Baroness May of Maidenhead
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Immigration Bill
Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
We have introduced a limit on economic migration from outside the EU, cut out abuse of student visas and reformed family visas. As a result, net migration is down by a third. Our objective—
Simon Danczuk
The Home Secretary says that net migration is down by a third; the reality is that it has fallen by only a quarter. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that, and the Government are at risk of misleading Parliament. Would the Home Secretary like to correct the record?
Mrs May
It is a bit cheeky for a Labour Member to stand up and complain about the figures for falling migration. Immigration is down since 2010 and net migration is down by a third from its peak in 2010.
Our objective remains to reduce annual net migration to the tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament, and we must also reform the immigration system that manages the flow of migrants in and out of the UK. When I addressed the House in March this year, I explained that the immigration system that we had inherited from the last Government was chaotic and dysfunctional. Having created a separate entity in the UK Border Force to get a grip on border checks, we were left with a UK Border Agency that still lacked transparency and accountability, and to tackle that I split the UK Border Agency into two distinct operational commands inside the Home Office—UK visas and immigration and immigration enforcement. I made it clear that while organisational reform was necessary to transform the way in which we dealt with immigration, it would not on its own be enough to achieve that goal. We also needed to update the IT infrastructure and to change the complicated legal and policy framework that so often worked against us. The Bill changes some of that legal and policy framework so that it will be possible for the immigration system to operate fairly and effectively.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The Home Secretary was clearly right to intervene in the way she did to sort out UKBA, which was clearly dysfunctional, and that was the right move in the right direction. But those of us who are willing to give the Bill a Second Reading—I am one of them—have concerns that there was no draft Bill, no Green Paper and no White Paper; there was consultation on only part of the Bill, and there are sensitive areas that need to be looked at across the board, including in connection with the legal aid changes. Why do we have to deal so quickly with such sensitive and difficult issues?
Mrs May
It has been clear for some time, as I have laid out, that the Government want to bring forward legal and policy framework proposals to make sure that we can deliver for people in this country a fair approach on immigration, which ensures that those who come here and stay here and use our public services contribute, and that those who are here illegally can be removed more quickly. My right hon. Friend is a long-standing Member of the House and knows full well that there will be significant opportunities for discussion of this matter in Committee. I can assure him that there have already been a considerable number of discussions on the elements that have gone into the Bill. These are issues that have been addressed by Select Committees in the past.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
We look forward to considering this again in the future. The BBC is reporting that the immigration vans that were introduced by the Government to go around certain cities to ask people to leave the country will no longer be rolled out. When she appeared before the Select Committee last Tuesday, she said that the vans were not her personal idea, but part of a package. Has she now seen the pilot and is she now telling the House that they will not be rolled out throughout the country?
Mrs May
What I said to the right hon. Gentleman was that I did not have a flash of blinding light one day and walk into the Home Office and say, “I know, why don’t we do this?” I have looked at the interim evaluation of the vans. Some returns were achieved, but politicians should be willing to step up to the plate and say when they think that something has not been such a good idea, and I think that they were too blunt an instrument. But we should also be absolutely clear about what used to happen under the last Government. If somebody came to the end of their visa, no one got in touch with them to say that they should no longer be staying here in the UK. That is now happening as a result of the changes to immigration enforcement. As a result of that work, during the last year some 4,000 people have left the UK. It is absolutely right that we do that, but we will not be rolling out the vans; they were too much of a blunt instrument.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are able, in a sensitive area, to stop some of the abuses, it will allow us to help the very people whom we all in this House want to help, instead of having our system abused?
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
Is it not also the case that the previous Government not only did nothing to encourage people to leave the country when they had overstayed, but instituted a series of amnesties that undermined the credibility of the whole system for overstaying people?
Mrs May
I have taken a number of interventions and will now make some progress.
