Olympics (Security)

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that all parties who were involved in preparations for the Olympic games have been working to monitor the arrangements for security and to monitor G4S, and last Wednesday—[Interruption.] On 6 July, G4S made clear its confidence in its plan, and last Wednesday, on 11 July, it said that it could not meet the numbers that it was required to provide. We have taken action to ensure that we provide the safe and secure games that I hope everybody in this House wants this country to have.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that one group that has met its target is the reserve forces, more than 2,100 of whom have volunteered?

[Mrs May]

I am very pleased to confirm that. We have not just the finest regular military forces in the world, but wonderful reservists, who are willing to step up to the plate—including, of course, some in this House as well. I gather that 2,100 reservists have volunteered for the Olympic games. I pay tribute to them and to the work they will be doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.

European Convention on Human Rights

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I shall speak in more detail about the best interests of the child, so perhaps the hon. Lady will wait and see if I answer her query in the comments that I make.

On the criminality issue first, the test for private life will also be a stringent one. Deportation will be proportionate unless the foreign criminal has been continuously resident in the UK for at least the past 20 years, excluding any period of imprisonment, and they have no social, cultural or family ties with their country of origin. For offenders aged under 25, deportation will be proportionate unless they have spent at least half their life residing continuously in the UK, excluding any period of imprisonment, and they have no ties with their country of origin. In all other cases, other than in exceptional circumstances, deportation of the foreign criminal will be proportionate.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

May I make a little more progress? My hon. Friend may choose to try again when I have finished dealing with this issue.

For the most serious foreign criminals—those sentenced to four or more years in prison—deportation will almost always be proportionate. Article 8 rights should prevent deportation of serious foreign criminals only in the most genuinely exceptional circumstances. So I ask the House to agree that the rights of the British public should outweigh the rights of foreign criminals in the way the new immigration rules describe. The choice for a foreign national wishing to avoid deportation is now simple: do not break the law.

I said that I would come on to the best interests of a child. The best interests of a child in the UK must always be a primary consideration. That is what the law requires and the new immigration rules reflect how the best interests of a child should be taken into account in striking a proportionate balance between an applicant’s family life and the public interest, for both criminals and non-criminals. For non-criminals, where a child would have to leave the UK as a consequence of the decision to remove their parent, the question is then whether it is reasonable to expect the child to leave. The best interests of the child will normally be met by remaining with their parents and returning with them to their country of origin, unless the child is a British citizen or has been resident in the UK for at least the past seven years and it would not be reasonable to expect the child to leave the UK.

For criminal parents, there is a broader range of circumstances in which the public interest may outweigh the best interests of a child. For serious foreign criminals, those sentenced to four or more years, the best interests of a child will only outweigh the public interest in deportation of the foreign criminal in exceptional circumstances. For criminals sentenced to between 12 months and less than four years, or those sentenced to less than 12 months but whose offending has caused serious harm or who are persistent offenders and show a particular disregard for the law, deportation will still normally be proportionate.

[Mrs May]

One of the points about what we are doing, to which I tried to allude earlier, is that there is a statutory duty—in section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009—to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK. We are now bringing the consideration of the best interests of the child formally into the new immigration family rules, which reinforces that point.

I was talking about criminals who have been sentenced to between 12 months and less than four years or who are persistent offenders. Article 8 will prevent a deportation only if they have a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with the British citizen child or a child who has lived in the UK for at least the last seven years, if it would not be reasonable to expect the child to leave the UK with the foreign national criminal and if there is no other family member able to care for the child in the UK. Unless all three conditions are met, it will normally be proportionate to deport the criminal. If the criminal’s child is not a British citizen and has lived in the UK for less than seven years, the criminal can still be deported. If it will be reasonable to expect the child, whatever their nationality, to leave the UK, the criminal can still be deported. If there is another family member who can care for the child in the UK, the criminal can still be deported. These requirements represent a rational and proportionate qualification of article 8 rights in the interests of public safety and security, and I invite the House to endorse them.

[Mr Brazier]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case, and one that most Members will support, but is she aware that she has used the words “except in exceptional circumstances” seven or eight times already? If the court alone is free to determine what are exceptional circumstances, experience from other areas of the law suggests that in practice we might find that we make disappointingly little progress.

[Mrs May]

I recognise my hon. Friend’s concern, but there has to be a reference to exceptional circumstances. The way we are approaching it—setting out clearly the criteria that identify and describe the right to a private and family life—means that the exceptional circumstances will be far more limited than they have been up to now. As I hope he and others will understand from the detail I have given to the House, I have been going through every aspect of this carefully and setting out the expectations clearly. Therefore, I have every expectation that, in being able to look at those criteria and see what the public interest is in these matters, or how Parliament has defined the public interest, there would need to be truly exceptional circumstances indeed for someone to be allowed to remain in the UK outside the criteria. I have been clear that I have every expectation that this will have the impact we want it to have. If it does not, we will of course have to look at potential further measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I shall be fairly brief. In one sense, it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), because I would like to pick up one or two of her points. Her speech started as though it would be bipartisan but ended on an extremely partisan note.

A couple of background points should be made immediately. First, under the previous Government, there was a surge in net immigration quite unprecedented in our country’s history. Even according to official figures, more than 2 million more people entered the country than left it under the last Labour Government, but given that border controls had largely broken down and we were no longer measuring embarkation, there is a range of statistics and estimates suggesting that the numbers might be much higher. For example, the Office for National Statistics keeps on revising up its population projection statistics. In 2004, it said that by 2050 the UK population would reach 67 million, but it now says that in just 15 years, it will be 73 million—twice the increase.

