Immigration Bill
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is rightly highlighting the concern that has been expressed from both sides of the House in previous debates. UK higher education is a major export earner, contributing about £8 billion to the UK economy annually.
I remember an exchange with the Immigration Minister when he was newly appointed, at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary university group, in which he pointed out that we should be talking not only about the income that international students brought in but about the costs that were incurred, including the cost to the health service. I went back to Sheffield university and said that we needed to look into that issue. The university commissioned Oxford Economics to carry out the most rigorous assessment possible into the income involved and the costs for our city. That assessment did not just cover the NHS and education; it went to the nth degree, covering every conceivable cost including traffic congestion. It concluded that international students were worth about £120 million a year to the Sheffield economy in net terms, which probably equated to about 6,000 jobs. Measures such as those in the Bill will serve only to discourage students from coming to the UK.
The Minister will argue that the health surcharge will bring us into line with our major competitors, which require health insurance as a condition for obtaining a student visa, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) pointed out, it comes on the back of other changes introduced by the Home Office that have done huge damage to the competitive position of our universities. This will simply be seen as another signal that international students are not welcome in the UK.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware of the latest university entrance figures, which show that the number of foreign students applying to and getting into our top universities has actually increased this year?
Paul Blomfield
I am well aware of those figures. In general, the defence has been that the numbers were flatlining and that there has been a slight increase this year. There has, however, been a disturbing fall in numbers in certain areas, including taught postgraduate courses, and that is a problem. The point is not that there might be a slight increase; it is that we are losing market share. Higher education is a hugely growing sector of the international economy. The Government, through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, have estimated that the number of international students travelling around the world will have doubled by 2020. It is not good enough to be complacent about flatlining figures or about small increases, because they mean that we are losing market share.
Jeremy Corbyn
No. I am going to make my speech.
I would like the House to consider for a moment the general narrative that is current in this country and across Europe—a narrative condemning people who are migrants and condemning people who try to survive in Europe, and at the same time expressing deep concern when 200 were drowned off the coast of Italy in the tragedy of Lampedusa, along with the 20,000 others who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in the past 20 years, as well as those who have drowned trying to get to the Canary islands or to Greece. Yes, some of those were economic migrants and some were asylum seekers. Yes, some were trying to escape from human rights abuses in Eritrea, Sudan and many other countries, and we express concern at what happened.
We need to think about why people seek to move in order to survive. Do not we, as a powerful industrial country, have some responsibility not just for the economic situation that this country faces but, through our contributions to the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, and to the general agreement on tariffs and to trade and other organisations, for the sense of economic imbalance around the world?
We should be a little more sanguine about immigration and emigration. During the 1950s and 1960s, which, it is always apocryphally told, were a time of mass migration into Britain, the figures show—they are helpfully put together in the House of Commons Library briefing—net migration from Britain during the whole of that period. A very large number of British people went to live elsewhere and made their contributions and their lives in other countries. They did it for economic reasons and sent money home. Indeed, at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, there was a regular migration of more than 100,000 people a year from Britain, mainly to the United States, Canada and Australia, but to other places as well. Migration—
Jeremy Corbyn
No, I am not giving way.
Migration is something that people do to try to survive. We should think about that for a moment. We should also for another moment—I take the point that was made so well by my Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington—have some respect for the enormous contribution to the economy of this country that has been made by people who migrated here. Had there not been migration from the Caribbean, south Asia, Ireland, central Africa and many other parts of the world into this country over the past 50 years or so, what kind of health service would we have? What kind of education system would we have? What kind of industrial base would we have? What kind of society would we be? Would London have been the multicultural capital of the world hosting the Olympics? I think not. We would be a much poorer, much less relevant society and a much less relevant country. We need to think about the contribution that has been made and respect people for it.
Members on the Government Benches got very angry when my Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington was telling it like it is about the treatment of people in detention centres, the powers of arrest that the Bill gives to immigration officers, and the circumstances in which some people are removed from this country by force. I have met the family of Jimmy Mubenga, who died when he was forced to leave this country. I remember many years ago, shortly after I had been elected to this House, telling the House about a young Kurdish man called Shiho Iyguven, who was threatened with removal to Turkey and took his own life in a detention centre. His son, who was a tiny baby at the time, came to see me and asked, “What was dad like?” All I could say was, “Unfortunately, he was told he was going to be deported and in desperation he took his own life out of fear.”
