social workers in order to commit heinous crimes, does he think we should abolish the police and social workers as well?

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I welcome the chance to debate this vital humanitarian issue, but like the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I am deeply disappointed that it has taken so long to bring it to the Chamber. As was pointed out by the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), it is six months since the European Scrutiny Committee first asked for this debate. It may be longer since it first asked for another debate, but I was not in Parliament to know that.

The Chair of the Select Committee has gone in detail through the steps the Committee had to take to get this debate, so I will not repeat them. On 11 December, three days ago, he finally got answers to some of the questions he had been asking for months, and in some cases, for years. Today, six days after it was too late for us to have the remotest chance of changing the Government’s mind, because the deadline for opting in has passed, we are finally having this debate.

I find it impossible not to contrast the Government’s willingness to cancel an entire day’s business in the Chamber to hold a debate that they wanted on bombing Syria with, frankly, their complete stonewalling of the due parliamentary process that allows us to debate how we can and should do more to help some of the millions of innocent victims of the bombs already falling on that country.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is a fellow traveller on the European Scrutiny Committee, but will he be slightly more precise with his wording? We are not bombing Syria; we are bombing Daesh in Syria. It would be very helpful if all Members used those words so that there is no misunderstanding about what we voted on.

[Peter Grant]

This is not the place to rehearse the weakness of the Government’s case for saying that the bombs will not injure or kill innocent people. If the hon. Lady had listened carefully, she would have heard me make the point that the people we are talking about are those who have already fled or are in the process of fleeing from the conflict. I suggest that, having taken the deliberate decision to become part of that armed conflict, the moral responsibility on the United Kingdom is even greater than it was before. We are now part of that war and we bear a moral responsibility to help to deal with some of the desperate human consequences of it and do what we can to help.

As things now stand, the Scottish National party cannot and will not give an entire endorsement to the Government’s decision not to opt in to the proposals. That is not because we believe the proposals are perfect—far from it; it is because they offer a real attempt by all the nations of Europe, or certainly all the nations of the European Union, to recognise that this crisis is far too big for any one, two or three countries to cope with on their own. It is far too important—it is literally a matter of life and death—for us to risk the chaos that will ensue if 27, 37 or any number of different countries all go their own way.

We have had a foretaste of what happens when countries unilaterally and at a moment’s notice close their borders, open their border, close them again and then open them to some people, but not to others. That is how we have ended up with tens of thousands of desperate, broken people behind barbed wire fences, which is when the tensions and violence are in danger of escalating beyond all control.

We cannot allow the Government to let their own party disagreements on Europe and immigration stand in the way of a moral and compassionate response to what has rightly been described as the worst humanitarian crisis that, please God, most of us will ever witness in our lifetimes. We must see this, first and foremost, as a crisis of protecting the victims of war, not as a crisis of immigration caused by the victims. Our highest priority at all times should be the welfare of millions of people—yes, millions of our brothers and sisters, and millions of citizens of this planet with whom we share a common humanity—because we owe them a moral and, I would argue, a legal duty to protect them as far as we possibly can.

As I have said, having taken a deliberate decision to play even a small part in the war, the United Kingdom has accepted a significant moral responsibility to help to secure the futures of the victims of that war. The numbers are truly breathtaking. We know that at least 4 million people have already fled Syria, and that over 7 million more have been displaced within their homeland, most of whom would leave today if they thought they had any chance of getting out. We could be talking about more than the entire population of London losing everything—their homes destroyed, and their families in many cases murdered, or at best torn apart, perhaps losing contact for the rest of their lives. Surely, these people deserve the best future and the best support that we, in our hearts, can possibly find the human decency and kindness to offer them.

Given that the Government’s own advice is that the United Kingdom’s military action in Syria is likely to last for three years, this is not a short-term problem that will be fixed with a short-term solution. It is not enough simply to throw money at emergency aid, important though that is. We have to consider massive infrastructure spending to provide 4 million people—and probably many more millions of people—with the housing, health services and education that they are legally and morally entitled to receive. It is not credible to expect three or four countries around the Mediterranean shoreline to provide all that by themselves, even if there is a significant influx of cash from the UK and elsewhere.

In a written answer that I received on 27 October, the Minister of State, Department for International Development was able to identify only three countries in the whole of the middle east and north Africa as being able to provide safety and access to essential services to refugees: Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. He declined to say how many refugees the Government thought those countries could realistically be expected to support, despite my direct question to that effect. I suggest that the total will be nowhere near 4 million, never mind the potential 10 million or more.

