Immigration (Romania and Bulgaria)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. May I, through you, thank Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity this morning to raise the important matter of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria?

My job is humbly to stand up and speak out on behalf of my constituents in Kettering, and one of their biggest concerns is the level of immigration into the United Kingdom. A large part of the inward migration flows are from the European Union, over which, seemingly, we now have virtually no control whatsoever. The numbers are getting completely out of hand, and my constituents will be horrified to learn that, from December 2013, yet another hole will be opened in Britain’s border controls with the prospect of unlimited immigration from two new accession countries to the European Union—Romania and Bulgaria, the so-called A2.

Over the past number of years, as more countries have come into the expanding European Union, more people have come to our country. The UK Statistics Authority estimates that in the second quarter of 2012 there were 1.4 million EU citizens working in the United Kingdom, with 107,000 unemployed and almost half a million economically inactive; those EU citizens have some 400,000 children. About half of that number come from the so-called A8 countries, which are eight of the 10 countries that became members of the EU in May 2004—Cyprus and Malta, and the eight central and eastern European accession countries. A derogation was included in the accession treaty to allow existing member states, of which the UK was one, to restrict those nationals’ right to work. That allowed existing EU member states to impose transitional restrictions on the free movement rights of workers from those new countries.

The transitional restrictions could have lasted for up to five years, or up to seven years in the case of “serious disturbance” to the old member state’s labour market. Disgracefully, the previous Labour Government did not apply transitional restrictions to A8 workers upon their joining the EU in 2004.

Of those countries, the biggest was Poland with a population of 38.5 million. The Czech Republic had a population of 10.5 million; Hungary, almost 10 million; Slovakia, 5.5 million; Lithuania, 3 million; Latvia, 2 million; Slovenia, 2 million; and Estonia, 1.3 million. The combined population was almost 73 million people. At the time of those countries’ accession to the EU, there were 94,000 A8 nationals living in the United Kingdom; as of the second quarter of 2012, that total is 1,079,000.

In 2003, under the previous Labour Government, the Home Office estimated that the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 would lead to an additional 5,000 to 13,000 net immigrants every year from those 10 acceding countries. Well, that disgracefully inadequate estimate has been replaced by the fact that well over 1 million people are now resident in the United Kingdom from the 2004 accession countries.

Romania and Bulgaria, the so-called A2, acceded to the EU in 2007. Once again, the treaty allowed for transitional restrictions for up to seven years. This time, thank goodness, the UK did apply transitional restrictions on the free movement rights of Bulgarian and Romanian workers, with the result that such workers normally need authorisation before they start work. Thank heaven for small mercies. The problem is that those seven years are almost up—they end on 31 December 2013.

When Romania and Bulgaria acceded to the European Union in 2007, 29,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were resident in the United Kingdom. As of the first quarter of 2012, that total has risen to 155,000 despite the transitional controls. Her Majesty’s Government are not prepared to estimate how many people will come in after December 2013. How do I know that? Because I asked the Home Department a written parliamentary question on how many immigrants are expected to arrive in the UK

“from Romania and Bulgaria in the first year after transitional immigration controls are lifted.”

The answer was:

“The Government do not routinely produce forecasts or estimates of future levels of migration from individual countries. The difficulty in producing a reliable forecast of likely levels of migration, which would need to take account of a variety of factors, is in this instance accentuated by the fact that the United Kingdom is not the only member state that will be required to lift existing labour market restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian nationals on 31 December 2013.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 184W.]

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate.

Does my hon. Friend find it frankly disingenuous, even reprehensible, for the Home Secretary to complain about the likely effects of such changes when she has not introduced measures either to measure those effects or to consider whether we can vary the free movement directive? As my hon. Friend may know, I moved a ten-minute rule Bill in the House on 31 October to introduce a de facto workers’ registration scheme mark 2, as the Spanish have.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am delighted by my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I commend him on the work he does for his constituents in Peterborough and on the courage he displayed in taking up the issue of immigration in the House. I was honoured and delighted to support his ten-minute rule Bill of 31 October that would have changed the freedom of movement that EU nationals currently enjoy in our country. For understandable reasons, he speaks for the British people on such issues.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we should do what the Spanish Government are doing. Faced with calamitous levels of unemployment, the Spanish have begun to interpret the free movement directive much more robustly. All EU citizens and family members in Spain have to register with the authorities if they wish to reside there for more than three months. Through that process, the Spanish authorities can check whether the requirements of the directive regarding residence after that period have been fulfilled. The Spanish authorities also require notification of any change of address or marital status. That is the absolute minimum that Her Majesty’s Government should be doing in this country, with the arrival of tens of thousands more Romanians and Bulgarians after December 2013.

It is a disgrace that the Home Office will not estimate the expected number of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria. Opening up our borders to all and sundry is bad enough, but it adds insult to injury not even to give the British people an estimate of how many incomers we can expect.

In the UK there are now almost 1.1 million eastern Europeans from the A8 accession countries, which have a combined population of 72.8 million. That is a rate of some 1.5%. If we apply that same rate to the entry of Romania, with 21 million, and Bulgaria, with 7 million, the 155,000 presently resident in the UK would climb to some 425,000. That means that we can expect three times more Romanians and Bulgarians than are currently resident in this country, an increase of some one third of a million over present levels, possibly within two years.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. My constituency, according to the statistics, has a low level of immigrants compared with other areas of the UK, but the issue remains key on the doorstep among voters. My constituents would be horrified at the figures he announced. Does he agree that the social cohesion of the country is under threat, and one of the first duties of the Government is to maintain that cohesion?

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, my hon. Friend speaks for Cleethorpes. His constituents will be delighted at his intervention, because he rightly highlights the importance of the issue to him and to them.

In truth, host member states are permitted to require EU citizens and their family members to register with the authorities, and to impose proportionate and non-discriminatory sanctions on those who fail to do so. The UK Government fail to do that. Member states are also permitted to restrict rights of entry on grounds of public policy, public security or public health. The UK Government, however, have failed ever to test those conditions or the specific issue of proportionality that is implicit in the directive in respect of the deportation of persistent and prolific criminals who are EU citizens.

Through my humble experience as a special constable with the British Transport police on London’s underground network, I know that some eight out of 10 shoplifters arrested by the police are from eastern Europe. Can they be sent back to their country of origin for breaking our laws? No, they cannot. Well, actually, they could be—if the UK Government had the guts to enforce that measure, but they cannot be at the moment because the Home Office is not introducing the sanctions that it could.

London is the largest city in western Europe, with 7.5 million residents, compared with 3.5 million in Berlin, 3.25 million in Madrid, 2.5 million in Rome and 2 million in Paris. As one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world and with English as its native language, of course London is a magnet for millions of people throughout the European Union, but the British people will not put up with the situation much longer. A local government Minister has said:

“The fact is, 43 per cent of the new households which want a home, is accounted for by immigration”,

so we will see swathes of our countryside built over to accommodate the millions of new arrivals from the European Union, over whom we seemingly have little control.

Is “enough is enough” enough? My constituents want the Home Office to impose the restrictions that it can on new entrants from Romania and Bulgaria. If our constituents were given the right to vote on whether we should stay a member of the European Union, they would now vote to leave, because Britain would be better off out of the European Union and we would have control over our borders once again.