We are taking some serious measures here today. I intervened earlier on one of my colleagues about the behaviour of the immigration service in carrying out the stop-and-search policy, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington talked about, making Conservative Members so very angry. Imagine a dispassionate, observant visitor to London who happened upon a tube station in Wembley or in the east end, or anywhere where there is a substantially multi-cultural population, seeing non-uniformed people go up to somebody, show a badge of authority and start asking about their immigration status, and when they start protesting seeing the police arrive and say they have to answer the questions. What would such a visitor on holiday in London think if they saw that going on? I am sorry to say that that is exactly the direction that the Bill takes us in.
The Conservative party are very concerned, and have been as long as I can remember, about the European convention on human rights and the European Court of Human Rights. They are an obsession with them. Never mind that the convention was written by a Tory lawyer and introduced in 1950 and has done a great deal to give people a benchmark of human rights throughout the member states of the Council of Europe. They want to say that article 8, the right to family life, somehow undermines the British way of life. So we have this curious clause 14, which talks about public interest considerations in respect of article 8 of the European convention on human rights. It is strangely written because much of it consists of assertions of the wishes of the Government of the day; they are not requirements but a series of assertions. It is only when one gets well into the clause that one finds specific requirements.
The clause seeks to guide immigration judges in the direction of minimising the question of family life, and because of the way in which it deals with children in family life, it will often be damaging to the interests of children who happen to have parents who may be applying for the right to remain in this country. I hope that in Committee there will be a serious examination of the whole question of article 8, and that when the Bill eventually reaches the House of Lords it will be able to do something more useful, such as protecting the rights of all of us by asserting the necessity of us remaining within the European convention on human rights, and therefore enjoying the protection of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. I know that Conservative Members are obsessed with the idea that we must withdraw from the ECHR, but it is a treaty obligation. Once we withdraw from a treaty, we are sending out the message that everyone else can do the same. Where then is the benchmark that we claim for ourselves of justice in society?
Like many others who have spoken in the debate, I deal with a large number of immigration cases—asylum seekers, family reunion cases, student visas. People come to my office and we do our best for them within the rules and try to get answers to their questions. I have no great problem with many of the civil servants who work in the Home Office, and I pay tribute to the many who work extremely hard, particularly those who are not particularly well paid, but they have a mammoth task. In 2008, I remember showing someone who came into my office a letter saying that legacy cases would all be resolved by mid-summer 2011. He duly came back in mid-summer 2011, queued up for my advice bureau for three hours, came in, put the letter down in front of me and said, “There, Mr Corbyn. It’s now mid-summer 2011,” which it absolutely was. It was June—you can’t get more mid-summer than that. I duly wrote to the Home Office asking when he would get a response, and I was told, “Maybe two years.”
People’s lives are on hold for year after year. They cannot travel, possibly cannot work or study and cannot make a living for themselves. They are in insecure accommodation and have an insecure future. What kind of life is that to thrust on anybody? It is an uncertain situation in which to bring up children. I ask the Minister to bring a sense of efficiency to the Home Office in dealing with long-term cases, which bring people great misery and difficulties.
I shall join my colleagues in voting against the Bill tonight, partly because of the details that it contains on education, housing, some aspects of health and so on, but also because of the atmosphere that it will create and the message that it will send at this particular time. Let us start with a sense of humanity. Every case is a human story, and every human story has its ups and downs, its triumphs and tragedies. Instead we have dog-whistle politics, the mantras being that every immigrant is an illegal immigrant who must somehow be condemned and that immigration is the cause of all the problems in our society.
A shortage of housing can be dealt with by building houses—it kind of helps. The two things go together. Recognising people’s skills and their ability to contribute to our society helps us all. If we descend into a UKIP-generated xenophobic campaign, it weakens and demeans all of us and our society, and we are all the losers for that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Browne
No, I do not agree. I agree with the Labour Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who said:
“I very much welcome the Government’s decision to overhaul the statutory framework for tackling anti-social behaviour.”