Secondly, the shadow Home Secretary made much of the number of deportations of foreign criminals, looking particularly at a single year. The statistic she did not share with the House is that the number of foreign criminals in British prisons almost trebled under the Labour Government, from 4,000 to more than 11,000. That should concern us all.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Is that not actually a good statistic showing that the police were catching criminals and locking them up?

[Mr Brazier]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously not familiar with the statistics. The number of criminals in the criminal justice system, or in prison, rose by between 20% and by 30%—I cite these figures from memory—over that period. The fact that the number of foreign criminals trebled suggests that much was wrong with our border controls at the time.

I strongly support what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is trying to do. She and the Minister for Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), my constituency neighbour who is sitting next to her, have taken a brave stand in this area, against a great deal of criticism by much of the media and many parts of the legal establishment. My concerns about what we are doing are all to do with the fact that we are not going far enough. They are in no way about opposing what we are trying to do.

My first concern is one that I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend. Experience from a number of other areas of law—not least family law—suggests that the courts might drive a coach and horses through what we are trying to achieve by putting the words “except in exceptional circumstances” in each of the relevant places. An alternative would be either simply not to include those words at all, or to say that in exceptional circumstances cases should be considered again by the Home Office.

My next concern is about the way in which we are looking at the rights of children. I hope that most Members of this House—at least those who have been here for a while—will be aware of the amount of time I have spent pursuing the concerns of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children, particularly in adoption and fostering, and the way in which child witnesses are treated in court. I have to say that the most colossal amount of garbage has come out of some of the court cases. The idea that it is somehow automatically in the child’s interests that a parent who is also a violent criminal who has committed a serious criminal offence should be kept in the country, whether or not the child has regular contact with that parent, seems extraordinary. In many cases it is in the child’s interests that that individual should be deported.

My next concern is that although we are taking a tough line with foreign criminals—something I strongly support—I would urge my right hon. Friend to consider applying some of this thinking more widely. A large proportion of the people who are in this country illegally came in through a perfectly legal route and have chosen to overstay. Two of the most common types of cases involve those who came in on student visas and overstayed—I represent the largest number of students in any constituency in the country—and those who came in on family visits and overstayed. By allowing the courts to continue treating each case on its own merits, from scratch, we are making it harder and harder to justify allowing people to come in for perfectly legitimate reasons.

We want to encourage students into this country, and of course people should be able to come in for family weddings and all sorts of other reasons. However, if it is possible for them to bring an article 8 family connection case after they get here, every time someone who has relatives in this country comes here as a student—I am dealing with one such case at the moment, through my constituency postbag—and every time someone who, by definition, has relatives in this country comes over for a family wedding, Home Office officials will inevitably look at those cases with a jaundiced eye. There is a strong case for saying that if those who come in through certain routes then want to make an article 8 application, they should be able to do so only after they have left the country, applying through the normal routes, irrespective of any exceptional circumstances.

I want to make only one wider point. We get few opportunities in this House to debate the wider issues around immigration. I know from my experience on the doorstep, not only from working in my constituency but from helping in a number of others—in the general election, in local elections and in the marvellous election that has just delivered Boris Johnson as Mayor of London again—that people are deeply concerned about the wider issues around immigration. I am fully behind everything that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration are trying to do in this regard, but we are a long way from meeting the target, and the target itself seems to regard elderly couples retiring to live in the sun as somehow a balance for young people from areas with very high birth rates coming to this country. We have a very long way to go.

I want to end by saying that we must be clear on one central point. This is an important measure and we must send a message to the courts that it is we in Parliament, not the courts, who are answerable to the people. The courts must therefore listen to what we have to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Cash]

rose—

[Mr Brazier]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

I give way briefly to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) first.

[Mr Straw]

I am afraid that I do not accept that. A feature of our courts is that they are, quite properly, very conscious of the need to apply the law as they believe Parliament has laid it down. I am confident—I cannot be certain—that, had this proposed approach been passed by Parliament and if necessary enshrined in legislation, the courts would have been able to exercise their judgment on proportionality in a way that showed proper respect to the Houston family and to that poor child rather than to Mr Ibrahim and the woman with whom, in my judgment, he formed a relationship solely in order to evade immigration control and deportation.

[Mr Brazier]

The right hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way. He is also generous-spirited in saying that he makes no criticism of the judge concerned, in the light of that truly extraordinary judgment. Does he accept, however, that if the motion is passed and such cases continue to arise, it will be time for parliamentarians to start to criticise judges?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to what I think is a very important debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) spoke of the importance of the issue of immigration on the doorstep. Time and again, we hear concern and anger at the frustration that the Government experience when they attempt to deport someone who has committed a serious criminal act.

Ours is a very generous country, which rightly offers the hand of friendship and help to people wherever they may come from. That has been demonstrated by our commitment to international development, and also by our top record on asylum. It is important for us to start from that position. However, I believe that we as a nation have a right to set out the rules on immigration, and to determine migration into this country. That is why I support these rules and the measures that the Government have already taken, such as capping economic migration from outside the European Union, introducing minimum skills, closing the tier 1 general route that has allowed self-selecting migrants to come here without a job, reforming the student visa system, and setting a minimum income for those who wish to bring a spouse or family member here.

I know that some people in my constituency find that last measure upsetting, and they have made representations to me, but why should the British public have to bear that financial burden? If someone wants to come to this country—which is a great country—and gain from all the services, facilities, democracy and freedom of speech that it provides, that person should be required to meet some minimum standards.

