Immigration

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Field]

I wish that the hon. Gentleman had put the full stop a little earlier in his intervention. I do not think it is for the Government to lay down the emotional or other circumstances in which people should marry. Given the success rate of marriages based on emotion, I do not think this country is in any position to lay down the rule that arranged marriages are a bad thing! I have not seen the figures, but I doubt whether we come off better in that respect. I will touch on the point later, as it is one area where I hope the Government will give us more idea about what they are thinking.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I disagree with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). I came to this country 42 years ago for an arranged marriage. I am still married to the same lady and still have my children, who are contributing to this country’s welfare.

[Mr Field]

I could not agree more. That is a valuable intervention. I would hope that in those 40-odd years, the sense of the community has developed. Although I think we should not put our sticky fingers into issues such as whether arranged marriages are suitable, quite a large number of people here are, in a sense, in the arranged marriage market. Much of the tension might dissipate if there were more arranged marriages from communities in this country rather than between people brought in from the Indian sub-continent. Unless those people have the ability to speak English, they might find that they are not treated in this country as we would wish them to be treated.

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[Mr Field]

Yes, I made that point earlier.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

A person who understands how arranged marriages are organised would not raise these questions. Does my right hon. Friend have any figures for the rate of unsuccessful arranged marriages, and what evidence does he have that bogus marriages are taking place in this country?

[Mr Field]

I do not have figures on that and, as my hon. Friend knows, that is a difficult set of data to get hold of, because those who have come here in an arranged marriage and who cannot speak English will find it difficult to register the fact that they might not be happy with the arrangements that they find here.

In no way do I want to give the impression that the way marriages have commonly been governed in this country comes down from Mount Sinai and is a proven recipe for success. We have only to look at the figures to see that that is not so. We ought to have a little charity when viewing other forms of contract which might well have equal, if not better, rates of success than our own established institutions.

Finally on this area of debate, I want to stress how important it is that the Government address where the electorate are on the issue. In their mind’s eye, they see people coming here to work then automatically getting the right to citizenship. That is the factor which is growing our population and that is the issue that people wish the Government to deal with. The more effectively they do so, the less heat there will be in the number of arrivals in any one year.

I wish to discuss two final things. First, and importantly, we cannot make sense of this debate without thinking about the programmes of Governments past and current on welfare reform and education. Under the stewardship of the previous Government, whom I was proud to support, more than 3 million jobs were created, largely in the private sector, but also in the public sector. Yet the number of men and women of working age claiming benefit during that period, when there was record growth in the economy and jobs, fell from 5.6 million to 5.2 million. So there was clearly a dysfunction between what we said we wanted to do on welfare reform and ensuring that those who benefited from those programmes were actually available for work.

Let us examine the latest figures. I know that the Government might say that they have been elected only recently and thus want to wash their hands of this, but they will not be able to continue to do that. The latest data show that we have had 126,000 new workers and the number of immigrant workers in this country now stands at 3.8 million, which is a record level. That has occurred while the number of British workers in work has fallen by 180,000. Clearly there is something wrong with our education system if we are still producing a large number of people who do not aspire or cannot aspire to the jobs that are so willingly taken by immigrants, who teach many of the host community what we used to mean by “the work ethic”. This is a chilling reminder. It is important for the Government not only to respond today on the numbers front, in which we are all interested, but to see the issue in the much wider context of welfare and educational reform.

We should rejoice in this debate, the nature of it and the number who wish to participate in it. However, until recently most of our electorate felt that we let them down and that an extraordinary change had been occurring in this country over the past 15 years. We had an open borders policy and a large number of people came into our community without our laying down any conditions about how they should perform and what sort of citizens they should be. That is why I am so anxious that nobody uses this debate to clobber people who came here, found that we were not terribly interested in how they got on in their lives and just conducted their lives as they wished, nobody having told them otherwise. There was a growing sense among people who felt part of this country, perhaps over some generations and not many, that the place they thought they were joining or growing up in was changing in a way that disturbed them. That sense of disturbance could have been put to one side had we had a debate.

However, what really galls my constituents is that something so fundamental as an open borders policy was conducted without any consultation of those on the receiving end: my constituents, those of my hon. Friends and those of Government Members. I am pleased that we are now able to have a rational debate and that all the interventions have been technical ones; none has disputed motives, as in previous attempts to conduct a debate. The debate has moved from one about principle—whether we oppose or wish to continue open borders—to one in which we all agree that it is about numbers and the rate of immigration. For that, I can say on behalf of my constituency, thank God.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure and an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). May I start with a word of tribute to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), who sadly is at a family funeral and very much regrets being unable to be with us? The way in which they have taken this issue of huge concern to people up and down the country, including many who are themselves of immigrant stock, detoxified it, moved us away from the old debates of the past and brought the real concerns of millions of ordinary people into this Chamber and the public domain cannot be commended too highly.

