Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I would indeed like to see such a process, but for deportation rather than extradition. The Bill specifically states that if illegal migrants are convicted, the courts should recommend deportation as a matter of course, but that is, at present, very much the exception. As a consequence, as soon as people arrive in this country—although they may have come here by means of subterfuge, with false documents and so on—they think that if they are caught, they will effectively never be deported.

We know that, currently, a mass—tens of thousands—of what are described as failed asylum seekers are in this country, and have not been deported. The figures, which I have somewhere, suggest that the number of deportations of failed asylum seekers is at a 10-year low, yet we know that the number of people seeking asylum last year was at a record high. Why are so few of those people being deported? I think that it is because the Government are not taking seriously the need to deter, and to enforce the existing law in the 1971 Act. Given those figures relating to failed asylum seekers, how can the Government say that their focus is on “removal…rather than prosecution”, because removal is less quick and less costly? The facts do not seem to bear that out.

So what are the facts? We know that of those who have come here illegally, fewer were subjected to enforced removal last year than in any of the previous 12 years for which we have statistics. In 2004, 21,425 people were subjected to enforced removal, under a Labour Government. My hon. Friends often say that during that period, the Labour Government were a soft touch when it came to illegal migrants. I see that the Minister is nodding. Last year only 12,056 people were subjected to enforced removal, the lowest number for 12 years. The Government sometimes arrange what are known as “assisted voluntary returns”, which often means the provision of an air fare to enable people to leave. The number of assisted voluntary returns last year was also at its lowest level for 12 years, at just 1,635. That information comes from the most recently published Home Office immigration statistics, relating to 2015.

Public anxiety about illegal immigration is at an all-time high, but the Government’s effectiveness in tackling it is, in my submission, at an all-time low. There are scarcely any prosecutions and the number of enforced removals has been substantially reduced. In the face of these facts, what are the Government doing? As recently as Monday this week, the noble Lord Bates, the Home Office Minister of State—

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

A great man.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend says that he is a great man, and I am sure he is. His time in this House happened to coincide with a time when I was not a Member of Parliament, so I do not know him very well. In the other place on Monday, he said in answer to a question from another great man, whom I do know, Lord Green of Deddington, that

“the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and others have been working hard…to increase the discomfort for those who are in this country illegally.”

What an extraordinary use of words—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Sir Winston Churchill once said:

“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed…If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

The open sea between Calais and Dover is the subject of this debate. Traditionally, the sea has been an opportunity for us British people to take our values across the world. The sea has never really been seen as a threat to this island nation, except in terms of armed conflict. There is a different threat now, which is why the Bill, albeit only a private Member’s Bill, is very apposite. It is important that we debate it and that the Government take these arguments seriously and reply to them, because, frankly, in terms of illegal entry into this country, the system is out of control. There is widespread public disquiet about that. It is not good for the reputation of this Government, or any Government. It is not good for relations between different communities. It is not good for respect for the system of law.

People cannot understand why there are no consequences for causing massive, criminal disruption. If someone decides illegally to enter the channel tunnel, which is a very dangerous thing to do in any circumstances, and they cause massive disruption, delaying train after train, delaying hundreds of people going on holiday or returning, or, even more important, preventing people from getting to business appointments, and if someone actually walks through the entire length of the channel tunnel, what people cannot understand is why, when they are caught, having caused that massive, criminal disruption, there apparently are no consequences. They are not even returned, it seems, to France. It brings the whole system of law into disrepute. It is not good for our relations with France either, but I will deal with that in a moment.

A constituent, Mr Denby, runs a very successful haulage business, which he built up from nothing. He is an entrepreneur, creating jobs. Let us say that one of his lorries arrives in Lincoln, the back of it is opened, and out jump half a dozen illegal migrants, and Mr Denby rings the police. Are the migrants prosecuted? For all the trouble that they have caused, are they taken to court? Are they given, perhaps, a modest prison sentence but then deported? No. They are taken off to a comfortable hostel in Boston and they stay in this country forever. It is like a child’s game. People arrive in this country illegally. When they get to Dover, they shout “Home” and apparently there is nothing the police can do about it. The whole system is brought into disrepute.

If we were just talking about a few dozen, or even a few hundred people a year, we could perhaps live with it, but my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) mentioned the statistics and I shall mention a few as well. We are talking about potentially thousands of people, and the whole system being brought into disrepute. The Bill is particularly apposite because the whole issue of juxtaposed controls, by which someone can have their passport checked on the French side of the channel if they are trying to enter England, is front-page news today, given President Hollande’s remarks yesterday.

How extraordinary that the President of France, the President of a friendly country—everybody knows how francophone and francophile I am: there is no more francophile or francophone person in this House—should say that if the British people exercise their democratic right in a referendum to leave the EU there will “be consequences” in Calais. He did not actually mention Calais—I think he said he did not want to be too alarmist—but the interpretation of all his remarks is that if we were to leave the EU, he would move the borders.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is far too modest. I want to place it on the record that he is a holder of the Légion d’honneur.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is very kind of my hon. Friend. I have devoted 30 years of my life to trying to improve relations between our country and France. We are the closest of allies. In two world wars, the blood of hundreds of thousands of British people was spilt, and it drained away in the precious soil of France to save their liberties. I think that is well recognised by French people. It is, in my view, not acceptable for a leader of a foreign country, particularly a friendly country, to say that if the people exercise a democratic right there will be consequences.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying this, but surely that is exactly what he wants. Mr Hollande, the President of France, in announcing that there will be consequences, is merely stating a fact about leaving the European Union. My hon. Friend is seeking consequences, and they are some of the things he is referring to now, but there will be others as well, and that is why he is seeking to leave the EU.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is perfectly okay if these “consequences” are phrased in terms of a friendly question. Although it is not the subject of today’s debate, one friendly debate that we could have is on the question: if a country leaves the EU and wishes to access the single market, to what extent does that country have to take migrants? If the debate takes place under those circumstances, I take back entirely what I said, because that would be a friendly debate. But there is the possibility, especially given what the Prime Minister said a couple of weeks ago, that alarm bells are deliberately being rung, and Downing Street might indeed be orchestrating that. Some people say that it is right to ring these alarm bells, but there is a fear that our border will be thrown open.