Expecting Greece to provide the infrastructure to support all the refugees who land on its shores for three years, five years or longer is simply unrealistic. Again, this is not about the money. It is not possible for Greece to produce the infrastructure to look after, house and educate the number of desperate refugees it is already trying to support.

The Government, for their own reasons, continually seek to blur the lines and to encourage us to think of these men, women and children as willing economic migrants. There is even the suggestion that some of them might be terrorists in disguise—a suggestion for which there is not a scrap of evidence. They are not willing voluntary migrants. They did not volunteer to have their homes blown to pieces. They did not volunteer to have their towns destroyed. They did not volunteer to have their families killed. They are refugees who are fleeing for their lives and the lives of their children because, if they stayed at home, their children would die. They have a legal and moral right to receive whatever help we can give them.

The humanitarian crisis in and around the Mediterranean shows that the previous rules on who should look after refugees are not fit for purpose in a situation of this scale. They were not designed in the expectation that one country would have to cope with 50,000 or 60,000 migrants coming in at a time. They were not designed in the expectation that one of the poorest countries in Europe would look after the welfare of hundreds of thousands of refugees who arrive in the space of a few months.

It is reasonable to expect the initial process of confirming identities, performing security checks and registering and fingerprinting refugees to take place as close as possible to where people land in the European Union. Some people refer to that as the hotspot approach, but I find that phrase demeaning and dehumanising. It makes it sound like the hotspot of a problem, rather than a place of opportunity, where we can show the kindness that these people can expect. I prefer to refer to such places as first reception facilities.

That approach, whether it is called the hotspot approach or first reception facilities, is one that we can support, just as the Government support it, but if it is not done properly, it might as well not be done at all. For much of the past six months, the conditions in and around the official registration centre on Lesbos have been an affront to human decency. The fact that that is happening on this continent is something of which every last one of us should be utterly ashamed. It is happening not because the various agencies and volunteers do not care, but because they do not have the capacity or resources to cope with the task.

As soon as refugees have been through the necessary registration process, the aim should be to help them get to their end destination as quickly as possible by safe, legal and dignified means. We should remember that these are human beings we are talking about. That needs to be done with full co-operation between the countries of Europe, both in agreeing which countries the refugees will settle in and in helping them to get there. This is another area where we cannot support the Government’s refusal to be part of any of the options that have been put forward.

So anxious are the Government to persuade their wavering supporters that UK sovereignty over UK borders is sacrosanct that they will not even compromise on it if it prevents us from honouring our legal and moral obligations to some of the most vulnerable and desperate citizens on the planet. I find it astonishing that the same people who, less than two weeks ago, were condemning us for not showing solidarity with our allies when it came to committing acts of war in Syria should now be so resistant to showing solidarity in supporting and protecting the innocent victims of war.

The Government are asking us to agree with their decision not to take part in the EU scheme. We believe that it was a bad decision, taken for the wrong reasons. Tonight’s vote will not force the Government to change their mind, but we believe that the principle at stake is important enough that we should put on the record our belief that the UK Government are failing to live up to their moral obligations. For that reason, we will oppose the motion tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I will not speak for long, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is important to say something in this debate. I support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and his emphasis on behaving in a humane way towards migrants, as well as his point about the rather small numbers of people currently being allowed into our country. Like him, I believe that we should consider taking more of those desperate people into this country from areas where they risk death on a daily basis.

I support the Government’s position, and it is right that this country should have its own controls, but I think that that should go further and that other EU countries should also be able to control their own borders—that is what has caused the enormous row that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned. I believe that a fundamental component of democracy is that a country should control its own borders and who comes in. That is sometimes difficult to do, but it is fundamental. Borders matter, and trying to eliminate them in pursuit of the creation of some kind of super-state—that is effectively what has been happening in the European Union—is a mistake and will eventually come to a sticky end. It is noticeable that tensions are rising strongly at the moment.

As I said in an earlier intervention, refugees may not want to go to the country to which they have been allocated. If they are allocated to countries that do not really want them, they may not be made welcome, cared for, or well treated when they get there, and that is another serious problem. A way of helping refugees to go to places to which they want to go, and where they will have some kind of welcome and be looked after, would be much more sensible than a forced allocation policy. The UK can do that and we should not opt in to the arrangement, but other countries in the European Union should be in the same position as us.

