Draft Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2016

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 General Committees

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

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

As we have heard, this amendment removes the exemption that benefits citizens from Australia and New Zealand when they come to our country by allowing them not to pay an up-front contribution to use our NHS. Until now, residents from both countries were exempt from the surcharge, due to reciprocal arrangements between them and the UK, which has allowed citizens of one country to use healthcare services in the other country for free. Exemptions are made for services with a fee, such as dental treatment and prescription medicine.

In principle, the Scottish Government welcome overseas visitors and migrants who are in the country for legitimate purposes—not only to contribute to our workforce and economy, but to contribute to our diversity and our vibrancy as a nation. We oppose this amendment on that and many other bases. We also think it impinges on Scottish Government competencies over health, although the Government have been very clear that they see this measure as an immigration statutory instrument.

We see the UK Government rationale as flawed in that respect, in dealing with expected costs for treating migrants in the UK’s NHS. However, the Government have only recent begun collecting data on how different nationalities use the NHS, and we are not really aware at the moment of the costs that we are trying to save, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East said.

The UK Government have been trying to reduce net migration. Despite that, however, it has risen to more than 100,000 a year under this Prime Minister, and further plans to increase work visa thresholds to £35,000 will put another seemingly immovable impediment in front of people trying to visit this country for legitimate reasons.

We in the SNP and Scottish Government say that the overall net contribution of migrants outweighs the transfers made to them during their stay here. We think there is not a cost to be legitimately saved. We say that the people who come here and benefit from the exemption from the surcharge are contributing more than they are taking out of the system. On that basis, and in particular because I am informed that the Scottish Government only found out about this statutory instrument by chance, we want to make our objections very clear and oppose the amendment.

Police Funding, Crime and Community Safety

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

I assure Members that I have no intention of taking up any more time than is absolutely necessary.

Let me begin by echoing the words of the Home Secretary, and making it clear that my hon. Friends and I are forever thankful for the tireless work that our police services do on our behalf to keep our streets safe. They are indeed indispensable. Since my election, I have been hugely impressed by the officers whom I have met. They are all completely dedicated to protecting the public, which is how it should be. I think we need to make it clear in this debate that all police staff on both sides of the border have our full and unequivocal support as they go about their very important duties.

The motion is predicated on the Chancellor’s announcement in the autumn statement that police budgets in England and Wales would be fully protected. I well remember the waving of Order Papers and the near-hysteria of Conservative Members, who presumably thought that full protection was the right course of action; it certainly seemed to be their view. The occasion followed a Back-Bench police debate in which I led for the SNP. During that debate, Labour called for cuts to be restricted to 10%—or 5%; it depends on whom we believe today. The Government made no commitment that day, although, somewhat predictably, they outflanked the Labour party in the autumn statement.

As always with this Government, the devil may well be in the detail. We now learn—from a response to a written question, no less—that this much-celebrated protection may not extend to the transport, defence and nuclear police. I remember the Chancellor’s words clearly, and if the response to the written question is correct—and there seems to be some debate about that today—his statement could be described as disingenuous. Given that policing is devolved, it is not for me, or the SNP, to argue the points that are made in the motion. I merely point out that I witnessed the Chancellor’s assurances, and that in any area of policy, devolved or not, it is imperative that the public can rely on clear statements in this place.

The motion does not stipulate Scotland specifically, which is a pleasant surprise. Perhaps the Labour party is learning that bashing Scotland and her democratically elected Government does its electoral chances in Scotland no good whatsoever. My party will therefore abstain in the vote, and will leave the debate to the MPs from England and Wales. Accordingly, my comments will not take up too much time. I do not wish to restrict the right of England and Wales Members to a say.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when it comes to policing, it is not just a question of money but a question of structure? Will he acknowledge that the SNP Government made a mistake in reducing their police to a single force?

[Richard Arkless]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the proposal was in the SNP manifesto, the Conservative manifesto, and the Labour manifesto at the last Scottish parliamentary election. It seems a bit rich to claim after the event that making the move was the wrong thing to do, given that all the parties were advocating such a move.

I am a Member of this House and my party is the third party in it. In that context, it is worth while briefly highlighting the approach that Scotland has taken to budget police cuts. I express my pride that the Scottish Government have done what is necessary to protect a commitment for 1,000 additional officers since 2007. That commitment has been delivered in full. We have delivered savings and maintained an impressive reduction in crime figures. We did it all in the face of the harsh austerity agenda against us. Most importantly, we kept officers on the streets, protecting communities effectively. Sure there have been challenges but all organisational upheaval of that extent will have those teething problems.