We all know this is a toxic issue; it is pointless to deny that. It is far more toxic with the general public than arcane debates about the single market and business regulation, and even the sovereignty of Parliament. This is the important point—the consequences point—and it is desperately important for the referendum. If it is felt that anybody can walk across the continent, as they are in their tens of thousands, from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan—of course we sympathise individually with the desperate plight of these people—and can arrive in Calais, get on a cross-channel ferry, arrive in Dover and, because of the present state of the law, will not be returned, because apparently neither the Bill nor anything like it will be passed, there are indeed consequences.

I happen to think that the existing law has an entirely wrong-headed point of view on this issue. We have the treaty of Le Touquet. It is nothing to do with the EU. I do not think it would be in the interests of most countries, and it would not surely be in the interests of France, to encourage more people to walk across France in the hope of getting to England. I believe that the treaty of Le Touquet would stand, but certainly it is a debate that we need to have. I believe also that it would stand anyway because, as I understand it—although I defer to the Minister, who deals with these issues every day and is presumably much more expert in the law—it is very difficult to enter the United Kingdom illegally on an aeroplane. Before boarding, your passport and ticket are checked, and if they are not in order you are not allowed to board.

Let us say we were to leave the EU—or even that there was no treaty of Le Touquet. Surely, before anyone was allowed on the channel tunnel train or the cross-channel ferry, the ticket collector would check their ticket and passport, and if they were invalid, would not let them board. I believe that the vague undercurrent of threats of “consequences” in terms of law and practice is complete rubbish.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Is it not correct that the carrier liability to which he refers does not apply to, for example, Eurotunnel, but it would need to apply to Eurotunnel, which has French majority ownership, and to the cross-channel ferries in the future in the same way as it currently applies to all airlines?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. I think that would be very simple to arrange, and it would be in the interests of both Governments. I do not think for one moment that France would abrogate the treaty of Le Touquet, first for the reason I have given, which is pure self-interest, and secondly because, as President Hollande kindly said—this is where I support what he said—we are close allies, and we would continue to be close allies even if Britain left the EU. It is inconceivable that the very first thing he would do would be the deeply unfriendly act of abrogating the treaty of Le Touquet. My hon. Friend makes the vital point about carrier liability, which seems to work extremely well for aeroplanes, and I cannot see why it should not work entirely properly and conveniently, and in a proper administrative way, for ferries and for the channel tunnel. That has dealt with that point. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) laughs, but if he wishes to question my arguments—

[Tom Tugendhat]

I did not laugh.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The point of these debates is to have a debate. If what I am saying is not right, it is incumbent on the Minister to explain why, because there is enormous public interest in this. It would be really helpful if the Minister, when he responds to the debate, said, “I listened to what my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Gainsborough said about carrier liability, the treaty of Le Touquet and all the other points, and the advice that we have received from Home Office officials is that this would not be a problem if we left the EU.” That would be a marvellous statement. We might not get it, but it is at least something to ask for.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Just for the record, I was not laughing; I was sneezing slightly. I merely want to ask a question on the treaty of Le Touquet and the implications for France. I know that my hon. Friend has done much to support Britain’s relationship with France—the French ambassador speaks very warmly of him—and he certainly recognises the enormous commitment that the French make to guarding Calais on behalf of the United Kingdom population, and how that distorts the work of the gendarmerie, who are effectively forced to take massive overtime over the whole of the nation in order to support that commitment. It creates a major distortion of policing across the whole nation. That burden is borne almost entirely by the French people. Yes, the UK makes a small contribution, but it would not be fair to say that there is no debate in France on this. Were my hon. Friend to read some of the statements in the Assemblée Nationale, or to read some of the commentary in Le Figaro and Le Monde, he would see that there is major pressure on the French Government to look again at the Le Touquet treaty.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a very fair point. There is enormous concern in France and enormous resentment in Calais. By the way, I pay tribute to the Mayor of Calais, who has done sterling work in this whole area. I sympathise deeply with the people of Calais and with the French Government, who have had to bear the cost. I sympathise with the poor gendarmerie, who this week have been under appalling attacks, not primarily from the migrants, who are decent people seeking a better life, but from anarchists who are there deliberately to provoke aggression. My hon. Friend is quite right about that.

Surely we have to ask why the “jungle” in Calais is there. It is there because those people believe that, in the absence of a Bill such as this, if only they can make it on to a train or hide away in a lorry or car, once they get to the United Kingdom they can cry “Home” and they will never be sent back.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that fundamentally those people are there because they are desperate, having fled war and persecution?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. Let me be completely clear that nobody in the House questions the desperate plight of the people now trudging through Greece and those who are held up at the border, having fled the appalling events in Syria, Iraq and Libya. By the way, the west has a huge responsibility for that, and I have to say that those Members who voted to invade Iraq, to bomb Libya and to bomb Syria also have a responsibility for the chaos that has ensued. Nobody questions the desperate plight of those people, but let us be completely honest about this. The hon. Gentleman has to be honest. Is he now suggesting that the British Government should say to the 6,000 people living in the jungle, “Yes, you are decent human beings who have come from appalling places with dreadful Governments and where there is chaos, such as Eritrea and Somalia, so you can come here”? If he wishes to make such a statement, he has to juxtapose himself on to the Government Front Bench and say, “Yes, I will let in those 6,000 people”, because tomorrow another 10,000 will come, and they day after 20,000.

[Conor McGinn]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Having questioned the hon. Gentleman, I had better give way to him.

[Conor McGinn]

That is not what I was saying. I had the privilege of hosting a group of young people from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development in this House on Thursday. I said to them that when one looks at the images from Calais and the Mediterranean, one’s instinctive reaction—certainly it is mine—is that of a father, a brother and a son. We must introduce the language of compassion into this debate while absolutely understanding that tough decisions have to be made, and we must find a policy solution to it. That is the point I was making.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have to introduce the language of compassion. May I just defend the Government for a moment? There is not a single Government in the whole of Europe who have spent more money on aid to Syria. This Government have a perfectly logical and reasonable point of view, which is that, rather than simply giving comfort to the people traffickers, we should take people directly from the camps. I think that there is widespread support on the Government Benches for what the Government are doing in that regard. If I have not spoken the language of compassion, let me be absolutely clear now that this debate is not about being nasty to people who are desperately seeking a better life.