I will set out the elements of the Bill in context. First, the Bill will cut abuse of the appeal process. It will streamline the labyrinthine legal process, which at present allows appeals against 17 different Home Office decisions—17 different opportunities for immigration lawyers to cash in and for immigrants who should not be here to delay their deportation or removal. By limiting the grounds for appeal to four—only those that engage fundamental rights—we will cut that abuse.
Secondly, we will extend the number of non-suspensive appeals so that, where there is no risk of serious and irreversible harm, we can deport first and hear appeals later. We will also end the abuse of article 8. There are some who seem to think that the right to family life should always take precedence over public interest in immigration control and when deporting foreign criminals. The Bill will make the view of Parliament on the issue very clear. Finally, the Bill will clamp down on those who live and work in the UK illegally and take advantage of our public services. That is not fair to the British public and to the legitimate migrants who contribute to our society and economy.
Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)
Did the Home Secretary take advice from colleagues in the Department for Education on the extent to which her definition of article 8 is compliant with our obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child?
Mrs May
I can assure my hon. Friend that we have had a number of discussions with colleagues in the Department for Education on the operation of the proposals in the Bill. There is an agreement across the Government that we need to do precisely what I have just set out in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott): we must ensure that we are fair to those people who come here legitimately and do everything the right way, but we must also make it easier to remove those people who do not have a right to be here.
Mrs May
I will make some progress before giving way again.
Part 1 of the Bill is about removals. The current process for enforcing the removal of people who are in the UK unlawfully is complex, with too many stages before an individual can be removed. With multiple decision points, the current system provides individuals with multiple opportunities to bring challenges throughout the process. That increases the risk of further delays before removal takes place. We want to adopt a system in which only one decision is made. That will inform the individual that they cannot stay in the UK, and enable immigration enforcement to remove them if they do not leave voluntarily.
The existing system, designed by the previous Government through eight different Acts of Parliament, does not work. It was inevitable that such a complex system would be exploited. The Bill remedies that. As well as delaying the removal process, some illegal migrants held in immigration detention may apply to an immigration judge for bail and then use it as an opportunity to disappear. Bail might be appropriate in some circumstances, but can it be appropriate to grant bail when a detainee is booked on a flight in the next few days and there are no exceptional circumstances? Should immigration detainees who have already been refused bail be permitted to make repeat applications day after day? The Bill will bring sense to the law in this area and stop that abuse.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
The Home Secretary mentioned the eight previous Acts. During my time in the House it has seemed that we get a new immigration Bill at least every two years, and very few of them seem to have any long-lasting beneficial effect. Can she convince me that the Bill is not another example of the Home Office reaching for the statute book, rather than dealing with the management of the immigration service properly, and can she estimate how long we will have to wait for the next immigration Bill?
Mrs May
This is about putting in place a number of legal changes that will help ensure that the system can be better managed. Alongside that policy change, as I have evidenced in the fact that I have abolished the UK Border Agency and set up the two new commands within the Home Office, we are of course making changes in how we manage and administer the system to make it operate more smoothly and rather better.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Will the Home Secretary confirm that limiting the number of bail applications that can be made is nothing new? Under the Bail Act 1976, the number of applications one can make in criminal cases is limited before exceptional circumstances have to be shown, so this is nothing new and we are simply improving the process.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
The Home Secretary is being generous in giving way. Does she agree that a process with so many in-built delays takes a toll not only on the taxpayer but on those going through the process, who have to live through so much uncertainty during that time? Does she also agree that if we are to require the decision makers to make a greater number of decisions earlier in the process, they will need to have greater expertise in order to do so?
Mrs May
We obviously want to ensure that those making the decisions do so properly. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is only fair to those who are making applications that they get a decision that has been properly considered within a reasonable space of time. Sadly, that was not happening in the system we inherited, so we are having to make a lot of changes. I have been clear that that change cannot take place within six months; it will take some time before we can see the system that everybody wants.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
With reference to the point the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) made about discussing numerous immigration Bills during his time in the House, along with the introduction of the UK Border Agency and the Australian-style points-based system and the huge reduction in the number of asylum seekers coming to this country, does that not make it absolutely clear that claims that the previous Labour Government were totally uninterested in immigration are total nonsense? We can argue about how effective the Acts were, but the fact that the previous Government came back so many times to discuss immigration makes it clear that they were very sensitive to the issue.