I do not accept free movement; I think it has been a mistake. If we want to recruit people from other countries who have the skills we need, that is fine. That could be done on a temporary or permanent basis, but it should be a choice and not that of some supranational body that says, “You must accept people because those are the rules of the club and you ought to accept those rules.” I do not accept those rules, and neither do many people in Britain.

There is a conflict here. We must ensure that we behave in a humane way to other people. We all admire and wish to adopt such humanitarian actions, but large, substantial and unregulated movements of people can militate against the humane feelings that we all have. There comes a point when people think, “We can’t cope”, and destabilising massive population movements are not conducive to humane behaviour.

In the 19th century there were vast open spaces in the United States, South America, Australasia and elsewhere, and countries recruited people because they needed them and it was not a problem. We recruited people from Ireland in particular, as well as from elsewhere. We have also been very humane with certain immigrations. When I was younger in the 1960s, the Ugandan Asians were being seriously threatened and we accepted them into our country. Indeed, one or two Members of the House are descended from that population, and those people have made a massive contribution to our society. We have behaved well in the past, but when movements of people become so large and seemingly unstoppable, our humanity starts to break down—not individually in the Chamber, but as a society—and people start saying, “We can’t cope. There is a desperate housing crisis and unemployment and so on”.

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman clearly has a point, but would it destabilise the United Kingdom to take a share of the 4 million people who have fled Syria? How can it stabilise anyone for all 4 million to be left in two or three countries in the Mediterranean?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I have said, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras on the Labour Front Bench has said, that we should accept more people from Syria. There is absolutely no question about that. We should play a bigger part in helping refugees to escape their terrible situation. The number the Government have decided to accept is far too low. That said, we are not going to have an open border policy in which very, very large numbers of people come here, because that would be politically destabilising. It would not be good.

Germany’s population was falling. It is a very successful industrial country with a low birth rate, which means it needs workers. Our population is increasing rapidly. We are going to overtake Germany and become the country with the largest population in the whole of the European Union. We are therefore in a very different situation from Germany. If we had a serous labour shortage, and lots of space and vacant housing, we would want to recruit more people.

Immigration Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Lady can look at any number of reports made during the summer by various organisations that visited the camps. Why does the hon. Lady think that people are storming the channel tunnel at Coquelles every night? Why does she think people are storming the port of Calais? It is not because they have tickets, visas and passports to come here; it is because they are seeking to enter the country illegally. In doing so, it is clearly evident they are endangering their lives and the lives of other people who use those services too.

The people in the camps have the right, if they want help, to claim asylum where they are. They choose not to do so. Many people in that position are being exploited by very dangerous gangs who are moving people across Europe. The people who have the most to fear from the Bill are those who seek to exploit migrants coming to this country without papers. Migrants have been told not to claim asylum and that they will be looked after privately and secretly once they get here. Those people are exploited. It is the exploiters who have the most to fear from the Bill.

I very much welcome the work the Home Office has done to try to secure our borders. Much of the Bill deals with the consequences of people entering the country without papers and without the legal right to remain, and what we can do about that. Our first obligation is to protect the border itself. The investment the Government have made, along with the French authorities, in securing our border at Calais and Coquelles is hugely significant and hugely welcome. It has greatly reduced the numbers of migrants seeking to enter the country illegally by storming the entrances to the channel tunnel and the port of Dover. As I said before, that not only disrupts services but endangers their lives and the lives of others who use those services. It must be stopped.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s influence in persuading the French Government to provide more of their own resources in policing that frontier. I also welcome the moves passed recently by the French Senate—they are still going through the French National Assembly—to improve French law enforcement capabilities to deal with people seeking to enter this country illegally by storming the frontier at Calais and Coquelles. It is right that there are proper criminal sanctions against people who seek to use criminal damage and criminal trespass as a means to enter this country. I know, from people who work at Eurotunnel who saw the consequences of the actions during the summer, that those actions were not only highly dangerous but threatened to disrupt and even derail services through the tunnel. That would have endangered the lives of other passengers, as well as the lives of the people committing those actions. It is right to protect the migrants and to protect our frontier, and it is right that these important new sanctions are being considered.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

So far the hon. Gentleman has told us an awful lot about the disruption caused by people blatantly ignoring the existing legislation. If people are going to ignore the legislation, making it tougher is not going to help; they will continue to ignore it just the same. What in the Bill will prevent people from trying to get into the UK illegally? Would it not be much better to devote the resources to securing the borders and enforcing the existing legislation, rather than introducing further legislation that will create discrimination in housing and access to other services?

