Immigration

Steve Barclay Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

I did say that it was under successive Governments. The reason for that is that the liberal elite of this country—I do not count the hon. Gentleman among its number—that controls far too much of the Establishment and wields too much power is at odds with the understanding which prevails in his constituency and mine of ordinary, everyday working people, who recognised what I have just said long ago but were told by people who should have known better that net migration at that level was not only tolerable but desirable. It is a complete nonsense to pretend so, and every piece of analysis justifies that.

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that this concern about the high levels of immigration is also an issue of democracy and the sense of people not being heard? I noted the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) expressing support for deportations of foreign-born criminals, but unless the Government use levers—restrictions on visas for those countries not taking people back—we will again see too many foreign-born criminals in our prisons instead of being deported back to their native country.

[Sir John Hayes]

I of course agree with my right hon. Friend, who as usual has brought a particular insight based on his long experience to our considerations, and let us just take one example of that. Some 647,000 migrants received health and care visas from 2021 to June 2024; 270,000 of them were workers and an extraordinary, outrageous 377,000 were dependants. Even—[Interruption.] Even, I say to those on the Liberal Democrats Benches, those remaining members of the liberal elite who still perpetuate the conspiracy of silence about these matters must understand that everyone who comes to the country brings an economic value and an economic cost, and many of those dependants will not have brought economic value. That is not to disparage them in any way—they are perfectly nice people, I am sure—but they are not adding to the economy and certainly not adding to the per capita productivity or growth in the economy. In fact, they are detracting from it.