Ruth Cadbury
Main Page: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)Department Debates - View all Ruth Cadbury's debates with the Home Office
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Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I also thank the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for securing this excellent debate. I will try not to repeat the points that have been made by her and others. I declare an interest: I was chair of Barrow Cadbury Trust, which funded the Migrants’ Rights Network from its inception, and the MRN has been part of the group of organisations that has supported the work in Parliament today as well as at other times.
On Friday, I met a group of constituents in my surgery that included both individuals and couples who have been affected by the new operation of the immigration regulations. They are all from India and are highly qualified, well paid and well respected IT professionals. They came to answer this country’s skill shortage—a shortage that has not gone away. They work in our large and reputable companies such as Sky and Royal Mail, and one of the affected people they know even works for HMRC. Today, the Government launched a programme to attract tech entrepreneurs to the UK, yet the Home Office is effectively sending home high-skilled tech people who contribute so much to our economy. I must also say that they are, of course, net contributors to the Exchequer.
After the Windrush scandal, this is yet another example of the hostile environment operating at the Home Office. Many have been refused for spurious reasons. Those without the right of appeal cannot work, cannot take up the offer of promotion, cannot rent a flat and may lose their driving licence. Even those with pending appeals or judicial review applications who can work are losing jobs because nervous employers have asked them to resign. Many cannot travel to see family and cannot explain to their family why they cannot visit them. One person I met was told by the Home Office that he could get his travel documents to attend his brother’s funeral if he withdrew his application.
Given these people’s age profile, many have small children, or they want to start a family but cannot do so because they are in limbo. They told me, “We love this country and we don’t want to leave, yet we feel we’re just numbers. You”—not me but this Government and, they feel, this country—“want to attract talent from across the world, yet you don’t respect those of us who are here. This is affecting the reputation of the UK around the world.”
Some are refused not for tax problems but because, with their employer’s permission, they have extended their leave beyond 28 days to 45 days, or for maternity leave.