[Damian Collins]

I set out at the beginning of my remarks the important action the Government and the Home Office have taken to try and secure the borders, but there are additional provisions in the Bill, particularly in part 6, such as the extra maritime checks and enforcement. These provisions will give Border Force the right to board and check vessels that might be carrying people seeking to cross the channel and enter this country illegally. It will give extra powers to law enforcement authorities to pick people up and check vessels to see what is going on. That is absolutely the right thing to do.

There are those who seek to provide accommodation to people with no papers and no right to be in this country and to employ them in large numbers, and it is right that they fear the sanction of being inspected, checked and discovered. They seek to exploit people who understand they have no legal right to be here and do not want the authorities to know they are here. They exploit their concerns about being discovered, and the Bill is a threat to those people and the action they would take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who is the voice of reason in his party. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), as well as the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who gave one of his inimitable performances a few minutes ago. It is always a pleasure to hear what he has to say.

The Home Secretary made a candid and honest speech the other day. I do not believe that there is anything controversial in stating that every sovereign state should be the sole judge and arbiter of the level of immigration that can be sensibly absorbed and taken care of. The only way effectively to analyse this question is to examine the integration of the migrant communities into Britain and to look at their impact on essential services such as schools, housing and the NHS. Her conclusions were in line with the view expressed by the vast majority of people in this country—that the current levels of migration are totally unsustainable. That is why the UK must address the challenge of completely regaining control of its borders. That means carrying on the policy of strict controls on non-EU migration, but this must be in the national interest—I wish to say something about the nursing profession in a moment. It also must mean Britain looking again at the EU principle of the free movement of people across Europe. I feel that strongly. To my mind, it will be one of the red lines that will come up in the future referendum, and I say that as someone who wants to have reasons for voting to stay in Europe, if at all possible.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman also have a concern about the 700,000 to 1 million UK citizens who live in other EU countries? Is he suggesting that they should not be allowed to live there and should be forced to come back to the UK, where they clearly do not want to be?

[Mr Bellingham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman 100% on that. One must distinguish between the right to travel in the UK and people retiring, and people going to and working in any country they feel like and claiming benefits. This is a huge issue, but it is a debate we cannot have now, because you would call me to order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Bill contains a number of important measures, and I agree with the Home Secretary that it builds on the coalition’s Immigration Act 2014. I welcome the approach of looking with a relentless focus at the mechanisms of the labour market. In the past, a constituency such as mine, with a large food and agriculture sector, has been plagued by the actions of illegal gangmasters—now licensed under the Gangmasters Licensing Authority—and the unscrupulous behaviour of some rogue employers and rogue landlords. That is why we need additional measures to deal with and clamp down on those residual practices taking place. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point put it well when she pointed out that there is still some way to go, and we must have zero tolerance towards any malpractice.

In many ways, the Bill is a modest measure and many parts of it are long overdue. I particularly welcome the new powers that are going to be given to immigration officers and the powers that are going to be given to Border Force to target boats in British waters. I find it bizarre that hitherto Border Force has had no power to target boats in British waters that officers suspect of helping illegal migrants enter Britain, and I am glad that that is going to be changed.

As I said, I want briefly to say something about the nursing crisis in this country, not only because I have been in talks with my local hospital, but because I noticed that yesterday Jan Stevens, the chief nurse at London’s biggest NHS hospital trust, pointed out that there is likely to be a real problem in that trust and in other hospitals as a result of the cap being applied. She has estimated that it will affect up to nearly 3,700 nurses working in the UK and will deter others from coming here. She said:

“It would be catastrophic if we had to send all our international nurses home as a result of the cap.”

The Queen Elizabeth hospital in my constituency is excellent, but it faces a number of financial challenges, the biggest of which is the amount of money being spent on agency nurses—that figure is rising very rapidly. I know that the hospital, under the excellent leadership of Dorothy Hosein, the chief executive officer, and Edward Libbey, the chairman, has been making every effort to employ local nurses. They have held a number of events locally, including roadshows to try to attract people back into nursing, but after a great deal of effort they have secured the return of only one local nurse to the hospital. In the past, they have recruited a significant number of EU nurses from places such as Portugal and Spain, but I have to tell the House that this pool of talent is slowly diminishing and they now have to look further afield, to India and the Philippines, where there is a ready supply of nurses who speak very good English, who want to come here and who are properly qualified.