Since 2007 in Scotland, we have increased the number of officers by 6.3%, while in England and Wales in the same period the number has dropped by 10.8%. It is dangerous to risk security in that way, yet the Government insist on pursuing the line that they are making the UK safer. How you spend what you have and your spending priorities are often as important as the underlying spend. It is about time that the rest of the UK caught up with the standards set by the Scottish Government in achieving the lowest crime rate in four decades. We have driven savings and upheld the priority of combating new and more sophisticated forms of crime, including cybercrime, financial crime and terrorism. Having said that, I believe it is fundamentally unfair that the Scottish Police Authority has yet to be awarded the VAT status that every other police force in the UK enjoys. That alone would be enough to ease the burden on the force to the tune of £23 million.

[Jake Berry]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would confirm that the Scottish Government were advised, before they made the changes to the Scottish policing structure, that they would lose their special status on VAT. If so, why did they still proceed to make the change?

[Richard Arkless]

I can confirm that that was the case, but we made our protestations abundantly clear at that time, and we also made it clear that we would campaign on the issue. There is an old saying: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the chances are it is a duck. That looks unfair, it feels unfair and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it is unfair. Surely that cannot be right.

[Mr Speaker]

I discern that the hon. Gentleman has finished his speech. We are very obliged to him.

Policing

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I apologise to the hon. Lady, but I did say that I would make progress and I am conscious that time is getting on.

I have just quoted a few examples of how collaboration can benefit forces and represent savings. They collectively represent opportunities worth billions of pounds in savings for policing, without the loss of operational capability and without cutting corners on the service the public expect. Policing has risen admirably to the challenge of lower budgets and a changing landscape in the past five years, and I have no doubt it will continue to do so in the next five.

Before I finish, I want to address the final point in the motion. Police Scotland has previously been held up—including by shadow Front Benchers—as a better alternative to the model of police reform this Government have pursued in England and Wales. If on nothing else in today’s debate, I agree with what it says about Police Scotland, because I firmly believe that the amalgamation of eight local forces into a single body was mistaken.

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

I refer the right hon. Lady to her party’s 2011 manifesto, which said that it would agree to the creation of a single police force. If it was good enough in 2011, why is it not good enough now?

[Mrs May]

Top-down restructures of police forces do not deliver the benefits they supposedly promise. We as a party here have said that if forces wish to come to us and say that they have a business case and local support for a merger, we will look at it. On top-down restructuring, however, the economies of scale invariably do not appear. The complexity of bringing together distinct organisations can distract from the day-to-day business of fighting crime, and the most precious element of policing by consent—local accountability—can be lost. We must go further to drive deeper collaboration, better sharing of back-office services and a more intelligent approach to where police capabilities sit, to generate savings without the loss of local accountability and identity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

I am grateful that I have avoided the cull on speaking time and that I will be heard in full, but I do not propose to take up as much time as the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the Home Secretary.

I am delighted to be called to speak in this debate on policing. I am sure that everybody in the House would agree that the police in the UK are one of the best examples of civil law enforcement in the world. I have always been particularly proud of that. Police play a huge and invaluable role in all UK communities. They are a cornerstone of civilised society and the enforcers of what many of us understand to be the rule of law.

I offer personal thanks to all police officers and all civilian staff in all police forces across the United Kingdom. I also pay my condolences to the family of the courageous David Phillips. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

I pay tribute to all the civilian and police staff at Police Scotland, and thank them for their sterling and diligent work in admittedly challenging times over the past few years. When users were asked whether they felt confident that Police Scotland would deal with their inquiry efficiently, 79.1% gave a “very high” or “high” response.

My constituency of Dumfries and Galloway has faced challenging times with regard to policing. As the Home Secretary has said, the single police force was created in 2013, but not without concern locally. The local control room in Dumfries has been closed and I share the local concern about that. I am delighted to report, however, that last month the Scottish Government reacted by placing £1.4 million in an extra fund to train 70 to 75 call-handling staff. I am confident, therefore, that the Scottish Government are reacting to local concerns.

I have been clear that policing in Scotland has not been without challenges. In 2013, we created the single police force—a move supported by both the Conservative and Labour manifestos in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. That resulted in the amalgamation of eight police forces into one. I think it is right that a country of 5 million has one single police force. The crux of the move is to stop duplication, have a more joined-up approach towards policing and unlock potential savings over the next generation. The Scottish Government can confirm that they are on target to save £1.1 billion over 15 years. In fact, they have saved £120 million from Police Scotland’s budget since it was formed in 2013.

