Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

2. What plans she has to reduce the time taken to remove dangerous foreign nationals.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

We are working with the prisons, the courts and the police to overcome prisoner non-compliance in the removals process by establishing nationality and identity earlier; we are working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to increase the efficiency of the documentation process; and we are removing a significant number of prisoners much earlier in the process.

[Gavin Barwell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. What prospects are there for removing foreign national offenders before they have completed their sentence so that the British taxpayer does not have to bear such a cost?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which we are working on. Where sentence length allows, consideration of deportation is now started up to 18 months before the earliest point of removal. As a result, we are removing a significant number of prisoners much earlier in the process. About a third of foreign national offenders removed in 2011 were removed before the end of their sentence, which is up from just under 20% in 2008.

[Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Do the figures for removal in these circumstances differ between the different nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and if so, why?

[Damian Green]

There are not significant differences because these people are, by definition, foreign national offenders, so they do not come from any of the regions of the United Kingdom. Broadly speaking, how efficient we are relates to whether we have a concentration of foreign national prisoners in a prison where UK Border Agency officers can get at them early enough to make sure that all the schemes operate as efficiently as possible.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

3. How many visas were issued to overseas students to study at UK universities in the 2011-12 academic year.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Figures for the 2011-12 academic year are not yet available, but 206,176 tier 4 student visas were issued in the year to March 2012. This figure covers all students, including those attending university. Last week, Universities UK told the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that universities are projecting an increase in international students coming to the UK, and UCAS applications from international students have risen by 10%.

[Hugh Bayley]

We have some of the best universities in the world, and overseas students contribute £8 billion to our national economy and balance of trade. There has been lots of speculation over the weekend that the Government are about to change the migration figures so as to exclude overseas students. Will the Minister make a statement about the Government’s intentions, and will he think seriously about what can be done with the visa regime and the language requirements to encourage more genuine students to study at British universities?

[Damian Green]

I will happily make a statement now. There are no plans at all to change the definition of immigration. A student who comes here for three years or more is as much of an immigrant as somebody who comes on a work visa for two years or more. There is an international definition of immigration which covers everyone who moves to another country for more than a year, so students who come here for more than a year are included in that definition.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend reject any pressures to change the policy on students coming here in the light of the fact that the OECD estimates that a quarter of students subsequently stay on, 120,000 of them settle and 120,000 seek and are granted extensions of their stay while they are here, and there are some 150,000 outstanding illegal immigrants who came here on university visas?

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend makes a number of powerful points. There is, of course, no cap on genuine students coming to study genuinely at genuine institutions, and some of our universities, which are indeed the best in the world, benefit hugely from that. Nevertheless, we have driven out a huge amount of abuse in the student visa system. More than 500 colleges that used to take foreign students can no longer do so because we put in a proper checking and accreditation regime.

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

Many colleges’ licences have been cancelled for several reasons. Many students have been issued visas at the British high commissions in Delhi, Pakistan and other places. How many were refused entry at the airport when they arrived due to the cancellations of their colleges’ licences?

[Damian Green]

I am afraid that I cannot give the figure off the top of my head, but I doubt whether most of them would have been refused entry at the airport. I would say to the hon. Gentleman, and indeed to prospective students, that because of the action that we have taken in driving out abuse it is very much less likely now than two years ago for any genuine student from overseas to arrive in Britain and find that they have registered with a bogus college. Removing these bogus colleges has an enormous benefit for the British taxpayer and the integrity of our immigration system, but it also helps genuine foreign students to know that from now on they will be coming to get a proper education in Britain.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that while overseas students are vital for our universities, this has become an increasingly abused immigration route, and that the blanket removal of students from the statistics would drive a coach and horses through the excellent measures that he has introduced?

[Damian Green]

I agree completely with the final point that my hon. Friend made. He was right about the abuse. I am happy to report to him and the House that, as of today, we are introducing more widespread interviewing of students to check their ability to benefit from a course here. We ran a pilot between December and February, and discovered that 17% of those who had been accepted on a course in this country should be refused because they could not even speak basic conversational English. There is always more abuse to drive out and we will continue to do so.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

4. What progress she has made on the draft Communications Data Bill; and if she will make a statement.

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[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

16. What steps she is taking under immigration rules to promote better integration.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Our immigration reforms will return migration to sustainable levels in the tens of thousands, reducing pressures on communities. Changes to family immigration rules will ensure that migrants are not a burden on the taxpayer but can speak English and pay their way, and a new “Life in the UK” test will have British history and culture at its heart. All of that will help ensure that migrants are better able to integrate in the UK.

[Richard Fuller]

I welcome the Minister’s comments. The cornerstone of successful integration in Bedford and Kempston for generations has been a clear focus on hard work and strong family values. Will the Minister assure me that he will continue to promote those values, rather than the pattern of welfare dependency that has emerged in recent years?

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an entirely valid point, because most immigrants come here to work and we should encourage them to do so. That is why our new “Life in the UK” test booklet will concentrate more on British history, British values and great people in British history and rather less than the previous Government’s version did on how to claim benefits.

[Sajid Javid]

When my parents left their homeland in the 1960s to settle in the UK, they brought with them a deep respect and love for Britain. Sadly, too few migrants share that approach today. I therefore welcome the changes to the “Life in the UK” test that my hon. Friend has outlined. Does he agree that they will help to underline the importance of immigrants learning the English language?