We have been revisiting the citizenship test, and I think it important that British history and culture are at the centre of it. Now we are rewriting the immigration rules to help prevent article 8 of the European convention on human rights from being abused, and I think that important as well. I want criminals to be deported from this country as soon as possible, and I welcome the fact that we have removed 4,500 in the last year. I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I look forward to the Government’s explanation about the variation of 1,000. I want every single person who can be deported to be deported.

Each incremental change that we make is important. We should not stop reminding individuals that it is a privilege to come to this country, live in it and gain citizenship of it. Those who abuse that privilege should lose it. The last Government lost control of migration, and they lost public confidence in our border controls. We have a huge responsibility to right that wrong.

Although, as we have mentioned, immigration is raised constantly on the doorstep, in our mail boxes, in the pub, and wherever I go as a politician, only a small number of Members are present to contribute to today’s debate. If people do not engage in public debate on the issue because of the stigma associated with it, I would say to them that it is not racist to debate immigration. It is important for us to contribute our voice, take ownership of immigration issues, face up to the fact that policies have failed in the past, and enable the public to be confident about the fact that we take responsibility. If we do not, fascist organisations will step into the void that we have created by not discussing these issues.

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that it is supremely ironic that the one major public figure who has had the strength of character to say that many decent people have ended up voting for horrible organisations such as the British National party because they have given up on mainstream parties is our noble Friend Baroness Warsi?

[Kris Hopkins]

I think our noble Friend makes an extremely important contribution to the debate.

Debating this matter is an essential part of the democratic process, and I want to encourage more people to do it. We wince at the language that is used, but let us get over the issue of language: let us have the debate in all parts of the country, and give people confidence by doing so. The debate has provided an opportunity for the will of the House to be seen, and I look forward to voting in favour of the motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

It may not surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I do not share his characterisation of the antisocial behaviour measures on which we have been consulting. The criminal behaviour order would carry a tough criminal sanction for breach, and other measures, such as the crime prevention injunction, are about having speedier justice to bring relief to communities. These measures are about strengthening the response to antisocial behaviour, not weakening it. The hon. Gentleman will see that when the White Paper is published tomorrow.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways to strengthen the impact of antisocial behaviour legislation would be to extend the welcome category of offences that he and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary are considering for which the police can themselves prosecute, without having to go through all the bureaucracy of the Crown Prosecution Service?

[James Brokenshire]

I absolutely agree. This is about reducing bureaucracy and giving discretion to the police to be able to get on and conduct such charges. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is examining precisely that issue and the relevant offences which may apply.

Abu Qatada

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I wish to be in a position in which we can deport Abu Qatada, so that he will not be in this country when the Olympics take place.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that, in our unwritten constitution, there is a distinction between the rule of law and the tyranny of lawyers? Does she also accept that the interaction between the European Court of Human Rights and the ruling by Justice Mitting on the question of bail has created a dangerous situation in which millions of people in this country are starting to lose confidence in our legal system?

[Mrs May]

I do not believe that millions of people are losing confidence in our legal system. I believe that they are concerned about the ability of the European Court to come to decisions that we do not believe to be in the best interests of the United Kingdom. This decision on Abu Qatada is clearly a case in point. That is why it is important for the Government to pursue the work that we are doing, not only in looking into the possibility of a British Bill of Rights but in trying to make changes to the way in which the European Court operates, so that in future we will be able to deport people who present a danger to us.

Immigration

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure and honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), who has spoken out on this issue again and again, including when abuse was heaped on anyone who tried to do so. I also praise my hon. Friend the Minister, who has brought great energy to one of the most difficult briefs in Government. What I am about to say will be pretty bleak, frankly, but not one word of it should be taken as a criticism of the huge amount of energy and intellect that he has brought to his job.

It is curious, looking through one’s postbag, how many of the pressing issues facing Britain today—housing shortages, congestion on roads and public transport, water shortages, pressures on public infrastructure of every kind—derive largely from a single, common factor: population growth, to which my right hon. Friend referred. We are one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with 255 people per square kilometre. During the time of the last Labour Government, immigration policies encouraged an unprecedented influx from EU and non-EU countries, which has boosted populations in some urban areas to near crisis point. Between 1997 and 2009, after deducting the number of those leaving, more than 2 million extra people were recorded as settling in the UK, a surge that is unprecedented. However, for the first time, those figures were calculated without using embarkation records, so the true figure may be much higher. The ONS projections to which my right hon. Friend referred have been upgraded again and again. For example, in 2004 they indicated that by the middle of this century our population would reach 67 million. In just three years that projection was increased to 77 million, and it continues to rise.

I believe we need to look at gross rather than net migration figures, for several reasons. First, many of those leaving are elderly people, looking to spend their retirement abroad in the sun. In contrast, the vast majority of immigrants are young. First-generation immigrants typically have large families compared with indigenous families. There is a further, obvious point, which was well understood in this country until the middle of the last century, which is that because we are basically overcrowded we always used to have more people leaving, precisely to find homes in emptier lands. Today, housing pressures are caused by domestic factors, such as family breakdown, increased longevity and so on, which have led to smaller household sizes, so if we do not have a degree of net emigration, we will have to keep building more and more.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman’s last comment—that the reason many British people have gone around the world and settled elsewhere is because Britain is overcrowded—is factually wrong. The parts of the country from which many people left—Scotland and Wales—are the least crowded. In fact, they mostly went because there were no jobs in this country or, originally, because of religious persecution. It is nothing to do with overcrowding.