Good policing is not only about our fantastic police officers; it is about the wider criminal justice system. The causes of crime need to be addressed. Reoffending is down in Scotland, as is alcohol and drug abuse. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, which is passing through the Scottish Parliament, will reform court procedures to make them less rigorous, so that evidence can be agreed in advance and there is less need for officers to attend court hearings. There are increased obligations to provide procurators fiscal, the equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, with better and more thorough information. The rehabilitation consultation in Scotland is considering extending the presumption against short sentences of under three months. The attacks on legal aid that have happened in England and Wales have not occurred to the same extent in Scotland. We are trying to maintain good levels of access to justice. I am proud to say that we have no criminal courts charge in Scotland.

At the crux of this debate is cuts, but if we scratch below that issue, it is the manner of the cuts and the areas that are cut that cause most concern, particularly to Opposition Members. In Scotland, we have decided to protect frontline policing. I am proud to report that since the Scottish National party came to power in the Scottish Parliament in 2007, we have created an extra 1,000 police posts—there are now an extra 1,000 police on our streets. That can be compared with what we heard before I rose to speak: almost 12,000 police officers have been cut in England and Wales. Worryingly, that figure could rise to 20,000 over the next five years.

[Melanie Onn]

If things are going so well, why in a survey that was published last month did 33% of respondents from Police Scotland say that they saw themselves leaving the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland in the near future?

[Richard Arkless]

The hon. Lady is correct that an independent survey of police officers in Scotland came up with that figure, and that is concerning. If we look beyond that figure, the survey said that 50% of those who expressed an opinion blamed that desire on the pension changes enforced by the Treasury at Westminster. It has compelled our police officers to put 14.25% of their income towards their pension. The decrease in morale is blamed predominantly on that decision by the Treasury. Of course, that finding is concerning and the Scottish Government are doing everything possible to work with the Scottish police force and the SPA to address it.

[Melanie Onn]

It is very neat to blame Westminster for all the ills, but the survey also found that

“47% of all respondents stated that they did not receive recognition for any good work that they do and 37% stated they were not motivated to do the job to the best of their ability.”

Surely you cannot lay the blame for that at the hands of Westminster.

[Richard Arkless]

It is not me who is laying the blame. I am using the words of the police officers in Scotland, who have told us that the reason their morale is dropping is the pension changes made by the UK Government. I am merely the conduit.

It is interesting to note that there has been no similar sampling of police officers in England and Wales. Given the dramatic cut of more than 15,000 officers—the reverse of what is happening in Scotland—I suggest that any such exercise would produce similarly concerning results.

I am very proud of our approach in Scotland. My constituents and police officers tell me, as does every indicator I see, that people feel more confident when there are more visible police on the streets. That is the decision that we have made.

Members on both sides of the House have alluded to the letter that seven police and crime commissioners sent to the UK Government this week. The content of that letter is worrying in the extreme. As the right hon. Member for Leigh said, it states that the cut of 14% or £25 million next year in Lancashire will result in

“the loss of almost all of its proactive crime fighting and crime prevention capacity by 2020.”

It gives me no great pleasure to say that. The seven commissioners have informed the Government that they are

“taking legal advice with a view to initiating a judicial review”.

That sounds like a crisis. That is not happening with the single police force in Scotland.

[Joan Ryan]

Is it not the case that Police Scotland has had a year of chaos, with control centres closing, harming public safety? I understand that staff cuts have meant that some of the police who are working in the call centres are not trained in that work, which is leading to serious problems. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that?

[Richard Arkless]

I have just said that my constituency has been unfortunate to lose one control room, but that the Scottish Government have responded positively by providing an extra £1.4 million to train 70 to 75 call centre staff.

I must point out that in the week when the first Bill has been certified as an English-only Bill, this House has put forward a motion on a devolved matter that specifically criticises the Scottish Government. Scotland is watching and its people will be the final judges of what goes on in this House.

Police Scotland have done an incredible job recently on crime reduction. As I have said, the real test for the public is police numbers and crime levels. I am delighted to report that crime is down in Scotland. It is now safer to live in Scotland than it has been for 40 years.

[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

If everybody is doing such a good job, why is the chief constable leaving after such a short time?

[Richard Arkless]

As I understand it, the issues for the chief constable were not operational. We are trying to find a successor quickly. It will be his job to deal with many of the concerns arising from the continued review of the police service.