[Damian Green]

That is absolutely right. It is obvious that it is easier for someone to make a success of their life in a new country if they can speak the language properly. That is why we have increased the English requirements across the board for migrants who intend to settle here. That will help them not only to integrate better in the wider community but to make a success of their own lives. Opposition Members who campaign against the changes are letting down future generations of migrants to this country.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that a continuing huge backlog of unprocessed cases in the “legacy” category, along with arbitrary and at times unfair decisions against genuine and entirely meritorious applicants for visas to visit relatives in the UK, continues to make it very difficult to promote effective immigration among sections of ethnic minorities who believe that the rules are not being applied fairly?

[Damian Green]

On legacy cases, the right hon. Gentleman is entirely right. In the middle of the last decade, half a million cases were famously discovered, and we are sorting that out. The asylum archive is now down by 24,000 from the high of 98,000 that it reached in 2011, so this Government, unlike the previous one, are getting to grips with the terrible problems that we inherited. We are increasingly successful in providing not just sustainable levels of immigration but a system in which people can—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we get the gist of the Minister’s point.

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[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

14. What recent assessment she has made of waiting times at UK borders.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

We will not compromise border security, but we always aim to keep disruption to a minimum by using our staff flexibly to meet demand. Our sampling of queues shows that the vast majority of passengers from the European economic area pass through immigration control quickly, but queue lengths have reached unacceptable levels on occasion, and we have introduced a range of measures to combat that.

[Graeme Morrice]

Data from Heathrow’s terminal 4 show that non-EEA queues exceeded the Government’s target on 21 days out of 30 in June, while at terminal 5 the targets were breached on 18 days. This continued chaos comes at a time when the eyes of the world are on the United Kingdom, and when the increased tourism created by the Olympic games should be incredibly important to our economy. What are the Government doing to deal with this shambolic situation and get a grip on our borders?

[Damian Green]

The times were unacceptable in April, and anything beyond the service level clearly remains unacceptable. For non-EEA passengers we met our targets 90% of the time in June, an increase from 75% in April. In response to those large passenger volumes, we increased the number of staff at Heathrow by more than 50% this weekend. We now have a new central control room to enable us to deploy people more quickly and efficiently, and we have mobile teams to fill the gaps more speedily than ever before.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I do not trust those statistics, to be honest. [Interruption.] I trust the Minister, but I do not trust the statistics. I went to Stansted last week, and I know that UK Border Agency staff start counting the people in the queue only when they arrive in the hall itself, which physically cannot take more than 20 minutes. They do not count the people who are waiting on the escalators, or the people in the corridor, or the people round two bends or over the bridge or all the way back to the aeroplanes. When will the Government publish proper statistics, involving proper, independent counting, which would show that they are failing in their primary duty?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to reassure—and, hopefully, calm down—the hon. Gentleman. The figures I was citing were not border force or Home Office figures; they were BAA figures. BAA publishes the monthly figures every month on its website. Those June figures were figures from BAA, not the Government. I hope the hon. Gentleman trusts BAA to produce reliable figures.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

T3. The UK Border Agency recently produced information showing that children from Vietnam, China and Nigeria were significantly less likely to be recognised as trafficking victims by the national referral mechanism. Will the Minister take seriously the concerns raised with his Department by non-governmental organisations that this system is failing to protect those children adequately?

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I met the various anti-trafficking NGOs recently, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows, given her background in this sector. We are trying very hard to get better at recognising children who are genuine victims and not potential criminals, and there are now signs that our training of officers is having a good effect in this regard.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

T7. I recently visited the United States police hall of fame in Florida, which educates people and celebrates the work of the US police force, as well as providing a memorial to US police officers who have died in service. Building on the fantastic work of Michael Winner, does the Minister agree that having a UK police hall of fame would be very appropriate? Will the Home Office support setting one up?

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

T4. One of my constituents is currently living abroad with his Chinese wife, but they both want to return to the UK to look after his seriously ill mother. Unfortunately, due to the change of rules this month, he is not going to be able to make the income limit, even though his return would prevent his mother from going into care. Should we not be practising the Christian values of this country before preaching them to others?

[Damian Green]

It is not immediately apparent to me how the new rules would affect that particular case, but if the hon. Lady wishes to write to me about it, I will take a personal interest in it.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

T8. Will the Immigration Minister look at the current practice whereby applications are sometimes turned down for technical reasons and are then resubmitted but may be out of time? We could, thus, save the Government loads of money and effort, and help applicants, who are often disadvantaged through no fault of their own.

[Damian Green]

I am very happy to do that for my right hon. Friend. Indeed, in many parts of the immigration system we are now able to process applications faster than ever before. That is particularly the case in the asylum system, where the worst delays used to happen and where we are now taking more than 50% of decisions within 30 days.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

T9. The Home Secretary will be familiar with the case of my constituent Nosratollah Tajik, who has been under arrest, tagged and subject to restrictive bail conditions for six years, pending extradition. For the majority of that time the Home Secretary has purportedly been considering medical reports. Will she now either make a full statement or meet me to discuss this very unsatisfactory situation?

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[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

The median income in my constituency of Bradford East is £16,200, more than £2,000 below the income threshold to bring a spouse to the UK. How on earth does it help integration to deny people the right to a family life?

[Damian Green]

The minimum income requirement that comes into force today ensures that no one can any longer come to this country to get married and live off benefits from day one. I think that that will be widely welcomed.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I think it is very important that Ministers visit Heathrow at peak times. I was there at seven o’clock this morning and was appalled to see people being held in corridors, a full immigration hall and that half the kiosks were not open. May we please start the additional measures for the Olympics immediately?