Damian Green
Main Page: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)Department Debates - View all Damian Green's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
6. What further steps she plans to take to control illegal immigration; and if she will make a statement.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
UK Border Agency enforcement officers are continuing to crack down on immigration crime and remove illegal migrants. Our proposals to tackle abuse by foreign nationals using student visas to gain work in the UK, alongside new plans to toughen up marriage and family routes, will further tackle illegal migration into the UK.
Mr Leigh
As Members of Parliament, we are approached all the time by constituents who want to marry somebody from abroad and it is only humane and right that we should try to help them, but our job is made doubly, even trebly, difficult by the existence of sham marriages. What is my hon. Friend doing to tackle the problem without making the system so bureaucratic for everyone else?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend identifies one of the key loopholes that did exist in the immigration system. Last summer, I asked our enforcement teams to focus on sham marriages, and 53 sham marriage operations were undertaken, resulting in 126 arrests. Between November and January, a further 86 operations followed that up, focusing on sham marriages, with an additional 29 arrests. This has been one of the big loopholes in our immigration system, but we are becoming ever more effective in closing it.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
In seeking to strike the right balance on student visas, will the Minister and the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that they will listen carefully to the representations of universities in the UK, including mine in Exeter, and of our reputable language schools, which say that the current proposals would be devastating to their sector and to the economy as a whole?
Damian Green
We are indeed speaking to many universities and listening to their representations, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has met the vice-chancellor of Exeter university. I am sure that when our proposals are put forward, universities will discover that they defend the rights of legitimate students to come here to study legitimately at legitimate institutions. At the same time, we will also crack down on the huge and widespread abuse of the student visa.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Which three countries are responsible for the largest number of illegal immigrants into Britain and what specific steps are being taken with those countries to take those people back when they are caught?
Damian Green
By definition, illegal immigrants do not go through the system, so it is quite difficult to give accurate figures about where they come from, but we know the main routes by which people come into the country, one of which is from Asia, through Turkey into Greece. We are working very hard with both the Greek and Turkish Governments to stop that route and minimise the problem. One of the most effective things we are doing is improving our border controls at Calais, which mean that the number of people who are identified as coming across illegally into Britain is now running at about a third of the level it was 18 months ago. That is a significant strengthening of our border defences.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
Any action to control illegal immigration depends upon a properly staffed and effective border agency which can both detect and remove illegal immigrants. With cuts of 20% and job losses of 5,200 for the UK Border Agency, detection and enforcement officers are already warning that their work is being undermined. The Government are talking tough on illegal immigration. Is the Minister sure that the Home Secretary has given him the resources to deliver?
Damian Green
Yes, absolutely. The hon. Lady will, of course, recognise that the reason there must be cuts in public services is the appalling state of the public finances that her Government left us with. We are confident that by using technology, better intelligence and flexible working, we can maintain and improve levels of border security with fewer staff. I invite her to consider the example of Calais. We can now check 1.5 million lorries a year, and in the past year we have found just over 9,700 individuals trying to cross illegally, compared to just over 29,000 in 2009, so the new system that we are operating does work.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
12. If she will bring forward proposals to change immigration bail conditions to make them consistent with proposed conditions for control orders.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The Government see no need to review the range of bail conditions that may be imposed in immigration cases. We will continue to seek bail conditions that enable us to manage the threat posed by the individual. These will vary from case to case.
Richard Fuller
I hear that answer, but how can it be right that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission is able to impose conditions on people, perhaps those who have been granted indefinite leave to remain, on charges that are not disclosed to them, that restrict their communications and movement and force relocation, conditions that the Government say are unacceptable in control orders? How can that be right for people in those circumstances?