Crime is down: violent crime is down by 52%; handling offensive weapons is down by 62%; homicide is down by 48%; and fire raising and vandalism are down since 2007 by 58%. In 2014, there were 270,000 recorded crimes in Scotland, which is down by 148,000 from 2007. Statistically, it is clear that Police Scotland, despite the pressures forced upon it, is doing an incredible job.

The reasons for the reduction in crime in Scotland are complex, but I believe that enormous credit must go to our exceptional officers within Police Scotland. Thereafter, there are other reasons. Perhaps it is due in part to our growing sense of community and our optimism about our country’s future. The devolved Parliament in Scotland engages directly with the community wherever possible. Our Government are made up from ordinary people from ordinary Scottish communities. Our sense of community extends to the Government—they are accessible and fully accountable to the Scottish people. We have been working and taking measures towards building a fairer and more equal society, so that people feel less ignored and more included.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) alluded to a survey carried out in Scotland by an independent provider. It sought views on a range of subjects, including management, training, development, wellbeing, equality and communication. Twelve thousand officers took part. It found that there is a very positive team spirit within Police Scotland: 73% felt that their team works well to improve services; 83% said that they are treated with the utmost respect by their colleagues; and 78% expressed trust and respect for their line managers and said that they have strong relationships with their colleagues. The survey also highlighted the cohesion within Police Scotland.

[Melanie Onn]

It seems incredibly convenient that you are cherry-picking some of the—

[Melanie Onn]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is cherry-picking the statistics, but nearly half of respondents felt overloaded with information that they did not need to know. Only 22% felt that they had appropriate information on what Police Scotland wanted to achieve, and only 12% felt that they had appropriate information on what the Scottish Police Authority wanted to achieve. Is the evidence he is presenting an inaccurate reflection of the survey?

[Richard Arkless]

Absolutely not. I freely admit that there are concerns, but when any organisation goes through the fundamental change that Police Scotland has gone through in the last generation, concerns will arise.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is somewhat ironic that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) criticises him for cherry-picking from a survey when that is exactly what the motion on the Order Paper does? It picks one line from any number of different points in the survey. In fact, if we cherry-pick in such a way, we can make surveys say anything we want. We might even be able to find one that says that the Labour party is a credible political force.

[Richard Arkless]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that over 1,000 more police officers are on the streets in Scotland. That is what the public want and that is what they have received. There is a 79% satisfaction rate that, if people complain to Police Scotland, it will be dealt with in an efficient and responsible manner. To me, those two indicators are key. Our police perform well and the people in Scotland live in a country that is safer than it has been in my lifetime. I am very proud of that statistic.

The survey was the first ever of that nature carried out by Police Scotland. Officers embraced the opportunity to participate and there was a high response rate. There is a huge amount of interest in the results. It is important that they are used in a constructive and positive way to help to build a better police force in Scotland both for staff and civilians. Indeed, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, Brian Docherty, recently said that Police Scotland was an excellent service and should be recognised as such.

Interestingly, there is no comparable survey of police forces in the UK. Perhaps one should be undertaken with haste so that we can have a clearer picture of the police service throughout the UK. These reports should be read by everybody in the Government and the Opposition, particularly those who voted for continued austerity cuts. Sadly, most of the stresses endured by our police are the result of the continued UK austerity measures. Unison, which agrees, has said:

“It is clear from UNISON’s 2014 police staff stress survey that our members are suffering adverse effects from the impact of the UK government’s austerity cuts to policing.”

In conclusion, the creation of Police Scotland has allowed the Scottish Government to defend front-line services from Westminster austerity. I am proud that we have more police officers on the streets of Scotland, I am proud of the selflessness and dedication shown by Police Scotland members during these challenging times, and I am proud that Scotland has never in my lifetime been a safer place to live.

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[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Opposition Members recognise that the Tories have an ideological ambition to shrink the state. Attacks on the public sector have meant cuts in the workforce in almost all the areas where we try to serve our constituents, but I would never have thought that this Government’s ideological cuts would threaten to deliver the end of neighbourhood policing as we know it. That is potentially what we face if the Government go ahead with their plans for budget cuts.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) pointed out earlier, we have already seen a 25% reduction in real-terms funding since 2010 and 17,000 police officers have been lost since 2010, 12,000 of them from the frontline. I shall comment briefly on the potential cuts in Manchester as an example of the problem we face. Just as the Government have hit the poorest areas hardest with local government cuts, so it is with police funding. Generally, the more deprived areas, such as mine in Manchester, which rely on a greater proportion of central Government funding, will be hit hardest by Government cuts in police budgets.

