Future Immigration

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who speaks from experience as a former Immigration Minister. He asks a perfectly good question about how we can continue to attract the best and the brightest, especially if we are focused too rigidly on salary. One way we intend to do that in the new system is by taking a recommendation from the Migration Advisory Committee on shortage occupation lists. We will take that further, make it more dynamic and responsive, and review it more regularly. That will allow us, as it does in the current non-EEA immigration system, but much more effectively, to set lower salary thresholds for shortage occupations.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will look very closely at what the Home Secretary has set out in the Immigration White Paper. We have heard many different stories about what it will include, but I am not sure we can entirely believe all of them, given the disputes we have seen between him and the Prime Minister.

I want to ask the Home Secretary a very specific question about immigration enforcement at our border in relation to no-deal planning. The permanent secretary of his Department told us on the Home Affairs Committee just a few weeks ago:

“It is not part of our contingency planning to deploy the armed forces.”

I pressed him on this, and he said again:

“It is not part of our no-deal planning that we would deploy the armed forces, for example, at the border.”

Was the permanent secretary misleading the Committee, or was it a surprise to the Department this morning when it was told that the Army could be deployed at the border for immigration enforcement and other purposes?

[Sajid Javid]

Of course, there is no-deal planning going on in the Home Office, as there is in every other Department. We do not expect it, but we need to plan for all contingencies. We are hiring more Border Force officers, and there will also be a taskforce, which is already being set up, and some of the new funding for those Border Force officers has already been announced. As for the use of soldiers, whether reservists or regulars, there is a broader plan—it is not part of the Home Office’s plan—to have up to 3,500 soldiers available for civil work as and when they are needed.