[Mr Brazier]

One can go back quite a long way, into religious persecution and earlier history, but we were very keen to encourage, for example, the Australians to keep an assisted package programme going for nearly two thirds of the last century. Much of that was precisely to reduce overcrowding. There was also a degree of internal re-location—for example, with the setting up of new towns outside London—but we encouraged movement abroad, as well as out of our major cities.

Everybody agrees that previous generations of immigrants have brought huge benefits, in such fields as business, science, sports and the arts. We all have friends from a variety of different communities. My family has particularly benefited from a doctor, without whom two of my sons would not be alive today, who is a recent immigrant. However, few people recognise the sheer impact of population growth on our country today, and I want to focus on two issues: housing and infrastructure.

The most serious social and economic issue facing middle and lower middle-income families in Britain today is the shortage of housing, and not just in the south-east where land is at the highest premium. The huge inflows of population that took place under the last Government are going to require very large releases of land, much of it countryside, even without any further population growth. Our house prices today, despite some fall from the peak during the recession, remain very high by international standards and, crucially, in relation to our falling incomes.

As the Prime Minister pointed out the other day, the average age of first-time buyers has risen to 37. Many families are now burdened for much longer than ever before with heavy mortgages, so adults have to work longer hours and for more years in an attempt to service those mortgages. An OECD survey showed a few years ago that a higher proportion of people in this country feel they are working more hours than are good for their family life than people in any other major country in the developed world.

Shelter paints an equally bleak picture of the rental market. More than half of local authorities in England have a median private rent for a two-bedroom house that costs more than 35% of median take-home pay. Families are forced to cut their spending on essentials—food, heating or whatever—to pay the cost of rent or the mortgage.

The Government have set out plans to revive building, which was at an all-time low at the end of the last Government, but that will have the knock-on effect of causing huge problems for infrastructure. The Environment Agency, for example, estimates that 5 million people live in flood-risk areas in England and Wales, and as climate change accelerates, that number will no doubt rise. Yet in a county such as mine—Kent—the majority of all land that does not fall into a protected category is now on floodplains, so much of the building we are going to have to provide to cope with our existing population, including the rise caused by the bulge in immigration, will have to be built on precious protected land or else more communities will have to be exposed to the dangers of flooding.

Water supplies in many parts of the country are under strain, too. In fact, our national average per capita is now lower than that of Spain and Portugal. As more water is abstracted from aquifers and rivers, the flow in rivers falls, killing wildlife and scarring the countryside.

Immigration is putting considerable pressure on our schools, too. A report by London Councils stated that on current projections, London is 18,000 places short. It is not just London. Between 1998 and 2010, the proportion of children in primary schools in England for whom English is not the first language very nearly doubled to 16%, and in inner London native English-speaking children are in the minority. The noble Lord Knight, until recently a Labour Education Minister, admitted that

“undoubtedly there can be problems”

in schools with large numbers of non-English speakers. That is massively to understate the handicap suffered by all the other children in those schools.

The number of arrivals from overseas registering with a GP has increased dramatically. One of the hardest hit NHS specialties has been midwifery, as birth rates have risen most sharply in areas where numbers of immigrants are high. When Labour came to power in 1997, one baby in eight was born to a foreign-born mother. That has now risen to one in four.

My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration has put it well: the real questions are how Britain can benefit most from immigration and what controls do we need to maximise those benefits and minimise the strains. The last Labour Government—we still have not had an answer from the shadow Minister as to whether he believes immigration is too high—maintained that immigration was good for Britain and the British economy as a whole since immigrants boosted GDP. Of course it is true that on average immigrants pay more tax than they receive in benefits or consume in public services. Many, especially the kind of immigrants who came through in generations before Labour opened the borders, make a gigantic contribution, but taking an average disguises the bottom end of the spectrum.

Many of those who arrived in Britain under the last Government, particularly from the Asian subcontinent, were unskilled and joined often insular communities in which incomes were already low and in some cases the unemployment rate was near to 50%. Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, for example, were those most likely to enter the UK through the family route after the primary purpose rule was dropped.

Baroness Flather, the first Asian woman to receive a peerage, caused outrage when she made a brave speech in the House of Lords. She said:

“The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child.”

She went on to say:

“Nobody likes to accept that or to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 September 2011; Vol. 730, c. 706.]

Of course it is true here as in countries all over the world that the trend is for birth rates in ethnic groups that integrate to go towards the national average. The problem, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has pointed out, is that under the last Government we grew significant numbers of communities where there was no integration and no trend in birth rates or anything else towards the national norm. The whole economic argument has largely ignored the costs to the overburdened public purse in infrastructure and the loss of quality of life to the population, as overcrowding worsens.

There are powerful voices that welcome continued heavy immigration. Big business benefits from the arrival of large numbers of people willing to work, since they drive down the cost of labour at the expense of the living standards of the indigenous workforce; and the wives of the better-off are able to get help in the home at a fraction of a living wage for local people, but then they and their families are not usually struggling to pay their mortgages and watching their children’s education being destroyed in schools with dozens of languages.

[Mr Ward]

The hon. Gentleman has made two references to education and attainment in schools, about which I know something. There is no evidence that indigenous children for whom English is the first language suffer as a result of the presence of children with other first languages. The evidence to support that view is just not there.