Some 80% of Greater Manchester police funding comes from central Government. The disproportionate impact of the proposed cuts will mean that we would be among the hardest hit communities in the country. Greater Manchester has already lost £134 million from its budget—a quarter of the budget—since 2011. The majority of a police force budget is spent on staff, so these cuts directly hit the number of officers serving our communities. We have had the second biggest reduction in officers outside the Met. In 2010 Greater Manchester police had 8,200 officers. That is now down to around 6,500.

[Richard Arkless]

Given the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, does he agree that if cuts are to fall on police services across the UK, front-line officers should be protected from those cuts?

[Jeff Smith]

Absolutely. We would all want to see front-line officers protected. They are the boots on the ground and the voices that connect with our communities.

[Richard Arkless]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that the Scottish Government’s response has been correct, in that we have protected front-line services and increased police numbers by 1,000 since 2007?

[Jeff Smith]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I am more interested in Greater Manchester and my own constituency, though I have nothing against Scotland.

The Home Office is asking for modelling of cuts at 25% and 40%. I asked the Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner what that would mean for Greater Manchester police. A 25% cut would take police officer numbers below 5,000. A 40% cut would be catastrophic. We might be down to fewer than 3,000 officers. From over 8,000 officers in 2010 to under 3,000 on the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary’s watch—do they really want that as their legacy? That is not sustainable.

The model of neighbourhood policing that works so well in my area and many others would be under threat. Bobbies on the beat is not some kind of romantic “Dixon of Dock Green” vision of how police forces should work. It is emblematic of the successful model of policing that we currently have—police officers and PCSOs connected to their communities and adding to community cohesion.

What the Government are proposing is a huge change. In the words of Lord Condon, who knows quite a lot about policing, these

“profound changes to the bedrock of British policing should be taking place only by design and after widespread debate . . . not by stealth as a consequence of budgetary change.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 564.]

There are, of course, new challenges facing our police forces—terrorism, cybercrime, child sexual exploitation, human slavery and human trafficking, as well as changes in organised crime—and we need a proper debate about how the police deal with those challenges. We also need to consider how community policing helps to tackle those problems, because I believe, as do many police officers, that they are exactly the areas where local intelligence makes a vital difference, where good community relations are important, and where our police officers and PCSOs are the bedrock of those good community relations.

When I meet my local team—Ben and the other PCSOs—on the streets in Withington, I can chat to them and we can share our experiences of what is going on in the local area. That is useful for me and, I hope, useful for them. The conversations that we have add to their knowledge of the local area—their community—and to the intelligence that they can pick up on sensitive issues.

Another former very senior police officer, Lord Paddick, has said of the changing nature of terrorism and lone-wolf attacks:

“In many cases, community intelligence about the individuals involved may be the only way that we can prevent terrorist outrages.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 565.]

The conversations that take place with neighbourhood policing add to the safety of our communities. Cuts in the number of officers and PCSOs are a direct threat to the safety of our communities. The Government are making a huge mistake in assuming that just because some types of crime have fallen we can cut back our police to unsustainable levels. Nobody is saying that the police should not make savings, but cuts on this level will be a massive blow to our communities. I urge the Government to think again.

Immigration Bill

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

I will not take my full six minutes. I merely want to touch on two separate components of this Bill: the proposed employment levy on immigrant workers, and the availability of bank accounts and driving licences for failed immigration applicants.

I fear this Bill, and these particular sections, will only fuel the misconceptions that surround immigration. They risk tarring every immigrant with the same ill-informed brush. Worse still, they risk disfranchising many UK citizens, purely on the basis that they may have a foreign- sounding name, a bank account and, heaven forbid, a driving licence and a car. This, of course, may not be the intention of the Bill—I hope it is not—but it is the unintended consequences which concern me, and we in this place should be alive to them.

This Bill creates powers to impose an immigration skills charge on employers for skilled workers they sponsor from outside the EU. I would prefer to call it the “immigrant tax” to be paid by small and medium-sized enterprises, a potentially devastating combination. This provision will deter employers from employing people from outside the EU. We will see genuinely skilled migrants, many of whom might even have a world-class education from one of our universities in the UK or Scotland, slip through our fingers. The message it sends out is clear: immigrants are considered different, more expensive—unwanted. It flies in the face of substantial empirical and personal evidence which outlines the greatly positive fiscal and social contribution immigrants have made to the UK—it is not, as the Home Secretary said at the weekend, close to zero.

