Immigration and Home Affairs

Debate between Richard Tice and Lee Anderson

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

May I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) and others on their excellent maiden speeches?

It is a great honour to represent Boston and Skegness, which I believe is the most fertile constituency in the country. I refer of course to the productivity of the amazing agricultural farmland in the constituency. At the heart of it is Batemans Brewery, a fantastic family brewery launched in 1874.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

Good beer.

[Richard Tice]

Good beer indeed. There is the extraordinary engineering feature of a lattice of ditches, dykes, drains, rivers and havens that ensure that the farmland is productive.

At the eastern end of this great constituency is sunny Skegness, where millions go for their holidays every year—the home of the first Butlin’s, in 1936—and where the fourth longest pier in the country was built in the late 1880s. It is an extraordinary and remarkable town. It has the benefit of producing what I think is possibly the best value, most delicious and greatest portions of ice cream, to which I am very partial.

If we head west from Skegness, over the farmland, we reach the historic market town of Boston. It has the tallest parish church tower in England—known as “the Stump”—built over 500 years ago. A couple of hundred years ago, Boston was the largest trading port outside London. Of course, it was Bostonians who, in 1630, left the Isle of Wight for north America, where they established Boston, Massachusetts. It is a remarkable constituency that I am proud to represent.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Mr Matt Warman, who was the MP for nine years. His legacy is in healthcare in particular. We are building at the moment a £40 million accident and emergency facility—he played a role in that. He saved a children’s unit from closing, and he had a significant role in securing the diagnostics care unit that is under construction. Those are great achievements.

There is a reason I overturned the largest ever Conservative majority in the country. Despite the Jolly Fisherman being the symbol of Skegness, my constituents are not feeling very jolly at the moment. Seven out of 10 of them voted to leave the European Union. They trusted the previous Government—they took them at their word—but they now feel a sense of political betrayal in a number of areas.

The first people who are not very jolly are the fishermen themselves, who feel that various bureaucrats including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities are acting so as to try to suppress or destroy this great industry for our seafaring nation, one that produces food and generates great revenues. In addition, bureaucrats are making the issue of flooding a serious problem in my constituency. Thousands of homes have been flooded, and with a failure to properly maintain sea level defences, tens of thousands of homes are at risk, again because of bureaucracy and inertia. Another reason why my constituents are really quite grumpy is that the stupid net zero policies will result in hundreds of massive, ugly pylons blighting the environment and countryside of my constituency, as well as solar farms planned on incredibly productive agricultural farmland. It is absolute idiocy.

Then, of course, there is another big issue that is making my constituents very grumpy indeed. One of the slogans for leaving the European Union was to take back control. The previous Government promised it; do you remember that slogan? It was about money, laws and borders—yes, borders. It was about controlling immigration and having smart immigration—working, integrating and speaking the language—which we should all agree is a great thing. Instead, the previous Government opened the doors to mass immigration, with significant consequences for towns such as Boston and other towns up and down the country.

I will give Members an example. Every morning in the centre of Boston, dozens and dozens of east Europeans arrive in the marketplace with nothing to do. They have been hoofed out of the houses in multiple occupation where they are hot-bedding—two or three shifts a day on the same mattresses—because of mass, uncontrolled immigration. They have got nothing to do, and they have been aided and abetted in coming to the UK by false promises made by morally bankrupt businesses, which are helping them to get national insurance numbers for overseas persons under a scheme that we thought had closed.

We thought the EU settlement scheme had closed, but it turns out that it has not. If someone fibs about how much time they have spent here before 2020, they can still apply, so many are still arriving, and they are not integrating. They are not learning the language, and regrettably, it creates an intimidating atmosphere in the centre of the town—I know this goes on elsewhere. The implication is most seriously felt by women who work in the town centre, who feel unsafe leaving their place of work, and by constituents who do not want to go into the centre of this great market town at night because they fear, frankly, that it is not safe. When they go there at night, there is no chance of seeing any police whatsoever—I have been there on a number of occasions. What those people will see is drug dealers in the centre of the marketplace, plying their hideous, vile trade night in and night out. That is completely unacceptable.

During the election campaign, I went to numerous houses; for example, there was one where seven people were living in a house with two bedrooms. It was a Bulgarian family, and only one member of that family spoke any English at all. They said, “We’re here to claim benefits—your health benefits and housing benefits. We would prefer it in Bulgaria, but we want to take your benefits and then send the money home.” That is what is going on up and down the country, and it is completely unacceptable. [Interruption.] There is muttering—the truth hurts. The establishment do not want to talk about this, do they?