Mrs May
Unfortunately, the previous Labour Government were interested in immigration in the wrong way. One of the things this Government have had to do, for example, is root out abuse of student visa applications, which started under the previous Government’s points-based system. I will take no lectures about the previous Labour Government’s interest in immigration.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
In June 2003 the then Immigration Minister, Beverly Hughes, said that the impact on migration into Britain of 10 accession countries joining the European Union would be “minimal”, with 13,000 migrants expected a year. That was laughably inaccurate. Can the Home Secretary assure us that the Bill will ensure that there is no repeat of that shocking open-door immigration policy?
Mrs May
I can be absolutely clear with my hon. Friend that, as far as this Government are concerned, full transitional controls should be put on any country joining the European Union. We are also looking at a number of proposals to deal with what we have described on various occasions as the potential pull factors for individuals coming here. The Bill will deal with some of the issues that require a legislative response. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is also looking at concerns about access to benefits and, I am pleased to say, is working well with other EU member states that have similar concerns about the way some of these systems currently operate.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. I want to raise the issue of EU identity cards. She is suggesting that landlords will be required to understand all the EU ID cards that guarantee somebody’s right to be in this country. One of the difficulties is that in Italy, for instance, it is not the national state that provides the ID card but the local authority, which can be tiny. How on earth can a commercial landlord be expected to understand all 444 different EU ID cards?
Mrs May
The problem with the argument that the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members have been advancing in relation to landlords is that we already have an example of a system where people check the status of individuals: employers do that, and they are provided with support by the Home Office. Exactly the same will happen with landlords. The idea that this is something entirely new is completely wrong. Many landlords already ask exactly these sorts of questions of the people to whom they are renting properties.
Establishing the identity of illegal migrants is a further difficulty in the removal process. Visa applicants are required to give their fingerprints to an entry clearance officer before they enter the UK. Following my border reforms last year, the fingerprints of arriving passengers are checked to ensure that the person who has travelled to the UK is the rightful holder of the visa, but there are gaps in our powers to take fingerprints, and the Bill closes them. When the police encounter a suspect, they have the power to check fingerprints, but when an immigration officer encounters a suspected illegal migrant, they may check fingerprints only where consent is given unless they arrest them. Not surprisingly, not everyone consents. Officers need powers equivalent to those of the police so that when they find an illegal migrant they can check their fingerprints to confirm their suspicion and start enforcement action.
Mrs May
I have already been very generous in taking interventions.
Part 2 is about appeals. The appeals system is complex and costly. Seventeen different immigration decisions attract rights of appeal, and when a case finally comes to a close some applicants put in fresh applications and start all over again. That is not fair to the public, who expect swift enforcement of immigration decisions. The Bill sorts out the mess. In future, the 17 rights of appeal will be reduced to four. Foreign criminals will not be able to prevent deportation simply by dragging out the appeals process, as many such appeals will be heard only once the criminal is back in their home country. It cannot be right that criminals who should be deported can remain here and build up a further claim to a settled life in the United Kingdom.
As well as reducing the number of appeals, we propose to simplify the process. An appeal to an immigration judge is a very costly and time-consuming way of correcting simple casework errors that could be resolved by a request to the Home Office to review the decision. This is what we already do overseas for millions of visa applicants. Applicants will be able to contact the Home Office and ask for a simple administrative review to remedy such errors. That can resolve errors in decisions cheaply and quickly, within 28 days, and it is substantially quicker than the average 12 weeks that it currently takes to appeal via the tribunal with all the costs that that incurs. The Bill creates an effective and efficient appeals system that will ensure that the process cannot be abused or manipulated to delay the removal of those who have no basis for remaining in the UK, but it still provides an opportunity to challenge a decision where fundamental rights are concerned. The public are fed up with cases where foreign criminals are allowed to stay because of an overly generous interpretation by the courts of article 8—the right to respect for family and private life. Under the current system, the winners are foreign criminals and immigration lawyers and the losers are the victims of these crimes and the law-abiding public.