While I am at it, I also agree with the chief constable of Thames Valley police who said:
“The fact is, the experience has been that the ASBOs have been quite bureaucratic, in terms of securing them, and maybe not as effective at tackling the problem as we hoped.”
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Figures from the Ministry of Justice show that of all ASBOs issued up to the end of 2011, 57% were breached at least once and 42% were breached more than once. What steps will my hon. Friend take to reform antisocial behaviour laws to better clamp down on offenders?
Mr Browne
My hon. Friend is right to draw the attention of the House to the serious failings of the ASBO system. As I said in my initial answer, the replacement measures will be more streamlined, efficient and effective, and will reduce antisocial behaviour across the country.
Abu Qatada (Deportation)
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I share people’s frustrations and concerns when they see foreign national offenders whom we wish to be able to deport unable to be deported. He refers to illegal immigrants. One of the benefits of the change that has been made by scrapping the UK Border Agency and setting up the immigration enforcement part of the Home Office is that we will be able to put a far greater focus on ensuring that we remove illegal immigrants.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I wonder what words my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has for the naysayers and doom-mongers on the Opposition Benches, such as the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who is no longer in his place, who said on 24 April in this Chamber:
“Is it not obvious that this saga will continue for some time and that all the Home Secretary’s efforts have so far failed miserably to get this preacher of hatred out of Britain?”
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) said:
“This farce makes the Government look incompetent as well as impotent.”—[Official Report, 24 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 894-897.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Maria Miller
As I have said, Lord Justice Leveson dealt with that issue in his report—albeit not in a detailed manner—and we have agreed that some issues need to be considered further, in particular the lack of clarity in regard to how plurality should be measured and what constitutes a sufficient level of plurality. I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in seeking answers to questions of that kind in the coming months.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that any media ownership regime must strike the right balance between allowing plurality and allowing growth in the industry?
Maria Miller
Absolutely. We do not want companies to become unwilling to invest in the United Kingdom for fear of running into an unnecessary cap on their expansion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mrs May
I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he thinks very carefully about what he has said, and perhaps looks at the Hansard record of it. As I made clear in answer to the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), decisions about UK citizenship rest with the United Kingdom Government. However, if there is a vote in the referendum for separation, Scotland will become a separate state and not be part of the United Kingdom. That is a very simple fact and I suggest the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) recognises it.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
This is my first opportunity to address the House on the dreadful events that took place on the streets of Woolwich on 22 May, and to offer in this House my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Drummer Lee Rigby. This shocking and barbaric crime has been rightly condemned by all communities in our country. I would like to pay tribute to those brave civilians, police officers and medical staff involved in dealing with the incident; they represent the best of this nation. As I said at the time, this was not just an attack on an individual soldier, but an attack on everyone in this country—people of all faiths and of none.
Sadly, in the aftermath of this horrific incident we have seen an increased number of attacks on mosques and Islamic centres. These are deplorable, disgusting acts. British Muslims make a valuable contribution to our society. The murder of Drummer Rigby was no more in their name than it was in mine or in the name of anybody in this Chamber. I welcome the extra steps taken by the Metropolitan police and others to counter this threat to them. Alongside the increased tensions, however, we have also seen some actions that give great cause for hope. We have seen leaders from all faiths condemn the attack. We have seen far-right supporters invited into a mosque to enjoy cups of tea and football. We have seen religious leaders from different faiths openly embracing each other in a show of unity. This House, like the whole country, stands united against violence, extremism and terror.
Andrew Bridgen
What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to prevent the abuse of free movement rights within the EU?
Mrs May
I have consistently raised the problem of the abuse of free movement at meetings of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, and we are working with other EU member states to curb that abuse. Free movement of persons is a long-standing principle of the EU, but those rights are not unlimited, and the Government take a robust approach against those who come to the UK not intending to work, but simply to rely on benefits. Abuse of free movement is not just a UK problem; it will take the joint efforts of all our EU partners to tackle it. We have been raising concerns for the past three years at meetings of EU Ministers, and I am pleased to say that last Friday it was decided that the European Commission and Ministers would take the issue forward.