[Mr Brazier]

I have just quoted the words of a former Labour Education Minister, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman if he would like me to find a study for him.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I am afraid that the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) is incorrect. There is evidence to suggest that. The Minister acknowledged in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year that children without English as their first language are 19% less likely to succeed in key stage 2 SATs. That is an important issue, particularly for primary schools.

[Mr Brazier]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall not repeat the powerful point my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex made about students, but there is a very real issue to consider. At a time when the domestic take-up of degree courses is likely to shrink sharply, I suspect that the problem will grow more acute.

Middle-income and lower middle-income Britain is hurting: with long working hours, high levels of debt and rising prices in so many sectors, people struggle to meet their mortgages and rent payments and they see their standard of living eroded. There is a severe shortage of homes, and overcrowding in many schools, hospitals and prisons, too. We are trying to cope with the strains of a growing population. Infrastructure is also desperately overstretched in so many ways, with issues of flooding, water supplies, roads and land preservation looming.

We all recognise the huge contribution that moderate levels of immigration have made to this country in the past. I welcome the measures that Ministers and the Government have taken. I would argue, however, that the coalition has a long way to go on this issue. The heavy criticism from big business and elements from the left must not put them off. It is time to recognise that we must take much stronger action if we want to head off the most severe social consequences and a backlash orchestrated by some unattractive people in the extremes—not just from indigenous people, but increasingly from many concerned people in our settled ethnic minority communities.

UK Border Force

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I have indicated, my understanding is that all ports were included, but I will check that point and write to the hon. Gentleman, given his specific interest in it.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that she will not quadruple the number of work permits for non-EU residents, that she will not preside over the growth of hundreds of phoney colleges that bring in phoney students, and that she will not plan a large-scale amnesty?

[Mrs May]

I am happy to confirm all those points. Indeed, far from doing any of those things, this Government are getting rid of the abuse of student visas by ensuring that colleges that have been bringing people in to work rather than to study can no longer do so. It is this Government who have brought in an annual limit on non-EU economic migrants.

Disturbances (London)

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. When I spoke yesterday to Assistant Commissioner Owens, I specifically asked her whether the police would need further powers, so that we can discuss what is necessary to enable them to do the job we all want them to do.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in rightly condemning the extreme behaviour of a few hundred people we are in danger of losing sight of the essential foolishness of the perfectly legitimate, but nevertheless misguided, demonstration, in which many prominent people in the Opposition took part? Does she agree that at a time when we have a deficit comparable to that of Portugal and Greece, it is ludicrous for the Leader of the Opposition to couch his words in those of Abraham Lincoln?

[Mrs May]

I think that many people in the House would share my hon. Friend’s views about the tone of the language used by the Leader of the Opposition. I wonder how many of those who demonstrated against the cuts know that the Leader of the Opposition, who addressed the demonstration, would, if in government, be cutting £4 out of every £5 that this Government are cutting.

Immigration

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Field]

The hon. Gentleman changed his line during his intervention. He ended his intervention by saying that such people could not be wholly responsible, whereas he said at the beginning that they were wholly responsible. I do not think that we should duck the political failure of this place and of successive Governments who have not had their wits about them, and have not recognised that a country is in a new ballgame when it opens its doors to mass immigration. We were negligent, and that applies to both sides of the House of Commons.

Let me emphasise that I do not want the debate to turn against people on whom we placed no duties when they came here. We did not bother to teach the meaning of citizenship to people who have been based here for generations, including many in my constituency. The hon. Gentleman has touched on what is, in fact, a much wider question.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Field]

I fear that interventions may take up the entire time allotted for the debate, but I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Brazier]

I am sorry, but I am so filled with admiration for the right hon. Gentleman that, while endorsing what he has said, I would go a little further. Surely the key point is that the political elite across the board had lost confidence in the very British institutions that we should have been supporting and identifying as beacons for newcomers to the country.

[Mr Field]

I think it is worse than that. I think that those people had lost confidence in their role as politicians. They had lost sight of the fact that the issue was one that should be dealt with, and ideas about national identity, citizenship and protecting the country fell away from what should have been their main charge.

As you may remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, about 10 minutes ago I was talking about the progress that had been made. The fact that we can now raise points such as this in a friendly way without disputing others’ motives is a sign of the extent to which we, as a group of parliamentarians, have progressed. As for the progress being made in the public debate, let us consider some of the public statements that have been made since the Government announced a temporary cap on the number of people coming here to work. In its submission to the Government, the City of London said that the Government had every right to pursue their policy, but expressed concern about the way in which it might work in practice. The City certainly does not think that the Government should not discuss this topic, or that they should ignore what the electorate were saying during the election, but it would like to enter into detailed conversations.

We have all recently experienced what our electorates think, and none of us enters the Chamber now without being fully aware of the way in which voters in each of our constituencies view the issue of immigration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

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

[Mr Brazier]

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

[Mr Sharma]

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

[Mr Brazier]

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

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have a brother and a sister, both of whom have migrated to America, and I am rather concerned. When the hon. Gentleman says it is about numbers, whose brother and sister should not be allowed to travel? That is what the question boils down to when we say it is about numbers. Whose relatives are to be debarred from engaging in family visits if we are trying to reduce the carbon footprint of migration?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I think we are straying off the debate somewhat, into climate change and aviation. The debate is on immigration, so perhaps we can focus on that.