[Mr Nuttall]

I accept that these people are desperate and fleeing persecution. If that is the case, why are they not seeking a safe haven in the first safe country they reach, rather than trying to get to the United Kingdom? Is that not the question we ought to be asking?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is the question that the public ask again and again in the letters and emails we receive. Why is the Dublin convention not being used? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was a very distinguished chairman of the migration committee in the Council of Europe, and he is probably one of the House’s leading experts on the whole migration issue. He has spent many hours not just sitting in committees in Strasbourg, but making the effort to go to Lampedusa and all these places to talk about the Dublin convention. That convention basically states, quite rightly, that a person should get asylum or be returned to the first country they enter, so this is what people in this country do not understand: is France unsafe? I quite understand—in the language of compassion—why a person would want to be an economic migrant, but are they an asylum seeker? When they are taken out of the back of a lorry in Lincoln or found at the first service station on the M3, they do not say to the English gendarmerie that they want to get benefits or a job; they say that they are an asylum seeker. The question that the British people are asking is this: if that person is a genuine asylum seeker, given that France is a completely safe and civilized country, with a very generous benefits system, why do they not claim asylum there? It all boils down to why this Bill is needed. I know that this is only a private Member’s Bill, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the Government do not take action on this.

[David Morris]

I pay homage to my hon. Friend for his prowess in this field. I would like to clarify the fact that people come from all over the world to Calais, where there is a bottleneck, in the hope of getting across the channel and claiming asylum, and they do so for one reason only: they perceive that life will be better here for themselves and their families. To be frank, I do not think anybody on the face of the planet, if they were in distress, would not do the same thing. They come to this country—I hope that my hon. Friend agrees with this—because, as has been said in this debate, the UK is a soft touch. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister has brought forward reforms to deflect people away from this country by cutting down the benefits and the perceived advantages?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That may be a fair point. I do not think that Mr Deputy Speaker would want me to get into a whole debate about the Prime Minister’s renegotiation of benefits for Poles—people who have an absolute right to come here anyway. I briefly make the point that the overwhelming majority of Poles come here to work, not for benefits, but let us leave that to one side.

The people sitting in Calais are not Polish, Lithuanian or Hungarian—those people can all come in anyway. I am afraid that the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) is completely irrelevant. By definition, the people whom we are discussing are not allowed here. They come from outside the EU.

It is true that our benefit system is a draw. I am told that in the “jungle”, England is viewed as a kind of El Dorado—having lived here for 65 years, I have never thought of it as that. Apparently, it is the place where all one’s dreams come true—there are unlimited work and benefits, and all the rest of it. These people come from outside the EU, so I am afraid that my hon. Friend’s intervention was not relevant. The issue is entirely in the hands of the Government. We hear about the staggering level of net migration, at 300,000 a year. The whole of London and the south-east is groaning under the number of people, and that is a particular issue for native working class people.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This debate is about illegal immigration. As Sir Edward pointed out, the intervention of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) was about legal immigration. We need to get back to the relevant point.

[Tom Tugendhat]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend if he wants to ask me about illegal immigration, rather than legal immigration, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale referred.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I do want to ask about illegal immigration. I merely want to state on the record that I do consider this country to be an El Dorado and I do think that it is a sceptred isle set in a sapphire sea. I really do think that this is the best country in the world. We are a light on the hill and a beacon to the peoples of the world. I think there is a good reason why people do not stop on their way here; if I had the choice of coming to the UK rather than anywhere else, here is exactly where I would come and I am very proud that my family are here.

On a separate point, I should briefly say that, sadly, some of those attempting to enter through Calais are the interpreters from Afghanistan and Iraq, with whom I served and who served the United Kingdom armed forces with enormous courage and distinction. When we consider this matter, we should realise that some of the people may have a rightful claim. We should be a little more considerate, as I know my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is being; some voices, however, are becoming more strident.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is absolutely right. Some have put their lives on the line as interpreters for the British Army in Afghanistan and some, God forbid, may be living in the jungle in a shack. The Minister could make a good point about preventing illegal entry by people who put their lives at risk by trying to jump on a train. I do not know what the procedures are; presumably, the people mentioned in my hon. Friend’s intervention could find a British immigration official and try to enter legally. My hon. Friend makes a good point.

My hon. Friend’s first point was very apposite too. Why are there all these attempts at illegal entry into the UK? It is because getting a job in France is so difficult and joining the benefits system there is so complex. Those things are probably even more difficult in places such as Italy. That is why people will do anything and take any risk to try to jump on the train, put their lives at risk and cause disruption for hundreds of different people. That is why we need the Bill: so that they know that it is simply not worth it.

If the Government took the steps that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch suggests, I hazard a guess that the camp would dissolve. The whole issue would go away and our relations with France would improve immeasurably. People would simply make a perfectly rational and good decision, asking themselves what, if they knew that they were going to be caught, was the point of causing all the anguish in trying to get out of France and putting their lives at risk. Many might think that they would never be caught, but that brings us to the debate about ID cards and all the rest of it; presumably, that is another reason why they want to come here. At least if they knew that they would be sent back if they were caught, that would solve the problem to a certain extent.

[Mr Chope]

We all sympathise with the problems of the French authorities in Calais, but does my hon. Friend agree that one solution would be for the French to come out of the Schengen area? They could then control the border between them and, for example, Italy, and that would deter people from coming to their country illegally.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Schengen area is not as open as it was. Last summer, I was driving from Italy to France. I noticed that although there were no border checks between the two countries, there were loads of gendarmes checking every single coach and car at the first péage, where people pay the tolls for the motorway. My hon. Friend should not be too starry-eyed about the Schengen area; all sorts of controls are gradually building up all over Europe and I quite understand the position of the French Government, of whom I make no criticism at all.

The numbers are extraordinary. In November 2014, the answer to a parliamentary question gave some details about the costs and impacts of juxtaposed controls in France:

“In 2013/14 the number of clandestine people detected at juxtaposed controls in France by Border Force and other agencies was around 18,000—a rise of over 60 percent from around 11,000 in FY2012/13.”

