Immigration

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

As a new Member speaking in a debate that has been called as part of a new process, I must confess that it feels a bit odd to be speaking after the Minister and the shadow Minister have summed up the debate thus far. I am in no doubt that my contribution and those of hon. Members still to come will encourage the shadow Minister to offer more than just cautious support for the Government.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech, with which many people on both sides of the House will have agreed. I record my appreciation of the fact that the Backbench Business Committee has secured time in the Chamber to discuss this issue, which has been a key concern for some time in my constituency and across the country.

I am proud of the British sense of tolerance and the generous manner with which we have welcomed a great many people to our country over hundreds of years. The vast majority of those who come to the UK make a valid contribution to our society and enhance our multicultural credentials, which I value very much. Although I am proud of our tolerance, however, I am acutely aware, unlike the previous Government, of the fact that our generosity has been overstretched.

I appreciate that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is elsewhere in the House, but given his earlier intervention, I am sure that he will be delighted to read in Hansard tomorrow that I intend to focus the majority of my comments on EU immigration. Our porous border controls have materialised into a considerable problem across the country, but welcoming vast numbers of migrants from eastern Europe into the country with no thought to their integration or the sustainability of our public services has proved incredibly short-sighted. At the time, Opposition Front Benchers warned of the impacts of uncontrolled immigration from eastern European countries. The then Home Secretary gave reassurances that despite the high estimates of net migration for 2004 and beyond, the country was well placed to accommodate new migrants. In fact, net migration for that period dwarfed those estimates, and net immigration totalled nearly 244,000 in that year.

At the time, we were shielded from the true effect of that drastic and sudden increase by our economy’s relatively good health. A booming construction industry soaked up many accession migrants seeking work, and our public services were able to cope with the unprecedented strain. Now, however, our economy finds itself in a weaker, less prosperous position, competition in the job market is high, demand for housing continues to rise, and our health and education services are struggling to meet the demands of a growing population. With a substantially different economic outlook, with slower growth predicted and with pressures on public services, the decision to welcome such a high number of EU migrants to our country is cast in a rather unflattering light.

That is most evident in deprived wards. Two of the most deprived wards in the country fall within my constituency. Tensions there run high and social divisions are deep. That is partly down to the fact that those who are on low incomes or who are welfare dependent feel themselves to be in direct competition with, if not threatened by, new migrants arriving in the neighbourhood. Indeed, constituents from those areas contact me regularly, deeply concerned at the impact of the unprecedented scale of immigration into the area, and they specifically cite people from eastern Europe. They have real concerns about their communities, about the erosion of traditions, language and heritage, about the added strain on our public services—education, welfare, housing and health care—and about heightened competition in the job market.

The impact on public services is becoming acutely obvious in my constituency. I was recently shocked to learn of a primary school in one of the deprived wards in my constituency suffering from a vast influx of eastern European migrants and reporting that almost 40% of its pupils did not have English as a first language. I appreciate that that figure is considerably higher in other wards across the country, but it is new for parts of Chatham. Furthermore, we have found that the migrant community is less settled, creating a worrying inflow and outflow of pupils during the school year. There is a genuine concern that such volatility will have an adverse effect on children’s schooling because teachers are unable to plan properly, based on full-term and yearly educational progress.

The impact of migration and of the significant number of pupils in the area who do not have English as a first language is illustrated in the percentage of pupils achieving level 4 in English at key stage 2. In the four years following EU enlargement in 2004, those percentages dropped significantly from 70% to 61%, a trend completely at odds with that in the rest of my constituency and the country. Importantly, it is not the quality of teaching that is in question. If one compares those percentages with those for pupils who achieved the equivalent grade in maths and science, one does not find a similar fall in achievement.

Similarly, the cost of Kent police’s translation services increased by some 30% between 2004 and 2007 to more than £420,000, according to figures reported in my local press. My constituents will interpret that those figures are a direct result of the rapid increase in net migration, and their assumptions would not be unfounded. Following a recent freedom of information request, Kent police confirmed that the top five languages required by its translation services in the past four years were those of countries that joined the EU in 2004, with the exception of Russian.

In one ward in my constituency, Chatham Central, there is growing tension between the eastern European migrant population and their native counterparts. Divisions are not limited to culture; there are also geographical boundaries. Migrants occupy and dominate certain areas, making them no-go areas for neighbouring residents. Those areas are typified by multiple-occupancy homes, antisocial behaviour and high levels of criminal activity, which makes life for those who have lived in the area for many years unbearable—I am afraid to say that it also makes them hostile to immigrants. That is clearly a concern, and efforts have been made by the local authority, in partnership with community groups, the local police and their excellent community support officers, to help to ameliorate the divisions. Regular seminars, development programmes and cultural events are held, but we are still in the early days, and measuring the success of those events will be key.

Following on from that is the issue of integration, which other hon. Members have spoken about. Integration is viewed by some immigrants as a scheme from which they can opt out, which is quite simply not good enough. We cannot aspire to cohesive communities without wilful integration, and we must do more to ensure that it happens. One of the EU’s common basic principles on integration states:

“Basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions is indispensable to integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration.”

As the host nation, we have a duty to enable migrants to acquire the basic knowledge to integrate successfully, but we must stress that that is very much a two-way relationship. Far too often, immigrants have arrived with no intention of learning the basic tenets of our society, despite our attempts to allow that to happen. That reflects the majority of views that have been expressed to me on the doorstep and in local resident association meetings in my constituency, where communities in deprived areas are characterised—sadly—by an us-and-them approach.

In conclusion, I reiterate that immigration is a good thing for our country as long as we have the right to exercise control over our borders. Controlled immigration can help to stimulate an economy while enriching the fabric of our society, but for too long it has been assumed that we cannot control the inflow of immigrants, and our public services suffer as a result. That is why my constituents and I welcome the Government’s ambition to restore net migration to the levels of the 1990s.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend rightly identifies the issue of the supply of EU migrants. However, on the other side of the coin, there is a demand problem. One local farmer to whom I was chatting recently in my constituency of Bromsgrove told me that of his 60 employees, 54 are from the EU, mostly from Poland. He has found it very difficult to hire local workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s approach—a universal benefit, other welfare changes, the skills strategy and so on—will make a difference on the demand side and help the situation?

[Tracey Crouch]

Welfare reform and the demand for proper provision of opportunities have been touched on in this debate. When I was at university and studying for my A-levels, I worked in McDonald’s. At the time, there were very few non-British people working there, but now it is very difficult for young people seeking employment in the service sector to get a job, whether in McDonald’s or a sandwich chain. There has to be a balance between the provision of opportunities and a sensible approach to welfare reform that can encourage people to take all the opportunities available.

It is important that we are brave on EU immigration—indeed, we must be brave—and provide for future conditions, even if that means renegotiation in relation to those wishing to come to the UK. Like the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex, I recognise that welfare reform will play its part in that process, but we cannot rely on that alone to reduce the numbers of people wishing to make the most of the services that the UK provides. It is important that local authorities and community partners receive support to help promote integration and cohesion in communities suffering from social divides and tensions, but that needs to be done much better.

Finally, I am sure that our constituents will all welcome this sensible and constructive debate on what can be a sensitive issue, and I join others in calling on the Government to take note of the comments made in the Chamber today.