Damian Green
SIAC deals primarily with cases where an individual poses a threat to national security, so we must take all the issues surrounding those individual cases extremely seriously. As such, SIAC sets bail conditions that it considers necessary to control any risk of absconding and the threat posed to national security, whether or not the individual absconds. I am sure that my hon. Friend will recognise that SIAC has enormous responsibilities and takes them very seriously in each individual case.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I agree with the question from the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller). Will the Minister go one step further than is being suggested and make both immigration bail conditions and the conditions for control orders more like regular bail conditions?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend will recognise what I have just said about SIAC, which you will be pleased to hear that I will not repeat, Mr Speaker. The conditions for immigration bail and for control orders, and for the regime that will replace control orders, have rather different surrounding contexts than the setting of normal bail conditions, so it is entirely reasonable for SIAC to come to different conclusions and have different powers.
Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
13. What plans she has for the future of the student visa entry system.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
We are considering the responses we received following closure of the recent consultation on reform of the student immigration system, which closed on 31 January. We are concluding our analysis of responses and will announce future plans for the student system in due course.
Mr Brine
I thank the Minister for his reply. May I press him to reassure legitimate English language schools, such as the Winchester School of English in my constituency, which he has visited, and higher education institutions, including the university of Winchester, that new B2 English entry level requirements will not wipe out a critical source of their respective revenues?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend is right: I have visited that language school in his constituency and admired its work. One proposal in the consultation was to raise the English language requirement from B1 to B2, because we believe it is right that students should have a good command of English to complete their course. In responses to the consultation, universities and others have expressed concern about that proposal, and we are considering those representations as well as the many others that we have received.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Does the Minister recognise that, if the changes to student visa entry requirements are wrong, it will have a devastating impact on our universities and other educational institutions?
Damian Green
I recognise, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does, that we need to strike the right balance so that the brightest and best students can come to this country and benefit it both in the short and the long term. At the same time, however, we recognise that we need to crack down on the many abuses of the student visa system under the previous Government, which have led to the widespread lack of confidence in our immigration system. Of course we need to strike a balance between those two demands, and we are confident that we will do so.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
May I suggest to the Minister that all he has to do to deal with the unintended consequences of the proposals is to look at the findings and recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament? All problems would be dealt with.
Damian Green
It is a universal truth that reading Home Affairs Committee reports always leads to greater enlightenment. I have read the relevant report, and I always absorb the Committee’s reports, but I will redouble my efforts to ensure that I am familiar with every last detail of every report.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
We all agree with the Home Secretary that bogus colleges should be closed, and most seem to be in the private sector. She and the Immigration Minister will know that further education colleges’ fee income from foreign students is £42 million, with a contribution to the economy of £80 million. We have 184 colleges that are registered as highly trusted sponsors, with more than 20,000 international students. When can they expect to know what will happen about non-degree courses? It does and will affect the budgets not only of colleges, but of universities.
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman is right that the main abuse that we have found has been in private sector colleges at below-degree level, which is why one principal proposal on which we have consulted is that nobody will be able to offer a course at below-degree level unless they become a highly trusted sponsor. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, on the whole, public sector bodies that apply for highly trusted sponsorship obtain it successfully, but many private sector bodies do not have such status, and that is one key distinction that we need to maintain—that only people whom we can trust to do the job properly should be enabled to bring foreign students to this country.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
16. What assessment she has made of the trends in levels of complaints against police forces in England and Wales in the most recent period for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
22. What recent discussions she has had with stakeholders on the asylum improvement project.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The Home Secretary and I, and our officials, have discussed aspects of the asylum improvement project with a number of corporate partners. The National Asylum Stakeholder Forum, the Scottish Asylum Stakeholder Forum and the Still Human Still Here coalition have also discussed the project recently.
Mr Cunningham
I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he establish pilot schemes and where exactly are they likely to be?
Damian Green
We have established a number of pilot schemes already. There is one in the north-west concentrating on using early intervention to help asylum claimants. We have set up the early legal advice project in the west midlands, and a project to attempt to improve the flow of decision making in London. If those pilots are successful, we will of course move them on to a national scale.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
25. What plans she has for the future of the student visa entry system.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.