I suspect that the figures are far worse now than they were even a year ago. The annual cost of the Border Force at the port of Calais per fiscal year is also quite extraordinary: in 2013, it had risen to more than £17.5 million.

The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration published a report on the inspection of juxtaposed controls in 2013. He found that people found hiding in freight vehicles were no longer being fingerprinted at Calais or Coquelles owing to limited detention facilities. The Government’s response to the report agreed with his recommendation to review this policy. However, the Home Affairs Committee noted in March 2015 that clandestine migrants caught in Calais or Coquelles are still not fingerprinted by the UK authorities, unlike at other juxtaposed controls. They are handed over to the French police, who will release them.

As we know, this is a sort of game. No matter how many times people try, there is no criminal sanction or disbenefit—the migrants simply try again and again. The director general of the Border Force told the Home Affairs Committee that the number of individuals attempting to enter the UK is significantly less than the number of attempts. As the Home Affairs Committee report said,

“Sir Charles explained that the 30,000 attempts”—

the numbers are staggering—

“to enter the UK through the juxtaposed ports last year do not represent 30,000 individuals”.

He said that many are trying again and again and again. Nevertheless, the Home Affairs Committee was critical of the UK and French authorities’ approach to the problem. Some of its comments are tough and interesting. It says:

“The number of interceptions by Border Force and PAF, the French Border Police, highlights the sheer scale of the problem. And yet we have seen no evidence that France or the UK is pursuing a policy of processing and deporting the individuals found at Calais. We find it bizarre that there are thousands of attempts to enter the UK illegally through Calais, at great cost and inconvenience to business and leisure travellers, transport companies, and hauliers, and yet the people who are caught are simply released back into the French countryside.”

Extraordinary!

“Nothing in this process appears to serve as a disincentive to returning to Calais and trying again and again, and there is no evidence it has affected the number of migrants living in the Calais area. It appears to be an admission of stalemate and something must be done to break this cycle.”

The Committee goes on:

“It is apparent that extra security slows the traffic, creates queues”—

as I go back and forth to the Council of Europe, I am well aware of this—

“and can increase the vulnerability of the lorries to infiltration by migrants. Improvements in security must be combined with improvements in managing the traffic flow.”

That, surely, is the point.

We can build as many fences or walls as we like, but we cannot manage the migrant flow unless the Government make real, cogent and serious attempts, first, to get rid of the incentive through something like my hon. Friend’s Bill, and, secondly, to impose some sort of sanction. These people are desperate—we should show compassion to them because they come from appalling places—and will keep trying again and again. There is the physical risk, but in terms of the law there is no risk at all.

The Home Affairs Committee goes on to say:

“It is important that improvements in security at one site do not simply displace clandestine activity to another site.”

That is why we cannot deal with this problem simply with fences. It continues:

“Much of the investment from the UK Government appears to have gone into improving security around the Port of Calais ferry terminal, rather than the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles.”

That was the case when the Committee wrote the report; I agree that things have moved on since. It concludes:

“If the Government accepts there is a security problem at both sites, then it should contribute to security measures at both sites.”

I accept that the Government are trying now to address the problem, but only in terms of improving the fences and security. My contention, and that of my hon. Friend, is that we also have to deal with the pull factor.

This illegal migration into this country is very serious in terms of public policy. Some people might say, “Maybe we want more immigration—maybe these people provide low-cost cheap labour”, and all the rest of it. I would argue that the ready availability of cheap labour reduces the need for employers to modernise their economy, and that for too long Governments have relied on open borders and cheap wages to keep the economy afloat. The problem with this large-scale migration—illegal migration is the worst aspect—is that it is totally unsustainable in the long run in terms of the economy, public policy and public opinion.

The Chancellor has signalled his intention that we end this model and move towards a low tax, high wage society. Lord Rose, the head of the remain campaign, admitted before the Treasury Committee this week that if Britain leaves the EU and immigration within the EU falls, then wages will rise. Of course, we heartily welcome a pay rise for the lowest-paid workers in Britain because that means more disposable income for them to spend or save as they see fit. The more immigration there is, particularly the more illegal immigration, the more consequences there will be.

Untrammelled immigration was introduced in 1997 for social reasons. The then Government gambled on newly arrived immigrants and their offspring being reliable Labour supporters—not always the case—so they adopted the Brechtian policy of abolishing the people and electing another version. Unfortunately, this kind of bad, poorly thought out policy was backed by certain aspects of the business community. The debate has moved on, in the Conservative party and in the Labour party, and there is now widespread public support for a really tough, firm and compassionate immigration policy. Serious efforts by Government to train the population into a different point of view have failed.

Before we dismiss this as just a temporary blip, let us look again at some of the figures. They are extraordinary. As long ago as 2005, the Home Office produced a study. I have been unable to find a more recent study, and one might ask why not; I see the Home Office Minister here. The study estimated the number of unauthorised migrants living in the UK in 2001. It measured the discrepancy between census estimates of the total lawfully resident foreign-born population, based on migration records. It concluded that in April 2001 the total unauthorised migrant population, including failed asylum seekers, living in the UK was approximately 430,000, within a range of 310,000 to 570,000 people. We should note that this estimate does not include the children of unauthorised migrants born in the UK. That study was produced in 2005, and I would like to have a more recent one. This is a really important issue in terms of good race relations and all the other aspects we are talking about.

In 2009, the London School of Economics published a study commissioned by the Mayor of London that updated the earlier Home Office figures in order to estimate the unauthorised migrant population at the end of 2007. The study produced two estimates—one for the number of irregular migrants and another for the number of irregular residents. The first figure is comparable with the earlier Home Office estimate, while the second includes the children of unauthorised migrants born in the UK. The study concluded that at the end of 2007 there were approximately 533,000 irregular migrants living in the UK, within a range of 373,000 and 719,000—so it is getting worse. There were approximately 618,000 irregular residents living in the UK, within a range of 470,000 to 863,000. If the public were aware of these figures—there is already public concern—they would be truly alarmed. The study found that the majority of the irregular resident population was living in London, with a central estimate of 442,000 irregular residents living in the capital—about 70% of the estimated irregular resident population at the end of 2007. These figures are truly extraordinary.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has recited some of the detailed research that the House of Commons Library has done on this. Does he accept that the implication of this research must be that by now there are well in excess of 1 million illegal migrants in this country—in fact, millions of them—and that it is about time the Home Office took an interest in trying to ascertain the exact numbers?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes. I personally think—I put this in a half-hearted way to the Prime Minister in his statement a couple of weeks ago when I asked him why he was banging on about Polish immigration—that we are obsessing too much about east European migration. That is legal and understood. We have a fair idea of the numbers coming in, although there is a lot of dispute about the national insurance figures, which suggest that those numbers are far greater than is admitted by the Government. This matter has also been raised in Prime Minister’s questions.