[Mr Brazier]

Indeed I shall, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me make a general point, if I may. When we discuss immigration and the pressures that it creates on housing, nobody is suggesting that any immigrant should be denied the right to buy or rent a house. When we discuss the pressure on jobs, we do not mean that anybody legitimately coming into this country should be refused such opportunities. The point we are trying to make is that large movements of people create pressures on all those areas. I am simply making the point that the green footprint is one factor that we must take into account in deciding what level of immigration we allow into this country.

Let me move to a second such factor, which is housing. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead observed that it is estimated that approximately 40% of housing need in this country is accounted for by net immigration. In fact, eight years ago the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that Britain would need 4 million new houses by 2022. If we rework the calculations based on how the numbers have moved on since then, we can see that that was almost certainly a substantial underestimate. In an area such as mine, where there are extreme housing shortages, that should give us all pause for thought.

Forty per cent. of housing need is accounted for by net immigration, but we easily forget that one of the most common reasons given by people for leaving this country—it is second or third in most of the recent surveys—is that they feel that it is overcrowded. In many cases, they want to move to places that are less congested. Ironically, even by balancing the numbers we are keeping up levels of pressure that are already felt.

The problem in a county such as Kent is not just that we have a large number of people on housing waiting lists. The need for more housing has a range of pernicious side effects. Almost 90% of all the land in Kent that is either not grade 1 agricultural land or protected as an area of outstanding natural beauty now lies on floodplains, and we are also short of water. In fact, as one engineer pointed out to me the other day, the new building work in east Kent, particularly around Ashford—much of which has been built on floodplains—has managed simultaneously to add substantially to the flooding risks in winter, and many hundreds of my constituents have had their housing wrecked by flooding, and to contribute to shortages of water in summer in a county that has had repeated hosepipe bans over the past 10 years.

[Pete Wishart]

In Scotland we are facing for the first time in 100 years the prospect of our population falling below the iconic 5 million mark. Surely we require international solutions throughout the UK as well as regional solutions, or we will all experience difficult problems.

[Mr Brazier]

I heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention on the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and I do not want to go too far down that route, but I do not believe that it is practical. I know that the Australians have done it, and the hon. Gentleman made that point vigorously. I am familiar with the Australian system, but there are two big differences between the six states that make up Australia and the four nations that make up Britain. The first difference is that the entities in Australia are very large and the population centres—most of the population of each of the six states lives in one part of that state, except in Queensland—are a very long way apart, so it is easier to see that people are fulfilling their obligations. The second key difference between Australia and Britain is that Australia has a legal system that works, so if people break the rules, they get deported, but we do not. Trying to provide people with permission to come as long as they settle in Scotland is not practical. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not go further down that route.

Although the cost of housing has come back a little from its recent gross peak, it is still very expensive compared with housing in the majority of other countries, especially for first-time buyers. The primary effect of unaffordable housing is that vast numbers of young families either cannot get housing or work very long hours to pay their mortgages. Even nine years ago—the situation has worsened since then—a huge one-off survey by the OECD discovered some very sad facts about Britain. Some 63% of UK families thought that they only just managed on their household incomes and a higher proportion of Britons than inhabitants of any other major EU nation felt that they had to work more hours than was good for their family life.

Apart from a couple of small countries, we have almost the highest proportion of working mothers in the world. Of course mothers should be able to work—my wife worked when she was a mother—but mothers, including some who work as staff in the House of Commons, are being driven into working much longer hours than they necessarily want to when their children are small because they are paying mortgages for overpriced houses in an overcrowded country.

Along with housing, other relevant issues include health care, social housing and the cost of providing infrastructure. I have mentioned water shortages in Kent; huge costs are associated with the next dam that we are going to need. Those things all cost money and all have to be brought into the balance when we decide whether we want a population of 70 million in a generation’s time.

The third area that I want to discuss is employment. Let me reassure hon. Members that I do not suggest that anyone who is here legitimately, whether as a successful asylum seeker or through a legitimate marriage, should ever be disadvantaged in the job market. I do not suggest there should be discrimination, but we must do what the right hon. Gentleman did in his speech and examine the impact of allowing heavy net immigration, as has happened in the past few years, on the employment of our population. That immigration has not been overwhelmingly from Europe: in the past decade, about two thirds has been from outside Europe.

Interestingly, the employment of UK-born people averaged about 64% in the latest figures available, having fallen by half a per cent. The corresponding employment rate is slightly higher for non-UK-born people at 66.5%, so the right hon. Gentleman’s point about many of the incoming groups teaching us a lesson about the work ethic is true. However, that is not the whole story: we have one of the highest rates of workless households in the developed world. Nearly 4.8 million people of working age are not working and 1.9 million children are living in households in which no one works, many of them households in which no one has ever worked.

Government figures show that 1.4 million people in the UK have been on out-of-work benefits for nine or more of the past 10 years. As John Hutton said in 2006, when he was the Work and Pensions Secretary,

“if people have been on incapacity benefit for more than two years, they are more likely to retire or to die than ever to get another job.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 1305.]

It has already been observed but is worth repeating that, although the previous Government can take credit for creating more than 2 million jobs, almost three quarters of those were accounted for by people coming from outside the country. The previous Government effectively had a policy of replacement migration. I am a huge admirer and supporter of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pension’s shake-up of the welfare system, but, as he has hinted in his speeches, it can work only with diligent application of the Government’s plans on immigration, because if large numbers of people are encouraged to get back into the work force—there are some expensive carrots as well as sticks in that regard—they will not have a great deal of luck, as we pull very slowly out of a very difficult recession, if there is a steady stream of young economic migrants to take their place. We cannot do anything about people coming from eastern Europe, but we can do something about those coming from other parts of the world.