So many immigrants have made such a huge contribution to British life, economically as well as socially. Examples abound: the impact on manufacturing and culture of the influx of Huguenots, which was largely in response to the horrid repression under the Louis in the 17th century; the contribution of Jewish immigrants to banking and the rise of the supermarkets; and, post-war, the last-ditch rescue and transformation of so many small community shops, including my local village shop, by Indian families—it was just about to go bust, but is now a thriving venture.

Most debates have all too often focused on matters relating to assimilation. There are some issues to be raised in that regard but, like the right hon. Gentleman, I wish to focus almost exclusively on issues associated with numbers. Before doing so, I wish to make two wider points. The first is that I am extremely proud that my grandfather served in the Indian army. He did so in the first world war, but it is worth remembering that in the second world war, under the British Crown, the largest volunteer army in the history of mankind assembled, fought against the unspeakable evil of the Japanese army and prevented it from repeating the massacres of millions of people that had occurred in neighbouring China. This volunteer army was an organisation that brought together people from a wide range of ethnic groups and religions, and that has some lessons for us in terms of the importance of institutions and so on.

My second observation is that much of the current debate on immigration is poisoned by the fact that we have a legal culture in our courts which makes it very difficult to deport the small number of people who come here and grossly abuse the system. Every time a judge produces a fatuous ruling—I am not going to get into whether that is the fault of the judge or of the human rights legislation; it is a combination of both—that enables somebody who clearly should be deported to stay in this country, it builds up the far right, the extremists, and helps to build the tensions that it is so important for this country to move away from.

I wish to focus on four key issues relating to numbers and population density: the impact on our green footprint; the impact on housing; the impact on employment; and, finally, universities and English language schools. On the first, when I was the Opposition spokesman on aviation and shipping, I discovered a set of facts that, as far as I know, have not been in the public domain and which left me staggered. The right hon. Gentleman focused, as I shall for most of my speech, on net immigration, but this is a problem not only with immigration, but with emigration. By far the fastest growing category of flights in this country was not business flights, which had peaked when the recession came as socially conscious businesses moved towards video conferencing and so on, or holiday flights, which were still increasing, although not very quickly. The vast majority of the growth in aviation over the few years leading up to the recession was in a third category— the so-called visits to family and friends. The truth is that every time an individual moves here from a distant part of the world, or a British citizen leaves this country to go to all-too-often distant parts of the world, it creates a huge number of flights between family members.

In the last year for which I have seen figures, 32% of all flights from Heathrow reunited families and friends. It was a case of relatives visiting people who had come here, in almost all cases, completely legitimately, and those people living here visiting residents of the countries from which they originated, or of indigenous British people going off to visit granny in Sydney, for instance. We must recognise that the churn of population and the huge turnovers in it are having a huge effect on the growth of aviation. That factor has been left out of the debate.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

Is the hon. Gentleman advocating that there should be no migration, no travelling and that people should not move from one place to another?

[Mr Brazier]

I have huge respect for the hon. Gentleman’s reputation. He was an active member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs for a long time and participated in a couple of interesting reports on this subject. He knows, of course, that that is not what I am recommending. Like the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, I am trying to say that numbers are critical. The heavy rates of churn that have taken place between countries over the past few years are among the key drivers in greenhouse emissions, but they are also a factor that has notably been left out of this debate.

[Mr Sharma]

I just want to correct the hon. Gentleman. I am neither a member of nor the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—that is my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz).

[Mr Brazier]

I believed that the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Committee and I apologise if I am incorrect. I have certainly heard him talk sense on this subject in the past.

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[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. As individual Members of Parliament we each have a responsibility to our constituents to ensure that we have a fair but firm, and responsible, debate here and in the literature that we put out in our constituencies. I cannot comment on the recent case, but it obviously reflects that.

I talked about the British people, and I want to press this point. We must stand up for the interests of British people who have invested in this country—who have paid their taxes for years and funded our schools, our hospitals and our roads. We must fight on behalf of our constituents who go about their day-to-day business, getting on with their lives, and paying for our local services—indeed, paying for our salaries. That is our duty as legislators in this House and as constituency MPs.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt agree that the migrant community has also contributed effectively for the past many years. I am not talking about general immigration, but people from the south-east Asian countries.

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead made very effectively. We are not here to criticise what happened decades before. There are many people who have arrived in this country, paid their taxes and who are British citizens. We are also standing up for and defending their rights when we debate how to control immigration.