In this House we are obsessing too much about the Prime Minister’s renegotiation and what he achieved and did not achieve, and forgetting what is in our control. It is argued that the Government can do nothing about migration from eastern Europe, unless of course we leave the European Union, but the issue of illegal migration is surely under our control, and it is now running at staggering levels. The people want to know what the Government are doing about it. What are they doing to find these people? My hon. Friend talked about the level of deportations. I think, off the top of my head, that he said that there were 12,562 deportations last year. Is that not an extraordinarily low proportion of the hundreds of thousands that I have been mentioning?

This is not just a matter of figures.

[David Morris]

If I remember correctly, the previous Labour Government gave two amnesties to illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who should not be here. Will my hon. Friend clarify whether the 2005 figures that my hon. Friend quoted since been superseded, or are they now completely irrelevant?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is precisely what I am asking. We now want an up-to-date study from the Home Office, but because we have such weak exit controls, the Government seem to have very little idea of what is going on.

Questions have been asked about this. On 18 January 2016, my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) asked

“the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what procedures are in place to ensure that illegal migrants to the UK are returned to their country of origin; and whether people deemed by her Department to be illegal migrants are only able to appeal that decision from their country of origin.”

That seems to be a very fair question. To be fair to the Home Office, I will give the answer provided by the Minister for Immigration:

“The Home Office continues to take action at every opportunity to prevent immigration abuse, pursue immigration offenders and increase compliance with immigration law including arresting and returning illegal migrants to their country of origin.”

Yet another Immigration Bill is making its way through the House, but I do not think there is any point in passing more Immigration Acts if we are not enforcing the existing ones. The Minister’s answer continues:

“The Immigration Act 2014 simplified the appeals system so that an appeal right only arises where a claim raising fundamental rights is refused, namely asylum, humanitarian protection and human rights claims. The Home Office has the power to require an appeal to be brought only once an individual has left the UK where the claim is clearly unfounded and where a person liable to deportation makes a human rights claim and it would not cause serious irreversible harm or otherwise breach human rights to require them to appeal from overseas.

The Immigration Bill seeks to extend the power to require an appeal to be brought from overseas to all human rights claims where an appeal from overseas would not cause serious irreversible harm or otherwise breach human rights. Similar provisions are set out in the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006”.

Will the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees explain the deficiencies of the existing Immigration Act 2014 in processing illegal migrants, and how would the new Immigration Bill make any difference?

[Mr Chope]

Perhaps my hon. Friend could also ask for an explanation of the implications of the judgment in the case of Mircea Gheorghiu, who has been allowed to come back into this country despite the Home Office’s promises.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State can respond to that point.

The whole issue of migration, particularly illegal migration, is—I am sure that nobody would disagree with this—one of the most serious crises we face in Europe today. It makes it much more difficult to create a sense of community and cohesion in our democracy. Scandinavia is often held up as a paragon of social cohesion, but its countries’ economies and their whole sense of the community of the nation are now under threat as never before. That Nordic model is based on high taxation combined with strong, high-quality service provision. If there is more and more illegal migration, and if the Government do not even know what is going on, it is much more difficult to create homogeneity among the population, which has been one of the keys to the success of the Nordic model.

People in our country, and even more so in Scandinavian countries, were content to pay high taxes because they obtained high-quality services and knew that those services were going to their own people, who were here legally. However, if we add very high levels of immigration to the mix, and if hundreds of thousands of people are here illegally, that relationship of trust between people—who were prepared to pay high taxes because they knew that everybody else was doing so and they were getting high-quality services in return—starts to break down.

The debate instituted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch this morning is not just about statistics; it is about the very bedrock and nature of society. Society is a contract, is it not, between the people? We know who the people are, we know where they live and we know they pay taxes—we all pay taxes and get public services in return. However, when literally hundreds of thousands of people are living in this country illegally and the Government have no idea who or where they are, and only 12,000 are being deported every year, trust in the immigration system and the trust on which society relies gradually break down. That is why my hon. Friend’s Bill is excellent and the Government need to respond to it.

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[Mr Nuttall]

That is a very nice way of putting it. My hon. Friend makes a good point. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to such points.

One must question why there has been no more recent study. Of course—but I am sure I must be wrong—the reason why there are no more recent statistics may be that Governments of both colours do not want to know the answers. That is the truth of it, is it not? Nobody wants to investigate this problem because if the truth comes out that there are 1 million people in this country illegally, it would be so shocking. No one dares face up to that fact.

It is worth making the point—this is not a criticism, so I think I am in order, Mr Deputy Speaker—that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) claimed back in 2005-06, when he was employed as deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, that about 500,000 illegal immigrants were working in this country. I have no reason to disbelieve the analysis he made some 10 years ago. In view of the figures I gave for what we might call authorised migration—legal migration—it is reasonable to assume on that basis that illegal immigration has also increased.