The fourth issue I want to address is the student system. I am very proud to represent the largest number of students in any constituency. I have two excellent universities in my patch and a number of highly valued English language schools that act as feeders to those universities and others. However, we must recognise that the problems in the student system that the right hon. Gentleman hinted at are very real. Unlike him, I do not believe that they are confined to a number of bogus colleges, but it is good that the Government are clamping down on them.

I know two people who regularly go to other parts of the world to market their organisations, both of which are legitimate—a Russell group university and an English language school with a very good record in the field—and they both say that the first thing they are asked in many countries is, “Once you get a foot in the door, can you stay?” All too often, people from even the most respectable institutions are tempted to say, “Well, yes, in practice, that almost always follows if that is what you want.” As the universities come under pressure, with the new funding regime starting in 2012, the temptation for those organisations, particularly those that are struggling economically and cannot fill their books, to take people who can pay the money but do not necessarily have the right academic qualifications will be huge. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, the largest single route for entry into this country is the student system.

We have to strike a balance, but that will be difficult. It is essential that the best lecturers have the opportunity to come if they want to spend part of their career here and we must have a system in which the brightest and best students see Britain as a place to come. That will be good not only for the countries they come from and the universities that receive them: a key third benefit is that, a generation on, Britain will have friends, potentially in high places. In striking the balance, we have to make sure that perfectly legitimate organisations at the lower end of the economic scale do not pad their numbers out with people who are willing to pay a year’s fees up front and then disappear into the system.

I conclude by drawing attention to an absolutely extraordinary hole in the immigration system that came to my attention at my constituency surgery on Saturday. My constituent, Mr Spence, is happy for me to share his experience with the House. He had a suitcase containing all his personal documents stolen. He has never had a passport, but it included his birth certificate. He was born in Rutland and he was told that to get another birth certificate from Rutland county council, he needed to fill in a form online and send a cheque for £9. He asked what verification was needed and was assured that there was none. Let me inform the House that Government guidelines to anyone applying for a job—I have seen a string of these from various organisations—say that someone who has either a passport or a birth certificate and a letter from a Department, which could be anything and does not require any identity checks, can come into this country.

[Robert Halfon]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the great author, Mr Frederick Forsyth, identified this problem a long time ago in his book “The Day of the Jackal”?

[Mr Brazier]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was wholly unaware of that and must reread the book.

Mr Spence’s story gets better—or worse if one is being serious about it. When he was five, his mother remarried and changed his name by deed poll. He contacted Rutland council and said, “There is just one problem: I need to change my details because my name was changed a long time ago.” “Ah,” said the council, “That is no problem.” He had only to fill in another online form and send a cheque for £40 for it all to be fixed.

Unlike the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, I am not going to end with a shopping list of firm recommendations, although I have hinted at a number already. I simply end by observing that we cannot continue to have an open-door policy. I welcome the steps that the incoming coalition Government have already taken, but I firmly believe that they must go further, as we have inherited a system that certainly is not fit for purpose. I congratulate the co-sponsors of the motion and the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to discuss this subject.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brazier]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government are addressing the issue by getting rid of the wasteful Train to Gain schemes, with all their phoney elements, and introducing proper apprenticeships. Does he accept that however hard we work at it, a man or woman in their late 40s or early 50s, who has come out of employment and is looking for a new job, is never going to be as attractive to an employer as a young incomer in their early 20s?

[Mark Tami]

The point that I am trying to make—and the hon. Gentleman’s point, I think—is that we have to address our training needs. Just stopping a person coming in does not address that problem. We still do not have the skill base. We lag behind other countries, and we have done so for many years. I am not saying that we got everything right, and I am certainly not saying that the current Government have got everything right. We will be having the same argument for many years to come.

We have to admit that some UK private industry has been reluctant to train people. Many companies see training as an avoidable cost rather than as an investment. For too long, rather than training people themselves, companies have preferred to poach a skilled employee who has been trained by another company. After a time, that becomes a bit of a vicious circle. Many people from companies, particularly smaller companies, have asked me what the point is of training somebody. They invest a lot of time and money in doing it, but then the bigger company down the road comes in, offers the employee more money and off that employee goes. Those companies say that they might as well not train anybody in the first place.

In the past, we had a number of nationalised industries; whatever their merits, most people will accept that they trained an awful lot of people to a very high standard. Many of those people drifted off to the private sector. After privatisation, one of the first things to suffer was the number of people being trained—numbers were cut and shareholders became the fundamental concern. We saw a big drop-off in the number of employees being trained by companies such as British Telecom, British Gas and the old electricity companies. People were not going from the public sector to the private sector in the same numbers to fill the gap that the private sector has always failed to fill.

I know that this will get absolutely no support from Government Members, but I support a training levy: a company of a certain size should have an obligation to train a certain number of people. That would mean a level playing field. It might address the problem of some companies not training people because they are worried—

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander]

I agree entirely. Earlier this week, the Secretary of State for Justice himself admitted in the House that people are being taken advantage of. He said:

“We have all known for many years that some…advice, usually given by non-lawyers…is not very good and that the prices charged are rather unscrupulous.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 671-72.]

I think “not very good” and “rather unscrupulous” are probably quite significant understatements. In my experience, some individuals dispense absolutely diabolical immigration advice, and something needs to be done to tackle that.