Abu Qatada
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend is right. We should be able to balance the rights of the individual against the wider rights of society. I understand his point about his constituents’ attitude to human rights. Those who propounded the changes that took place need to understand the risk that the concept of human rights becomes discredited if people see it as being used consistently to stop us from deporting those who are a danger to this country.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has extradited several terrorist suspects from Britain, including Abu Hamza, so it is right that she maintains the same strong resolve to see Abu Qatada deported. Does she recall the number of years that the Labour party had in which to remove these dangerous individuals from our country and how it singularly failed to do so?
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Harper
The hon. Lady ought to check what the chief inspector actually said. All he said was that the UKBA should monitor the route to ensure that it was not being exploited, and that is exactly what it is doing. If the hon. Lady looks at the nationalities in relation to which we have reduced the number of tier 4 visas, she will see that there is no sign of any increase in student visitor visas. In fact, nearly 50% of the people using the student visitor route are non-visa nationals, and a large proportion of those coming here with six-month student visitor visas are from the United States of America. There is no risk of abuse, but we remain alert to it and will ensure that we catch it out.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that the number of university visas has increased by 3% while at the same time the number of student visas is actually falling shows that it is possible to strip abuse from the system while also ensuring that the UK is open to the brightest and the best?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There has been a big drop in the number of students coming here, but that is because we have stripped abuse from the system. Five hundred fewer colleges are able to bring in foreign nationals, but, as my hon. Friend says, there has been an increase in the number entering our excellent universities sector.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mrs May
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments about my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea. As I said, the Government take this issue extremely seriously and we look across the board at what Government can do to deal with it. It is about helping communities themselves to eradicate this problem. Everyone in this Chamber will be concerned about the lack of prosecutions, and I am pleased that the Director of Public Prosecutions has issued a new action plan on FGM to the prosecutors, with the hope of getting prosecutions. We must recognise that education of a variety of sorts is important, which is why alerting people at various levels in the public services and in schools, and others, and helping girls to understand the threat themselves, is so important.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
2. What steps she has taken to control immigration from Bulgaria and Romania.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
3. What steps she plans to take to control the entry of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals to the UK from 1 January 2014.
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)
Speculative projections about future inflows cannot be made with any degree of accuracy and are, therefore, not particularly helpful. That is why the Government are focused on dealing with the abuse of free movement rights and reducing the pull factors for migration, and so I am chairing a cross-Government group of Ministers to examine controls on immigrants’ access to public services and benefits.
Andrew Bridgen
It has been estimated that some 250,000 Romanians and Bulgarians are currently resident in Germany, and an internal paper produced by the German Association of Cities has noted that that level of immigration creates social dangers. Will any lessons be learned from the German experience?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is right to say that it is helpful for us to look at the experience of other European countries. We want to make sure that when people look at the access to our benefits and our public services nobody thinks we are a soft touch in this country, and the Government are taking action to ensure that people will not think that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The latest figures show that in North West Leicestershire 92% of people who complained about antisocial behaviour were at least satisfied with the service they received from the police. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Leicestershire police force on the work it is doing in combating antisocial behaviour?
Mr Browne
I do congratulate Leicestershire police force. It is coming up to eight years that I have been a Member of Parliament and I observe that my own police force in Avon and Somerset is making a more concerted effort—I am sure that this is true generally—to deal with antisocial behaviour and to respond quickly when concerns are raised. We want to make that service even better across all police forces in the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Bridgen Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Damian Green
The election date was chosen by Parliament. There have been many elections in November. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the American public went to vote earlier this month—they do not seem to object to a November election. He would do well to take the advice of the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, who said on Friday after the elections were over:
“We shouldn’t carp, we should now move on and we should accept the elections of the new commissioners as they come through and…make sure that it works because they are there, they’re in place, the public have spoken”.
I think that the Chair of the Select Committee is wiser than the shadow Minister.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that participation in future PCC elections will improve, as excellent candidates such as Sir Clive Loader in Leicestershire will be able to point to a record of achievement? Does he agree, too, that one method of increasing voter participation that should not be encouraged, and should be resisted at all costs, is giving prisoners the vote in these or any other elections?
Mr Speaker
I remind the Minister that we are discussing reducing bureaucracy in policing.