Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

We are working across Government with the sector to put in place training schemes to build up the next generation of installers, including new apprenticeships for retrofit co-ordinators and installation technicians. As I mentioned, we have also established Skills England, which will form a coherent national picture of skill gaps and how they can be addressed.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

I recently visited a school in my constituency in a building that is hundreds of years old. Its school condition allocation does not cover the work needed to keep the school warm, safe and up to date. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that classrooms in older buildings are fitted out?

Family Visas: Income Requirement

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I start by acknowledging the more than 100,000 people who have signed this petition nationally, including almost 200 people in my constituency, and I particularly thank Shannon for starting it. They have come together to call for a fairer and more compassionate approach to family visas. This issue deeply affects families across our country and we must address it with care and urgency.

The Liberal Democrats believe that the immigration system should work for everyone. We want to make sure that it works for our country and for our economy while treating everyone with dignity and respect. That means that the current system must change because, sadly, the previous Conservative Government’s changes to the income requirements for family visas fell far short of that goal.

The decision to raise the minimum income threshold for a sponsoring partner to £29,000 a year and to propose further increases to nearly £39,000 a year has rightly caused widespread fear and anxiety for families. We ought to feel concerned for them and the countless people who have been left feeling uncertain about their futures or forced to make impossible decisions about their lives.

More than 10 hon. Members have spoken in this debate. I have heard that the policy is a tax on love and that it rips families apart, but I have not heard anyone speak in favour of it—I am pleased to say—which shows that the system is broken and needs changing. We must acknowledge the humanity of the situation: those arbitrary thresholds fail to take into account the many families who simply cannot meet them through no fault of their own. They disproportionately affect women, people in lower paid but essential jobs, and those living outside London and the south-east, where wages are often lower.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

We have heard a lot about sector-specific issues, and about regional inequalities and inequalities of race and gender, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is also an issue for people with disabilities? My constituent is an armed forces veteran who now suffers from PTSD and a range of other disabilities that leave him able to work only part time, which would massively hamper his ability to hit any threshold. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to ensure that the system that works for everyone and gives back to the people who have served our country?

[Mr Forster]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who highlights that the policy has an impact on disabled and vulnerable veterans. The Government must acknowledge that and take it into account as they change the system to ensure that they support those people. He makes a valid point in support of his constituents.

Given that no one has said that they support the current policy, why did the Conservative Government make that move to cause so much disparity and hurt? Putting the threshold so artificially high prevents British citizens on lower incomes sponsoring their foreign spouse or partner moving to the UK. It does not save money—it hurts our financial system and our economy—but it is there to make them look tough on immigration. Everyone can see through it. Roughly half of UK employees earn less than £29,000 a year, so I am disappointed and surprised that the Conservatives, who often say that they are the party of traditional family values, trashed our family values in this country by introducing this policy and breaking up families.

The Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee is now reviewing those financial requirements. Although we welcome the pause on further rises, families need certainty, and they need it now. We need to know that they will not be torn apart by policies that prioritise the system over compassion; we need to protect them. We must ask ourselves what kind of country we want to live in—one that values the bonds of family or one that tears those bonds apart based on arbitrary numbers and a statistical threshold picked out of thin air. Do we follow hard data or do we follow the love that our constituents feel for each other?

The Liberal Democrats are committed to reversing the unfair increases in income thresholds for family visas. Families should not have to live in fear of being separated. They deserve stability and the opportunity to build their lives together in the UK. I urge the Government to act swiftly, to halt any further increases and to ensure that family visa requirements are fair and proportionate. Families matter. No one should have to choose between their loved ones and their home.

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), the Petitions Committee and the 101,321 members of the public who have requested that we debate this topic. Those 100,000 people have asked us to discuss this policy because, as many hon. Members have movingly pointed out, it can be overwhelmingly important to those it affects. There are few things in life and in human nature more powerful than the desire to be with those you love. To be separated from your husband or wife by a national border is no small thing. Indeed, for those it is happening to it can feel like everything.