The Bill is not about reducing migration and this debate is not about our involvement with the European Union and the fact that our membership allows the free movement of people under European treaties, but free movement has an impact on illegal migration. Free movement makes it necessary for Governments to clamp down on migration from countries outside the European Union, making it much harder for people from such countries to come into this country legally, so there is an increased inducement for people to try their hand or to have a go.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We have the absurd situation that someone from Romania who does not work here and will never want to work here can come to this country, but a most distinguished American professor of Shakespearian literature—one of the most distinguished people in the world—who came to Stratford-upon-Avon to talk about Shakespeare but stayed a few days too long, was arrested, frog-marched to a police station and deported. It beggars belief that we are preventing research scientists and nuclear physicists from India or America from coming here. Mass migration from the EU is therefore pertinent to this debate, because people are so frustrated and that is leading to all this illegal immigration.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am glad that Sir Edward has given his ruling, but I will give mine. He may think his intervention was pertinent to this debate, but I do not think it was. The EU has been mentioned and there has been a discussion around it, but I do not want this debate to be dominated by the EU. As has already been said, migration from the EU is legal, but this debate is about illegal immigration. I welcome Sir Edward’s rulings when he chairs Committees, but today I am in the Chair.

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[Lyn Brown]

Illegal immigration is an extremely important issue. On the face of it, this Bill is about discouraging illegal immigration by implementing tougher sanctions against illegal migrants. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case made by hon. Members this morning, I do not think the Bill will actually work. I say it gently. The Bill would further complicate an already over-complicated immigration system. It would create yet more bureaucracy, and the hon. Member for Christchurch is normally the scourge of bureaucracy. It would create more obstacles for the authorities trying to remove people and more work for our overstretched police officers and border control people. Moreover, in many cases it would create huge disincentives for overstayers to depart from the UK voluntarily, and it would lead to inappropriate criminal prosecutions against vulnerable victims of human trafficking and modern slavery.

Before I go on to talk about the Bill, I want to say for the record that I believe that immigration has greatly benefited the UK. I know how much immigration has contributed positively in my constituency to our cultural and economic vibrancy. As someone who relies on the NHS, like everybody in this Chamber, I am so grateful for the immigrant doctors, nurses and healthcare workers who have treated me so well over the past couple of years and without whom we simply would not have an NHS.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course, the hon. Lady is not in any way defending illegal immigration or saying that it has a benefit.

[Lyn Brown]

I certainly am not.

It is a fundamental British value to recognise the needs of those fleeing war and persecution. I believe that the UK should take more refugees fleeing the horrendous war in Syria, especially the children who are so vulnerable and are experiencing conditions that most of us cannot even imagine.

Having said that, I will start with the central premise of the case the hon. Member for Christchurch put for presenting the Bill: the idea that illegal immigrants can be in the UK with impunity. I say gently that I genuinely do not believe that his argument holds up. For a start, there are a whole number of criminal offences relating to illegal immigration. It is worth mentioning a few of the existing offences: entering without leave, obtaining leave by deception, remaining beyond the time limited by leave, failing to observe a condition of leave, assisting unlawful immigration, facilitating entry for gain, assisting entry in breach of a deportation or exclusion order, sham marriages and identity document offences. There are a whole bunch of others, but I did not have an awful lot of time between the publication of the Bill and preparing my notes for today, so I hope he will allow me to stop there.

I do not think that we have heard an example today that does not fall within one of those offences. Even if the hon. Gentleman did manage to find someone who had voluntarily and purposefully entered the UK illegally or overstayed illegally, but did not qualify for one of those offences, I say gently that it would not mean that they were able to stay in the UK with impunity. I think I should clarify what I mean by that. For me, impunity implies an ability to act without facing punishment or detrimental consequences. Just because an action does not result in a criminal sanction does not mean that it can be done with impunity.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

If the law is adequate and we do not need an extra law, why was the chap who walked through the channel tunnel to arrive in Dover not sent straight back to France after the initial arrest? He was not even prosecuted and was allowed to remain here. If the law is adequate, why could we not arrest this chap and, ultimately, deport him?

[Lyn Brown]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that the laws are there. It is the way in which they are used and implemented that is in question. I genuinely do not have enough facts about the circumstances of that case to offer an opinion, but I am sure the Minister will be able to do that for him.

Those who are in the UK illegally do face a sanction: deportation. For those who are desperate to be in the UK, the threat of deportation is a massive threat that hangs over their heads and the heads of their children every day of their lives. In reality, the Bill would not alter the incentives for those who are considering entering or remaining in the UK illegally.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Christchurch, whom I genuinely like, that at best the Bill would be superfluous. However, I think it might also be harmful, as it would distract from the efforts the authorities are already making in respect of immigration. The more we look at the contents of the Bill, the more apparent it becomes that it would add additional processes and unwelcome bureaucracy—an outcome that I do not think would be welcomed by the hon. Gentleman, given his record as a champion of cutting bureaucracy.

I am sure that it is not intentional, but one thing that I can commend the Bill for is its brevity. There are three simple clauses. It has a simplicity that I really wish existed in the immigration system. As any MP who has dealt with immigration casework knows, the immigration system is not simple.

What we end up with is a Bill that would not fix the problem. It would criminalise everyone who does not receive a positive decision that gives them legal authority to be in the UK, but that ain’t how the immigration system works. Numerous people in the UK are awaiting an immigration decision. Those people do not have legal authority to be here, as defined by the Bill. For example, a student might fall in love—it is only just past Valentine’s day—get married and apply for a spousal visa. That can take months. During that time, the Bill would criminalise her. Alternatively, an asylum seeker might appeal against a refusal of leave to remain. There is a very high level of successful appeals—I think it is roughly 30%—so the Bill would catch out fairly large numbers of people. As drafted, the Bill has complete disregard for due legal process.

Another major flaw in the proposed legislation is that it creates an offence of strict liability: that is, there is no excuse for being here illegally. Even if a person had good reason to believe that they had a right to be in the UK or had no choice about being in the UK, they would still be committing an offence. Take, for example, a family on holiday whose flight departs the day before their visa expires. If their flight was delayed because of bad weather—we know that these delays can be protracted; just think of Iceland’s exploding volcano—the family would be in the UK illegally. They would, if the Bill were enacted, be committing a criminal offence and there would be no defence open to them under the proposed legislation.

A similar situation could occur with a high-flying City lawyer—the type of person all of us believe we should be attracting to the UK. [Interruption.] I am speaking for myself! Let us imagine that this American lawyer was working for a UK magic circle firm and their employer was responsible for renewing their visa, but forgot to do so. When the lawyer tried to return to the UK from a business meeting in Amsterdam—I am citing a real case—it transpired that they had been in the UK illegally. The Bill would provide no excuse for that person. They would have committed a criminal offence.