I fear that the challenges to legal aid will make the situation worse, and I understand that the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner will undergo a merger in the not-too-distant future. I ask the Minister to use this opportunity to look again at the accreditation process for immigration advisers and at the quality checks done on providers once accreditation has been obtained. I am told that the accreditation process for advisers without legal qualifications involves a simple online test, which seems somewhat open to abuse. Will the Minister speak with his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice about tightening that process?

Much of the debate has focused on the implications of the cap for top universities, but another part of the education sector could also be hit hard by changes to the immigration rules. Roughly half of international students in our universities have completed some form of foundation course in the UK. In my constituency, Twin Training International Ltd provides such courses, along with short English language courses. It makes an enormous contribution to the local economy; in fact, after Sainsbury and Tesco, it is the largest employer in the borough of Lewisham. However, it also puts money into the hands of many local families, who provide board to students. This is not some dodgy college set up to offer a way into the country, but a reputable business, which has the capacity to grow. However, it will not grow, and it will lose students to businesses in Canada and America, if the Government make it harder for those students to come here. Why would we encourage international students to learn English in Canada when they could learn it in England?

I accept that action needs to be taken against bogus colleges, and the previous Government started that process. However, it is important that we remind ourselves that only 12% of all migrants granted settlement last year originally entered the UK as students. Some 80% of all overseas students leave the UK within five years of entering. In taking action against fraudulent institutions, let us not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

I accept that we need some form of control over the numbers of people coming to the UK and over the purposes for which they come here, but please let us acknowledge the way in which the flow of people from all over the world makes a positive difference to our economy and culture. Let us also acknowledge the benefits of international students going back to their own countries with links to the UK.

Let us also treat people who are here humanely. Let us think how we would feel if our children were being taken away from their school friends, our 17 or 18-year-old was being sent back to Afghanistan or our friends were being forced to live in limbo, as they waited for the Home Office to make a decision on their case.

[Mr Brazier]

The hon. Lady refers to Afghanistan. I am a strong supporter of a local charity that looks after unaccompanied asylum seekers, who are overwhelmingly from Afghanistan. Two of my wife’s relatives serve in the armed forces, so may I put it to the hon. Lady that when this country is committed to a policy of trying to turn Afghanistan round, and plenty of young British males and females are risking their lives to do that, it is not unreasonable, as the country stabilises, for people to return there when they reach adulthood?

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head when he says “as it stabilises”. My understanding is that although the security situation might be quite stable in parts of Kabul, it is not in other parts of the country.

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[Mr Lilley]

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

[Mr Brazier]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Lilley]

May I make a little more progress?

The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) mentioned the skill of cooking Bangladeshi meals. There are a large number of unemployed Bangladeshi people in this country, and there are a large number of Bangladeshi restaurants. Why, therefore, do the restaurateurs not train up their staff to acquire these skills? I am afraid that the reason is because they can get staff with such skills more cheaply from the subcontinent. We must say that we want to have well-paid chefs in this country, not depress the pay by importing from abroad.

I want to refer to an aspect of the debate that none of us has mentioned, and that I suspect nobody except me will mention. Indeed, I would not have done so had I not acquired my copy of Prospect magazine yesterday. It is a left-wing magazine, but I am very open-minded so I read even left-wing monthly journals.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I have made it clear that we want to attract the brightest and the best to this country. We believe that it is possible to introduce limits and take account of the concerns of business and of the scientific institutions to which I referred.

We consulted business and other interested parties extensively on how the limit should work, and more than 3,000 responded. We also asked the Migration Advisory Committee—the well-respected and independent advisory body on migration policy—to consult on what the limit should be, taking into account the economic and social impacts of migration. The MAC report has been published today. I thank David Metcalf and the other members of the committee for their very full and helpful report, which we will continue to study in great detail. We will consider its findings alongside the responses to our own consultation on how the limit should operate, and we will announce how it will work in the near future. I will not comment this afternoon on the detail of the committee’s recommendations, as that would pre-empt the Government’s final announcement, which will be made in due course. However, this is a complex issue, and it is vital that we consider the best and broadest advice, including the responses made to the Home Office’s consultation on economic migration.

I now want to talk about the issue of intra-company transfers, which has been highlighted in the debate. Of course, we want companies to be able to transfer senior managers and specialists to enrich their UK operations. For that reason, the Prime Minister has already indicated that we have heard the concerns of business on this matter. However, in 2009 such transfers accounted for 22,000 migrants out of the 36,500 admitted through the tier 2 route, and about half of those 22,000 were in the IT sector—a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley). Given the numbers involved, we need to ensure that the ICT route is being used for its original purpose, and not to undercut regular jobs here, particularly in the IT sector. Last week, a study published by the Higher Education Careers Service Unit showed that graduate unemployment was highest among graduates in computer science, out of all the disciplines. We are therefore looking carefully at the rules on ICTs.

[Mr Brazier]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. Six years ago, a study showed that computer scientists and mathematicians enjoyed the greatest premium of all on graduating, so there has been an astonishing change in that sector of the market.

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes that point, and that is why we are considering these issues very carefully.

Policing in the 21st Century

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We certainly wish to ensure that the fight against crime is in no way downgraded; indeed, the whole purpose of our proposals is to help to strengthen the fight against crime across the UK, as I have said in answer to a number of questions. The directly elected police commissioners will relate to England and Wales, and both the Minister for Police and I have had discussions with the Welsh Assembly.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

In welcoming my right hon. Friend’s excellent statement, may I urge her to consider extending control to the Crown Prosecution Service? We saw in the earlier statement the difficulties that we have with the uniquely British system of having a prosecution organisation that is wholly independent of accountability.