It is not bigoted to be genuinely concerned about the future of our nation and its future generation—those young people who are in desperate need of jobs and employment. The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) raised the issue of business. We need to listen to the voice of business if we are to succeed in bringing about an economic recovery, especially those in international industries who choose Britain as their base. That is why, when a cap is placed on immigration next year, we must be sure that those who are allowed into this country are only those whom this country needs and who have expertise from which we will benefit.

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[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to take part in this debate, which is important to my constituents and the country as a whole. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) on securing it.

I want to make a couple of points absolutely clear. First, nobody on either side of the House or in our communities supports an open-door policy. As a community activist who served in local government for more than 28 years as an elected official, I can say with full confidence that nobody in this country supports that open-door policy. The second point concerns the fear of being accused of racism, from which this debate has grown. Everybody now wants to have a fair, mature and common-sense debate. I am sure that colleagues feel the same, and do not fear accusations of racism when they speak their minds. I do not think they will be so accused.

I state firmly and clearly that this country has benefited enormously from various waves of immigration over a very long time, and I was glad to hear, in this and previous debates, that everyone agrees. I am glad that nobody has contradicted that statement. My constituency is testament to the benefit of immigration. Over time, it has welcomed immigrants from all over the world—from Wales in the mid-19th century, Ireland at the turn of the century, the West Indies after world war two, and India, Pakistan and other south Asian countries in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. More recently, people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia and eastern Europe, including a large number of Poles, have joined the area. I am proud to represent such a rich and diverse constituency, with such an excellent record in economic entrepreneurship and business growth.

Before I discuss issues surrounding immigration and economic recovery, I would like to make some further, personal points about immigration. There are certain perceptions about the arranged marriage system. There are Members who feel that everybody who goes through the arranged marriage system uses it to enter a marriage of convenience. I have to say that all marriages are marriages of convenience, and not only for immigration.

I was born in a village called Mandhali, in the state of Punjab in India, and I came to this country 42 years ago, as a young man in an arranged marriage. I began my working life in this country as a bus conductor, and I have worked hard ever since, attending university on a trade union scholarship and eventually becoming a day centre manager for adults with learning disabilities, and entering this House three and a half years ago. My children were born and educated in this country, and along with their families they are now making a significant contribution to the communities where they live.

My experience is not atypical. Many of my contemporaries who arrived in this country at the same time I did took on jobs for which they were overqualified, but over the years they have built up businesses and advanced in their careers. Their children have succeeded in their education and are making major contributions in the professions and businesses of this country. That is the personal story of many of my constituents and many other immigrants to this country over many years, and it is a positive story. The House should not forget that.

I want to address a number of other issues that are relevant to both the country and my constituency. First, on border controls, the previous Government were moving in the right direction with the points-based system, but there were problems with that system and there still are. Restricting the numbers of specialist south Asian chefs to train people in this country is still a problem in my constituency and in many other parts of the country.

[Tom Brake]

I would like to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers, whose president runs a restaurant in my constituency and whose approach to the issue is to work with the community in this country to ensure that people who are not in work can acquire the skills to work in their restaurants.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving that information. Many businesses are trying hard, but that same Bangladeshi restaurant owner or the chef working at that restaurant must have told him that it is not an easy profession to teach. It takes a long time to do a chef’s job properly, starting from an apprenticeship. I am not a chef—I am not a cook in general—but I understand the process that people have to go through, because I have seen it. They need an apprenticeship, but many young people in this country are not taking up the profession. In the face of that disadvantage, restaurant owners have no choice but to recruit people from the Indian subcontinent.

On the other Government policy—a cap on highly skilled migrants—it makes no sense to stop entrepreneurs coming to this country when we desperately need their skills to get us out of recession. I know that the Business Secretary understands that problem, but has he spoken to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister about it? He should do, and quickly.

I am fully in favour of the UK Border Agency enforcing on businesses a requirement not to employ illegal workers, but I ask that that enforcement is intelligence-led and not disruptive to legitimately operating businesses. Many businesses in my constituency complain about insensitive raids by the UK Border Agency that are fruitless and harmful.

On visas for students from non-EU countries, I welcome the Government’s move to face-to-face interviews for prospective students from south Asia. That is necessary to stop bogus applications, but we must not stop genuine students coming to this country. Colleges in my constituency, such as Ealing, Hammersmith and West London college, are making a tremendous contribution to the London economy with many non-EU students.