In some cases, the prosecution would actively detract from efforts to deport an illegal immigrant or an illegal overstayer. Hundreds of failed asylum seekers return voluntarily every year, either because they have become fed up of living in the shadows in Britain or because the situation in their home country has improved and they are desperate to return home to be reunited with friends and family, and to live in a familiar culture. The Bill would discourage such people from doing so, because it would mean that they faced prosecution.

Finally, I turn to a type of prosecution that would be highly inappropriate: the prosecution of human trafficking victims who are brought to the UK against their wishes. Every year, thousands of people are brought to the UK and exploited for a whole number of reasons. I will talk about one case that came to my surgery. It is the case of a woman who entered the country illegally to be married to a man she had met only a few times. The marriage did not go well. She was beaten and regularly abused. Humiliated and fearing for her life, she ran. She ran to the people in her own community and thought that they would protect her, but they did not. They let her husband know where she was and he came for her, dragged her on to a plane and took her back to her village and her parents.

The woman’s parents tethered her, like a goat, outside the home. She was there for three nights with nothing to eat or drink. Children from the village sneaked her water. Her family were discussing what to do with her. They wanted to kill her, because she had brought dishonour to the community. The head of the village intervened. He brought a man to talk to her father. That man persuaded her family to let him take her away. She regards him as her saviour, which perhaps in a way he was. He saved her life, he brought her back to the UK, and he found floors for her to sleep on, and mattresses in the corner of factories that his friends owned. They gave her food and drink, and in return and in gratitude for the shelter, she worked in their factories across the country for more than a decade. She did not come to my surgery because she thought she was a victim of violence or modern-day slavery; she came because she was worried that she would be deported back to her family to be slain. She would be criminalised by this Bill.

One key threat that traffickers use to control their victims is that the police will arrest them. I have heard of pimps who dress up as police officers to rape the women whom they coerce, and of stories told to Vietnamese children who have been trafficked to the UK to work on cannabis farms, that the police are out to get them. If the Bill came into force, the traffickers would be right, and the police would be obliged to arrest and prosecute those children. Regardless of whether an individual is a child or a trafficking victim, under the Bill they would be committing an offence. In all such cases, criminal prosecution adds nothing to the desired outcome of reducing illegal immigration, about which there is a real issue.

Under this Government—the Government who all those sponsoring the Bill support—we have seen big cuts to the police and Border Force. More illegal immigrants have absconded, and fewer have been deported while the backlog of information on cases is not being pursued. Under this Government the number of illegal overstayers passed the 300,000 mark. The House of Commons Library—bless ’em—has worked on those figures for me because I asked for them yesterday. It tells me that, as of December 2015, the figure of overstayers and illegal immigrants in the country is 217,000. We need a Bill that will properly resource the UK Visas and Immigration service so that it gets through the backlog of unresolved cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Refugees (Richard Harrington)]

It is always difficult to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), and before I get to the Bill, I will reply to her initial remarks about those Friday mornings that she will remember until the day that she becomes old and grey. On some Fridays that I have been here, that has actually happened during the morning itself, but she is—and looks—a lot younger than me.

On a more serious note, I agree almost entirely with the first part of the hon. Lady’s speech, because while we perfectly understand the intentions behind the Bill, it hugely oversimplifies a complex situation. I will try my best to answer some of the questions that she and other hon. Members have raised—I note that after midday on a Friday the ageing process happens more quickly than beforehand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has introduced a similar Bill on three occasions, and he recently sought to table new clauses to the Immigration Bill on Report. He will not be surprised to know that part of my response today will be along similar lines to the reply given on that occasion by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, but the Bill does raise important issues about migration, and specifically illegal migration.

I recognise—I think we all do—that legal migrants make an important contribution to our society. It is only right that those who are here illegally and do not have valid leave to be in the country should return home. If they do not do so, it is vital that they can be removed quickly and easily. Illegal migration remains a key priority for the Government. I believe we have taken significant steps to strengthen the border immigration system, including in respect of who is allowed to enter the United Kingdom and who is allowed to remain here. The Prime Minister said, so it must be right—I cannot say it is a good career move, but I will quote him anyway:

“That starts with making Britain a less attractive place to come and work illegally…The truth is that it has been too easy to work illegally and to employ illegal workers here.”

I commend the intention behind the Bill, but I do not believe that the measures it contains are necessary. I agree that it sounds like a simple and superficially attractive solution to the problem, but it is the Government’s contention that the issue is much more complicated.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) used the expression “like a child’s game” to describe what happens now with illegal immigrants. He gave the impression that it is a sport, whereby people find their way into the country and are not deported or do not face criminal sanctions because they give themselves up. They are not treated as he would like them to be. Anyone who has seen these people and their plight, however, would not think it is a game at all. I contend that for all the reasons that would stop them coming here, the possibility of being arrested and receiving a £5,000 fine and six months in prison would not in any way be a deterrent. Where would they be deported to? Deportation sounds easy and a common-sense thing to do. Some may want to make use of the hon. Member for West Ham’s top-flight magic circle lawyer and send illegal migrants back to whatever country they came from. The truth, however, is that most have no place to be deported to. I accept that under the Dublin convention they can be deported to the country from which they came, but I think most would accept that that is no answer.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am afraid it is an answer and the Minister needs to address this point. People cannot understand why, when someone has travelled through perfectly safe countries such as Spain, France or Italy to the UK and are caught, they cannot be sent back to France and claim asylum there.

[Richard Harrington]

Without going into the complexities of the Dublin convention, it is just not possible in many cases. I will come on to argue that the pull factors that cause people to come here make the threat of deportation, a fine and a few months in prison irrelevant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

I did answer my hon. Friend’s earlier question, and I will answer this question in the same way. We are talking about the combination of an existing Act and a Bill that is going through Parliament. As I have just said, the Immigration Bill will make illegal working a criminal offence in its own right, and that will cover self-employed as well as employed people. Moreover, it will be possible for wages paid to illegal workers to be seized as the proceeds of crime, through the activation of powers conferred by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

There seems to be an argument that we need this Bill because the Government are doing nothing, and because there is complete anarchy relating to illegal immigration. The European Union referendum came up quite a lot in the earlier part of the debate, and I accept that that discussion would have been stopped if we had been under your supervision, Mr Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor in the Chair—Mr Speaker himself—was perhaps more tolerant on this issue. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I did not mean the issue of whether we should remain in the European Union; I meant the issue of whether this debate should be expanded to cover that subject.