The Government first sought to address this issue in July 2012 by changing the immigration rules with the intention of shifting the weight the courts give to the public interest. This House debated and approved the new rules, which set out the factors in favour of deportation and the factors against it. The courts accept that the new rules provide a complete code for considering article 8 where we are deporting foreign criminals. However, some judges have still chosen to ignore the will of Parliament and go on putting the law on the side of foreign criminals instead of the public. I am sending a very clear message to those judges: Parliament wants a law on the people’s side, the public want a law on the people’s side, and this Government will put the law on the people’s side once and for all. This Bill will require the courts to put the public interest at the heart of their decisions.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Given that the figures show that first-instance decision making is very poor in this regard, with 42% of family visit visas and 51% of entry clearance applications successfully appealed last year, does the right hon. Lady agree that it would be better to focus on getting the system right than on eroding appeal rights against immigration decisions?
Mrs May
No, I have been very generous in giving way. Let me say to Labour Members and to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that one of the problems we have seen in some family visit appeals in the past—this is why we removed the family visit appeal process—is that people have introduced new information into the appeals mechanism in the time since the original decision. That means that the decision in an appeal that is won is not necessarily based on the original case but may be based on the case put forward on appeal, which may be different. The hon. Lady needs to be careful when she quotes figures.
Mr Straw
May I correct the right hon. Lady on one thing? Long experience tells me that the tribunals do not accept information that has come in after the original application was made; it would sometimes be better if they did. We are all interested in streamlining the system. However, given the very high number of decisions on appeal that overturn the original decisions by the Home Office or the immigration officials abroad, what guarantee can she offer that the quality of the reviews that will now be undertaken by Home Office officials as an alternative to appeals will be subject to proper supervision? In my experience, when we had those reviews before we often got poor-quality decision making and people within the Department saying, “Oh well, if so and so has already said no, I’m going to say no too.” If that happens we end up with more judicial reviews.
Mrs May
First, tribunals do accept, and have been accepting—we have seen examples of this—information that has come forward after the original application was made prior to the appeal. The figures that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion quoted related to family visit appeals. We have already removed the ability to appeal on a family visit visa. It takes less time and is slightly cheaper for people to reapply and, if they have further information, to put it into the appeals mechanism. Of course, we need to ensure that the system is operating properly, and we will be looking to ensure that, through the operation of the ability to challenge administrative error, we ensure that people are making decisions fairly on the basis of the decision that is put in front of them.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I welcome the fact that this Bill will enable the system to become effective, as well as humane. How will it impact on human trafficking, not least in relation to those who are human trafficked and are dealt with more as criminals than as they should be—victims?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend will know that we are looking at the whole question of how we deal with human trafficking, or—let us call it what it is—modern slavery. Next year we will introduce a Bill to deal with modern slavery, with a particular focus on dealing with the criminal gangs who undertake this activity. The launch of the new National Crime Agency gives us an even greater ability to deal with those gangs. I want to ensure that we not only start to reduce but end this horrible crime of human trafficking—modern slavery.
Mrs May
I am going to make some further progress.
Part 3 is about migrants’ access to services. We want to ensure that only legal migrants have access to the labour market, free health services, housing, bank accounts and driving licences. This is not just about making the UK a more hostile place for illegal migrants; it is also about fairness. Those who play by the rules and work hard do not want to see businesses gaining an unfair advantage through the exploitation of illegal labour, or to see our valuable public services, paid for by the taxpayer, used and abused by illegal migrants.
Hon. Members will know that the right of non-European economic area nationals to work in the UK is restricted, and where the right to work is granted, it may be restricted to a particular employer or limited hours. Employers are required to ensure that their employees have the right to work in the UK and if they do not, they will face penalties, but the process for enforcing those fines is complicated. The Bill will streamline that process, making employers think again before hiring illegal labour.