I fear we would not have an NHS had this policy been implemented a generation ago. What will the next generation look like? This is unacceptable at a time when the country as a whole should be tasked with innovating and expanding its ambitions. We can only do this if we welcome thinkers and innovators from outside our shores, as well as supporting those inside them.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Earlier this year, I, along with a Conservative Member who is in the Chamber, visited Pakistan and we heard a number of people complain about the visa arrangements and how that was holding back opportunities for students from Pakistan to study in Scotland and across the UK. Does my hon. Friend agree that this part of the policy is very dangerous?

[Richard Arkless]

I think it is incredibly dangerous and one of the things that has struck me since I became an MP, with the many constituents who come to my surgeries, is the mess the immigration system is in. Things take too long, decisions are often bad, and in my experience it is vulnerable people who are trying to better their lives who are paying the consequences for this, which I find completely unacceptable.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

On the point about the delegation to Pakistan, of course people in Pakistan and here in the UK want a fairer system of immigration. We have to ensure the rules are fair so that genuine students can come and study, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that what we saw previously, with 600 bogus colleges, and people coming here when they should not have and when they did not want to be students, was wrong? The system we are putting in place will address that, so that genuine students from Pakistan can come here and study.

[Richard Arkless]

Forgive me for being cynical, but the number given earlier in the debate was 900 and now it is 600. That underlines the fact that there is misinformation; there is no evidence base for this Bill. There is no evidence base for the assertion of 900 or 600. What is the right figure? We need to know the facts.

The opportunities for prejudice and discrimination will be rife as a result of this Bill. It places a duty on banks and building societies to carry out regular checks on the immigration status of individuals and to notify the Home Office when a person becomes disqualified from holding a current account. I have a degree of sympathy with that proposal, on the face of it. A failed immigration applicant should not have access to banking or other services, but I worry about the unintended consequences, not least for our own citizens from other cultures or for perfectly legitimate immigrants. How many failed immigration applicants actually have a stash of cash that would need to be frozen? Would freezing such assets serve any purpose, save that of scoring obvious political points? These provisions could result in serious intrusion into the lives of all our citizens if they were applied in the wrong circumstances.

The Bill also contains the power to seize and detain vehicles driven by illegal immigrants. It provides for the prosecution and imprisonment and/or fining of those who drive if they are illegal immigrants, even if they are in possession of a valid driving licence from another state. Again, on the face of it, that might appear sensible, but I have to ask: do we really have a problem with lots of failed immigration applicants clogging up our streets and creating traffic jams with their cars, or is this just another point-scoring exercise?

How these provisions are to be regulated and enforced should be a matter for rigorous debate in this place. It is clear that the Bill is fixated on reducing the net migration figures, and in so doing—as has been admitted by Conservative Members—reducing the attractiveness of the UK as a place where skilled migration is welcomed. The Home Secretary’s dangerously aggressive speech to her party’s conference was a class act in striking more fear where it does not belong. The Bill will extend that fear to those who might not even have done anything wrong. How many UK citizens with foreign-sounding names will have their lives disrupted and become disfranchised as a result of these measures before we realise that this has been a mistake? I believe that the nut that this sledgehammer of a Bill has been designed to smash will pale into insignificance beside the can of worms that the provisions will open.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the crystallisation of the embarrassment we on the SNP Benches feel about the UK Government approach is in the numbers? When the 20,000 over five years is stripped down, it is six per constituency per year across the United Kingdom. I have had hundreds of emails and crying phone calls from my constituents who are ready to take vastly more than this pitiful number of six per constituency. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is the numbers that are embarrassing?

[Joanna Cherry]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and all Members in this House will probably have shared that experience of being absolutely inundated with emails and letters over the last few days.

I was talking about German generosity in the face of this humanitarian crisis, and I pose this question: on what basis do the UK Government think it is fair for Germany and our other EU neighbours to accept so many of these refugees who have arrived in Europe when the UK turns its back completely on the refugees who have arrived in Europe? There is a depressingly large contrast between Angela Merkel’s announcement yesterday of a €6 billion investment in shelters and language courses for refugees and the UK Government’s rather frosty approach.

There is also a danger that the UK Government policy of only taking those refugees who have stayed behind in the camps will label them as “good” refugees and those who have come to Europe as “bad” refugees. Such an approach is not helpful and does not begin to engage with the reality of the situation.