Tony Baldry
This morning, I met a young Chevening scholar from Iraq who is studying for an MSc in engineering and robotics at Sussex university. He is hoping to go back to his country to make a contribution when he has completed his degree course. Will my hon. Friend confirm that we want as many overseas students like that young man as possible to come to the UK, because they enrich our university life and take the skills and knowledge that they acquire back to their home countries when they complete their courses? Will he confirm that while seeking to achieve that, we also want to bear down on the abuses of sham institutions that have been set up to bring about immigration abuses?
Mr Speaker
I think the hon. Gentleman is gearing up for an Adjournment debate on this subject. I do not know why he gave such a full question, but it was very helpful and we are grateful to him.
Damian Green
As ever, I agree completely about the helpfulness of my hon. Friend’s question. He presents the House with an extremely good example of what should happen, in that a foreign student came here to learn on a high-quality course and to develop skills that he can take back to his country. As is crucial, he is planning to leave at the end of his course. That is precisely the sort of thing that benefits our university system and brings confidence in the immigration system. What does not do that is students coming here and simply staying. Published information shows that of the students who came here in 2004, more than 20% were still here five years later in 2009. That is the kind of thing that we must investigate, to establish whether those people are still genuine students or are just exploiting the system to work in this country.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Last week, the Minister for Universities and Science told the Home Affairs Committee that he wanted foreign students to come to this country, but admitted that he found Government policy in the area “fuzzy”. The Select Committee was told on the same day by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), that he wanted a cut in immigration but an increase in the number of students coming from Latin America. What exactly is the Government’s policy on the future of the student visa entry system?
Damian Green
Under the student visa scheme, we want good students to come here to study genuine courses at genuine institutions. Under the previous Government, of whom the hon. Gentleman was such a distinguished supporter for so long, the student visa system became the single biggest loophole in an already chaotic immigration system. That is why we are having to deal with it. It is significantly the biggest route of immigration into this country—about 60% of visas are issued for students. That is why it is so important that this Government get a grip on the failures of the previous Government.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T8. At this difficult economic time, what steps is the Minister taking to make it as straightforward as possible for British businesses to take on highly skilled foreign workers, albeit under the auspices of the immigration cap?
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
As my hon. Friend knows, we are introducing a new system for tier 1 and tier 2 for work-based visas, and at the same time we are speeding up the visa both for businesses and for more general visitors. The biggest single complaint has been about the delays in the issuing of visas. I am happy to assure him that we are concerned about that. We are already beginning to see improvements, so that in many of the key markets where we need to operate our visa system is working better than ever before, and we are meeting our service standards.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
T5. When responding to an earlier question on the trafficking strategy, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), said that it would include elements of prevention, action on the border and policing. Does she recognise that a very important element of any anti-trafficking strategy is victim care, and that victim care is usually provided by voluntary organisations? The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), the chair of the all-party group on human trafficking, spoke of a big society solution. Can we have a big society participation in the anti-trafficking strategy?
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
In the past six weeks, the Minister for Immigration has answered about 50 statistical questions from Members, including me. I say “answered”, but in two thirds of these cases, it was not possible for him to provide sound information, either because the data were not recorded or because they were not quality assured and may not have withstood typical audit scrutiny. What assessment has he made of the quality of management information in the UK Border Agency?
Damian Green
I am not sure that my hon. Friend is exactly right. Where an answer makes it clear that the information is management information, it simply means that the data are not Office for National Statistics-quality statistics. However, those answers will include statistical information, even though it might be slightly rough and ready, precisely because I am determined, when we have the information available, to make it available to hon. Members as part of the Government’s commitment to transparency.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
T7. Northumbria police force is losing more than 1,000 jobs, including 300 front-line police. As a result, young recruits promised a job last year have now been told that those jobs are no longer available. What guarantee, therefore, can the Secretary of State offer to the people of the north-east that crime will not rise as a result of the cuts? Furthermore, how can she reassure those who have worked so hard to win a job that they will be prioritised—
Mr Speaker
We would be even more grateful for a reply so that we can move on.
Damian Green
I would, of course, be happy to be enlightened about the immigration system as it affects rugby league.