I always listen very carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. He centred a lot of his speech on Europe and on the consequences of leaving the EU that French Ministers have been mentioning recently. I do not think that that is relevant to this debate. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) who said that if we were not in the EU, we would have to have different relations with France anyway and everything would need to be renegotiated. So I am slightly confused about this. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough think an illegal immigrant is? No one could possibly say that all the people from Europe who are here at the moment, including the Polish people who have been mentioned, are illegal immigrants. Would they become illegal immigrants? It has been made very clear that they are all coming here to work.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Minister must not try to put words in our mouths, because this is a really important subject. Nobody in the leave campaign is suggesting that people from Europe who are already legally resident here should in any way become illegal immigrants. There is no suggestion of that at all.

[Richard Harrington]

I can assure my hon. Friend, out of personal respect for him, that I would not suggest that. He has accepted, however, that all these Polish people come here to work. If they came here to work in the future, would they suddenly become illegal immigrants? I am not sure, and I do not think it does the Bill any good to confuse the issues.

[Richard Harrington]

Strangely enough, I cannot say exactly—[Laughter.] This is the serious answer to a question my hon. Friend tabled asking the Home Office to produce more recent estimates of the numbers of illegal immigrants. I believe that he quoted a report from 2005. I was going to answer that question by not answering the question exactly, but by explaining that there are no official estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the UK because, by definition, the clandestine nature of their presence makes that very hard to estimate.

So what are we doing about this? We have taken action in the Immigration Act 2014 to collect exit data, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned earlier. Such data have not been collected in the past. Collecting data on those leaving the country will give us a clearer picture of the number of those who enter legally but overstay their visa. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will accept that partial answer to his question, even though it is not the full answer that he wanted. In fact, he already knew the answer to his question. Like all good barristers, he knows that you should never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. He was still right to ask it, but he knew the answer in advance.

I am slightly confused by the points that were made about the Calais situation. It is perfectly legitimate to discuss that situation in the context of illegal immigrants, but I do not accept that the clauses in the Bill would prevent migrants from gathering in Calais in an attempt to reach the UK. I do not accept that basic premise. I accept the fact that people have a perception of this country as El Dorado, but they would not say to themselves, “I can come in illegally and do everything that I want but, oh, I might get a £5,000 fine and six months in prison so I won’t do it.” I do not accept that.

We are working closely with the French authorities to strengthen security at the French ports, and we are taking firm action to try to reduce the pull factors that make the UK attractive to these illegal immigrants. I cannot accept the premise that putting more and more people in prison would suddenly make people stop coming here. We would need some pretty big prisons. However, I agree that getting rid of the incentives and the factors that make people think they can come here illegally and have a sort of permanent life outside the system is a pretty big intention.

I am conscious of the fact that time is moving on. I have gone through many of the points in the Bill, including the extra powers that an immigration officer will have.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough asked about the carriers’ liability and whether it applies to the channel tunnel. As he knew already, it does not currently apply to train operators in the channel tunnel.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Why not?

[Richard Harrington]

Well, we are keeping the policy under active review. [Interruption.] Members may mock, but in a democracy one reviews and assesses a problem before taking action. Perhaps, before these people even get on a train or are deported, we could consider a six-month prison sentence, or a £5,000 fine; I do not know. The Government are reviewing the matter to see what action is appropriate. They will take action where the threats of illegal immigration justify it. Having seen what happens every night in Calais, I do not think—forgetting the merits of the situation—that putting these people into prison, fining them and saying that they will be deported will prevent them from what they are doing. None the less, our arrangements with France are beginning to work, and the French authorities have been extremely co-operative.

In addition to the changes in the laws, we are ramping up the whole of Government’s approach to controlling immigration. We are trying to deal with the fact that Government activities have been compartmentalised. My own appointment in relation to Syrian refugees covers three Departments. If I ever was a tiny footnote in history—one may very well argue that I will not be—it could be that I am the first Minister in history to cover three Departments. I am sure that we would all support greater co-ordination across agencies in Government to ensure that, where we identify illegal working, we extend our enforcement reach and apply the full range of sanctions available against illegal migrants and rogue employers.

We have shown that we will create additional criminal offences when we perceive there to be a need. However, I believe that adequate criminal sanctions and removal and deportation powers to deal with illegal migrants are already in place in the existing immigration legislation and the legislation that is going through Parliament. We are talking about serious criminal offences, and they will be dealt with through the criminal system. I could go through them at length, but my hon. Friends know them, as they took part in proceedings on the Immigration Bill and other such measures.

There are many different criminal offences, which, in the past, were treated as civil matters, the sanctions for which were so light that they did not have any effect at all. That is where there is a fundamental difference now.

The Bill proposes a power of deportation. The deportation would be mandatory, whatever the circumstances, unless the Secretary of State, who, I can assure Members, is pretty busy, intervened to say that deportation was not in the public interest. I must explain that deportation is a power that is reserved for those who have been convicted of a crime in this country and for those, such as those involved in terrorist cases, whose presence in the country is not considered to be conducive to the public good.

The Immigration Act 1971 sets out the power for the Secretary of State to deport an individual where it is deemed to be conducive to the public good, or where there is a court recommendation for deportation. The UK Borders Act 2007 further sets out that, subject to exceptions, when a person is sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment the Secretary of State must make a deportation order against the criminal. That means that neither people entering the UK illegally nor those remaining in the country without leave are persons who are liable to deportation. The Bill would seek to remedy that, but it does not take into account the fact that immigration legislation provides for adequate removal powers for illegal entrants and overstayers without requiring a costly prosecution first, for what are minor offences in the overall scheme of immigration offences. We have always preferred migrants to depart voluntarily as it is better for the migrant, allowing them to leave on their own terms, and much more cost-effective for the Home Office. We will pursue enforcement action against those who are not prepared to leave voluntarily, but we do have human rights obligations.