Let me turn to the national health service. Many temporary migrants are currently allowed free access to the NHS as if they were permanent residents. Such an approach is extremely generous, particularly compared with wider international practice. Our intention is to bring the rules regulating migrant access to the NHS into line with wider Government policy on migrant access to benefits and social housing. That means restricting access to free NHS care to those non-EEA nationals with indefinite leave to remain and those granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK. Under this Bill, other migrants will have to contribute.
Temporary migrants seeking to stay in the UK for more than six months will have to pay an immigration health surcharge on top of their visa fee. I assure the House that this surcharge will make the system fairer and will not undermine our aim to attract the brightest and the best. We have carefully examined what other countries do and will ensure that the UK offer is a competitive one in a tough global market.
Mrs May
I want to make more progress.
Dealing with migrants is not new for the NHS. There is already a framework for charging other countries. The NHS must enforce it and recover the cost of treating foreign nationals from foreign Governments, and all of us in government will work with it to make the system work.
The Government also want to ensure that illegal immigrants cannot hide in private rented housing. We are already working with councils to tackle rogue landlords who provide beds in sheds and illegal, overcrowded accommodation. Under the Bill, we will go further and have the necessary powers to deal with rogue landlords who rent homes to illegal migrants.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State able to quantify the number of foreign nationals treated by the NHS who are not entitled to free care and who came here solely and deliberately to get free health care?
Mrs May
I suggest that the hon. Lady look at the audit conducted by the national health service that was released today. It makes it absolutely clear that we are talking potentially about several hundred millions of pounds across the NHS when we consider the number of people who come here and are able to use the service without contributing, who come here as health tourists and who come here and use the service when they should not be able to do so. That is why the Bill is absolutely right.
I say to Opposition Members who say that somehow it is wrong to ask people who come to this country to contribute, that it is only fair to the millions of hard-working people who pay into the NHS through their taxes that somebody who comes here to live for a period of time should be asked to contribute. It is only fair also to ensure that when people come here to use the NHS, or use it when they are here and their Government should be paying, that we actually recoup that money.
Barry Gardiner
The most recent migration statistics quarterly report by the Office for National Statistics was published in August 2013 and it noted that the net flow of long-term migrants was 176,000, compared with 235,000 in June 2010, when the right hon. Lady’s Government came to power. That suggests that the figure of 25% cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) when he intervened earlier is right and that the right hon. Lady’s figure of 33% is wrong. Will she confirm that those are the latest statistics and that the reduction was by 25%?
Mrs May
If the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard, he will see the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). I said that net migration has come down by a third from its peak in 2010. That figure is absolutely correct, because in September 2010 the figure was 255,000 and the latest figure, therefore, is a fall of 31%.
Mr Speaker
People are free to suggest what they like. These are matters of debate. Of one thing I am sure, having known the hon. Lady for 16 years: she requires no protection from me or, for the most part, I think, from anyone.
Mrs May
I have to say that this morning’s reaction from the shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), to the proposal to charge for use of the NHS shows that the Labour party is going to be on the wrong side of this argument, because people in this country want to see people being treated fairly in relation to the NHS.
Mrs May
I want to make a little more progress.
Of course, as I said earlier, many private landlords already make checks, on a tenant’s identity and credit status, making it difficult for illegal migrants to rent properties from them. However, not all landlords do it, so we propose to replicate the long-standing requirements for employers to check the immigration status of those they are about to employ.
We are not asking landlords to become immigration experts. Those who undertake simple steps will have nothing to fear and there will not be a penalty. Rogue landlords will face penalties, hitting them where it hurts—in their wallets. This will make it harder for landlords to house illegal immigrants and harder for illegal immigrants to settle in the UK.