In my constituency we have strong business connections with the growing Indian economy. I am glad that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and before them the previous Prime Minister, took a significant approach to build and to strengthen the relationship with India. That relationship should not be a one-way route. Investment and people are going not just from here to India; many investors from India are keen to come here and to invest. At present, Indian investors are the largest investors in this country. When we discuss immigration, we must also address those issues.

We act as an economic bridge to that rapidly growing world economic power. We must ensure that our immigration policies do not limit that huge economic opportunity by stopping highly skilled migrants from India working in the UK, or not allowing students from India and south-east Asia to come to this country on working holidays. The economic prize is great, and crucial for economic recovery. I urge the House to seize it.

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[Mr Lilley]

Absolutely. I was coming on to that issue, which requires intelligent debate and recognition that it is not a matter of “all or nothing”. The absurd idea that we should allow anybody who can be labelled a skilled worker to come here is wrong.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

In a moment, as I want to finish answering the point that was raised.

I am not suggesting that certain categories of skilled workers could not be used during a temporary shortage while domestic employees were being trained, or that there could not be a skills transfer when the skills that were required could not, by their very nature, be acquired domestically or through training. We have traditionally allowed companies to import workers for the purposes of skills transfers when the skills concerned are company-specific.

Let us say that IBM is setting up a factory here. It has an IBM way of doing things. Initially, it will need to bring in the IBM accountant to show British accountants how to run the accounts and the financial system. Those running the production line may have to bring in IBM production engineers to train British engineers in their ways of doing things. It is not possible to buy such company-specific skills on the market; they must be imported temporarily. However, because the people who have transferred the skills invariably return, the transfer does not result in net migration. That is very different from allowing cheap skills into this country.

In a blog that is influential in the IT industry—here I declare an interest—the author of the Holway report constantly hammers home the fact that we are moving slowly towards circumstances in which fewer and fewer entry-level jobs are available in the industry. Last year 9,000 skilled IT workers were brought into the country by a handful of companies under the intra-company transfer scheme. That is not transferring skills from a company to domestic residents; it is importing cheap labour. However, we allow it, although as a result the IT sector has one of the highest rates of unemployment in industry. The Government must think seriously about the issue, and must not form policy on the basis of slogans such as “Skilled work is good” and “Open border to skilled workers”. That is not good in the long run if it means that fewer of those who are already here acquire skills, experience and expertise.

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend’s intervention prompts a number of questions. For instance, why do we not train people?

For a while I was chairman of a small German company as a result of a merger, and the first thing that we did was bring in British employees to train its employees. It is considered automatic: every company, even a small company with only 200 employees, trains people. Sadly, that culture does not exist in this country. All that we think of doing is importing people from abroad, or possibly stealing them from our competitors down the road. At least if we steal them from our competitors down the road, we have to bid up the salaries for the particular skill involved. We encourage more people to acquire that skill, and as a result increase the number of people with such skills in our economy. However, the idea that we should assume passively that this country alone in the world cannot train people to acquire skills that semi-developed countries seem to be able to train their people to acquire strikes me as a defeatism that is sad and deplorable.

I hope we will recognise that there are some skills that we should allow into the country: entrepreneurial skills, for example, I rather doubt whether entrepreneurship can be taught. Some people are natural entrepreneurs while others are not. That is fair enough: if someone has proven success as an entrepreneur abroad, we should let him in, with some of the capital that he has acquired. Only a small number of people will be involved, however. That is not mass immigration. It will generate a lot of jobs and it is a sensible thing to do, so let us do it. However, we must distinguish between those sorts of skills and the sorts of skills we can enable the existing population of all ethnic origins to acquire, so that the well-being of those already here improves.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

First, let me say that I take the recent sedentary comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) as a compliment, rather than something negative. The right hon. Gentleman agrees that there is a skills gap within the work force at present, and to fill that gap we need workers coming from overseas because we cannot train people here overnight or in a short period. We need to address both ends of this issue by filling the gaps now from overseas while training the work force here for the future.

[Mr Lilley]

Yes, and that would imply the following policy: if a company says, “No one in this country yet has expertise in—”[Interruption.] Yes, in electric cars, as the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) suggests. I do not know whether that is the case, but if it is we might have to introduce that expertise from overseas in the short term, but the understanding should be that that is in order to transfer the expertise to the domestic population, rather than because we have given up on the domestic population ever learning the skills to make electric cars. It should be short-term immigration, not long-term immigration.

[Mr Sharma]

I do not think that anybody is advocating that the work force here should not be trained. However, there is a skills gap in the work force and we need to fill it otherwise we will suffer economically.

[Mr Lilley]

Yes, but above all we need to fill it by training people up. That is what countries that grow and prosper do, and we have got to learn to do it too.