The role of Government is to determine what is right for the country, not for any one person, couple or family, so we must place this discussion in its national context: managing overall migration to Britain. The public have consistently asked successive Governments to lower migration. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) has said, the last Government, like Governments before them, promised to do exactly that, but, again like the Governments before them, did not deliver. Migration has been far too high for the last two decades and remains so.

The issue of migration is not just about quantity. It should be a fundamental principle of our system that people who come to this country do not cost more than they contribute; what they pay in tax should at least cover the costs of the public services that they use. The policy that we are debating was implemented by a Conservative Government as part of an attempt to cut migration and to ensure that those who come here do not represent a net fiscal cost. Clearly, it was not enough, but it was a step in the right direction.

In delaying reform, the new Government seem to be making the same mistakes as previous Governments. To refer again to the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex, we in Westminster

“cannot pretend that immigration comes only with benefits and no costs”.

This is all too clear to the country. People can see it in their wages, which are stagnating because they are being undercut, and they can see it in their rent soaring, in how hard it is for their children to get on the housing ladder, in the cohesion of their communities and in the pressure on their GPs, dentists and infrastructure.

[Tom Gordon]

I am slightly surprised. The hon. Lady raised a number of points about her own Government’s record and what they were unable to deliver, so does she not find it a little jarring that she is now preaching to this Government about what they should do?

[Katie Lam]

It is the job of the Opposition to hold the Government to account, whoever is in government. As I have acknowledged, these are mistakes that we made, so very few people are as well qualified to suggest what behaviour could be avoided in the future. That is part of our job and our duty to the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Gordon]

The Conservative spokesperson, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), mentioned the point about personal independence payments. Obviously, not everybody who has a disability is eligible for every benefit; there are certain thresholds and requirements in order to get those statuses, and the conditions of people with disabilities might vary and change. How does that factor into what the Minister is saying?

[Seema Malhotra]

I am sure that those issues will have been raised in the responses that have come to the Migration Advisory Committee. It is right that the MAC is reviewing how the current financial requirements are operating, including looking at the impact on family units. It is important to mention that both the immigration fees and the immigration health surcharge may be waived based on what the applicant can afford.

I will briefly mention those who work for His Majesty’s armed forces in relation to the immigration rules. I note that the previous Government laid immigration rules in March 2024 that brought the MIR for His Majesty’s armed forces, including the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Royal Air Force partner route, in line with the armed forces salary threshold on completion of training, which was £23,496 for the 2023-24 financial year. That no longer includes an additional income requirement to sponsor a child. Tethering the MIR to the armed forces salary threshold takes into account the unique nature of their service, the armed forces covenant and the recruitment and retention of the armed forces in order to maintain national security.

Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for bringing forward this debate. I want to make a point—I will try to keep it brief—about the inconsistency in the implementation of the framework. That inconsistency is exacerbated in rural areas such as North Yorkshire, where my constituency is. We have had horror stories of children in taxis for up to two hours a day. That has a massive impact on their ability to learn when they make their way to school.

Another problem comes from changes to the council’s policy on home-to-school transport and its inability to finance it. It is projecting a spend of £27 million on SEND transport next year. Despite the rural complexities of the North Yorkshire council area, it is only 148th out of 151 local authorities for high needs funding per head of population. Although the framework is important, there needs to be an understanding of rurality, and the funding to go with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby]

Central to our opportunity mission is that where someone is from should not determine where they end up in life. This Government are serious about supporting young people. We are working across Government to ensure that young people are supported in their communities through devolution, local growth plans, local skills improvement plans and the youth guarantee.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

The largest provider of vocational education and training opportunities in my constituency is Harrogate college, which was previously promised more than £20 million in a combination of loans and grants under the FE capital transformation fund. I have written repeatedly to the Government to ask if they can secure an extension to that funding period because, due to a hold-up in the planning process, it will not be able to meet the deadlines. Will the Minister commit to guaranteeing the funding for Harrogate college for that rebuild?

[Janet Daby]

The hon. Member outlined many failings by the previous Government. I will ask my noble Friend the Minister for Skills to meet him.