It is not excessive regulation. It is a proportionate approach to a significant problem and we have listened very carefully to those who have warned us of the consequences of not doing this properly. We will make it easy for homeless and vulnerable people to prove their entitlement through simple documentary requirements. We will have a statutory code of practice, making it clear that if landlords racially discriminate they will be breaking the law. We will exempt those parts of the housing market, such as homeless hostels and student halls of residence, where further regulation would not be appropriate.
The Bill will also introduce new rules to crack down on illegal migrants accessing banking products and services in the UK. Many illegal immigrants are already prevented from opening bank accounts, thanks to existing identification and fraud requirements. However, there is no specific rule to stop illegal migrants opening an account in the UK. This Bill will require banks and building societies, for the first time, to refuse a customer who wishes to open a new current account when they have been identified as an illegal immigrant.
Having tackled the ability of illegal migrants to work, access health care, rent property and open bank accounts, I also want to ensure that illegal migrants are denied driving licences. The Bill will give legislative force to the current administrative practice, but the measures go further, giving us the power to revoke licences. We will do everything we can to make it harder for illegal migrants to establish a settled life in the UK when they have no right to be here.
Part 4 of the Bill tackles sham marriages and sham civil partnerships undertaken by a fraudulent couple for their own immigration advantage. The Home Office estimates that, every year, between 4,000 and 10,000 applications to stay in the UK are made on the basis of a sham marriage or sham civil partnership. Registration officials already have a duty to report suspected sham marriages and sham civil partnerships to the Home Office. The number of reports of suspected sham cases has risen in recent years, with 1,891 reports received in 2012. At the moment we have the ridiculous situation whereby we cannot always stop a marriage or civil partnership that a registrar believes to be a sham. The current 15-day notice period provides very little time for the Home Office to act before the ceremony takes place.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Having listened to the debate so far, I think that hon. and right hon. Members and the public at large will be astounded that these sorts of basic restrictions on illegal immigrants have not been the law of the land for so long. It is about time that we passed this Bill.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that members of the public will say it is right that we are fair to people living in the UK and to those who have come here legally, and that we ensure that those who are here illegally do not find it easy to stay and that we are able to remove them.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
A lot of the individual sanctions will be dealt with by statutory instruments. So far it is clear that if a landlord fails to comply and lets a property, they will face a potential fine of £3,000 for each disqualified adult allowed to occupy the property. What sanctions, fines or prison sentence will be given to a doctor or nurse who treats, or a vicar who marries, a disqualified adult?
Mrs May
We are not talking about people not being able to receive treatment in the national health service. We are talking about two things in the NHS. First, when people come here and use the NHS, we will ensure that the NHS recovers the money from their country that it should be recovering. It has not been doing that as well as it should be. Secondly, when people come to stay here for a limited period—for more than six months, but not permanently—we will ask them to pay a surcharge to reflect the fact that they might use public services when they are here.
The Bill will increase the marriage and civil partnership notice period to 28 days—
Mrs May
I have tried to explain the point about sanctions in the NHS by pointing out that the hon. Gentleman’s assumption about the system that we are putting in place appears to be incorrect. He also mentioned members of the clergy who conduct sham marriages. If he looks back at the press from the past couple of years, he will see that members of the clergy have been arrested and prosecuted for conducting sham marriages on purpose.
The Bill will increase the marriage and civil partnership notice period to 28 days in England and Wales, and allow for it to be extended to 70 days when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a marriage or civil partnership is a sham. The Home Office will investigate the genuineness of the couple’s relationship and consider taking immigration enforcement action when we believe it to be a sham. If the couple do not comply with the investigation, we will prevent a marriage from taking place. Should a sham marriage or civil partnership go ahead, couples will not gain an immigration advantage, but will be removed or prosecuted.
Fixing the immigration system cannot be done overnight. There were too many problems with the system that we inherited for that to be possible. However, the Bill will help us further along the road. It is frankly ridiculous that the Government have to operate such a complex system to deal with foreigners who fail to abide by our laws. It is ridiculous that the odds are stacked in favour of illegal migrants. It is unacceptable that hard-working taxpayers have to compete with people who have no right to be here. The Bill will begin to address those absurdities and restore balance. I commend the Bill to the House.
Yvette Cooper
As we have said before, the problem with a net migration target is that it encourages more British people to leave the country or to remain in other countries. The Prime Minister has promised—no ifs, no buts—that he would reach the net migration target of tens of thousands by the time of the election. On the Government’s own figures, net migration is going up.
We believe that the pace of migration matters. It is right to support measures that will bring the level of migration down, but we must also have serious measures to tackle illegal immigration and to ensure that the system is fair, including in its impact on employment and the workplace.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the Home Secretary if she will tell us whether she regrets using the divisive ad vans in the first place.
Mrs May
I have already answered a question about the ad vans. Given that the shadow Home Secretary has not answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) asked about net migration, perhaps she will answer my question. Does she accept that the level of migration under the last Labour Government was too high?
Yvette Cooper
We have said that the pace of migration was too fast. It is right to have measures to bring the level down. We have said that many times. The Home Secretary has had every opportunity to apologise for the divisive ad vans, which she has admitted were a serious problem. I will give her another opportunity to intervene to do so.
Yvette Cooper
I want to make some progress on the measures that are in the Bill, even though a lot of the measures that we need to tackle illegal immigration are not in it. Let us consider the Bill before us. Some measures are sensible and we will support them. Some are confused and we await illumination on how the Government plan to make them work. Some areas raise genuine concerns, and in other areas the Government are not going far enough, particularly on the labour market and on illegal immigration.
I am glad that the Bill includes stronger action against sham marriages. Indeed, we called for those measures. Like the Government, we listened to the concerns of registrars about cases where they feared abuse, but had too little time to ensure that investigations took place. We also called for stronger enforcement powers for UK Border Force officials. The problem is that the UK Border Agency does not use the powers it has in practice at the moment and enforcement has been getting worse.
The Home Secretary talked about biometrics. We agree that there are some loopholes that should be closed for taking fingerprints, but she needs to explain why her Home Office Ministers endorsed stopping the fingerprinting of stowaways at Calais. This is not about a loophole in the law; it is about a loophole in practice that we raised with Ministers two-and-a-half years ago and which they refused to do anything about.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the Home Secretary if she can explain why, two-and-a-half years ago when this was raised with her, the Home Office Minister agreed that it was right for UKBA not to fingerprint stowaways at Calais.
Yvette Cooper
And I suggest that the Home Secretary checks her facts, because in April 2011 we raised with Home Office Ministers the importance of restoring fingerprinting to Calais, which border officials had chosen to do. Two-and-a-half years ago, she refused to do that and she has continued to refuse to do that, and her Home Office Ministers said that was the right thing to do. I will let her intervene again if she will tell me that she will now, two-and-a-half years later, restore the fingerprinting of stowaways to Calais. Will she restore the decision to do fingerprinting at Calais? The Home Secretary is refusing, repeatedly, to restore the fingerprinting of stowaways at Calais, despite the fact that we have raised this with her and other Home Office Ministers repeatedly. Her Home Office Ministers have endorsed the decision not to have fingerprinting at Calais, not to be able to check illegal immigration and not to be able to follow up when people attempt to return to this country.
We support measures to restrict access to British driving licences for those who are here illegally. In fact, we introduced those measures. As the Government have admitted, the changes were mostly brought in before the general election, but we are happy to support them all over again. It is also sensible to have stronger checks on bank accounts.
There has been a principle stretching back over 30 years that overseas visitors should contribute for using the NHS. We will therefore support sensible contributions to the NHS from visa payments, and it would be helpful for Ministers to confirm that such payments will go to the NHS. It would also be helpful if Ministers confirmed whether they have dropped proposals for GPs to have to implement the same kinds of checks as private landlords before letting pregnant women see a midwife, or giving children the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination—both issues that doctors have raised as public health concerns.