Immigration Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and James Clappison

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a landlord, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This has been a good debate with eloquent speeches from Members on both sides of the House, including excellent speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and many others. Like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I welcome the Bill, which is—let it be said—the first major Immigration Bill of this Government and one that contains a number of sensible measures that I believe should have a beneficial effect.

I welcome the reforms to charge for national health service use, to deal with sham marriages and to reform article 8 as it relates to foreign criminals. I think that reform will strike a better balance with the public interest, for which I have called for a long time. It is worth pausing to remember that the people whose cases we are discussing have come to this country and have committed serious offences, sometimes really serious offences, which should call into question the public interest of allowing them to remain here.

I also welcome the measures that are designed to streamline the appeals system, as effective immigration control has, I believe, all too often been undermined by multiple appeals and procedures. To be fair to the previous Government, they made some well-intentioned efforts to reform the appeals system. In some cases, they made it less complex, but it remains a complex system. I can remember the expression “a one-stop shop for appeals” being bandied about under the previous Government. That was their aim, but they did not entirely fulfil it—although, to be fair to them, they did try. Some Labour Back Benchers would do well to remember that.

I welcome the fact that the Opposition are not opposing the Bill and will examine the measures in Committee. That is the proper approach to take. I would part company with the Opposition, however, on the question of net migration and effective immigration control. During the course of the debate, Opposition Members have made a big point about whether net migration has fallen by a third or a quarter, and have argued over the statistics. That shows a little brass neck, to say the least, given what happened to net migration under the previous Government. It increased from 50,000 to 250,000 per year over the lifetime of that Government. I would calculate that as a fivefold increase, yet now Labour is debating whether net migration has fallen by a quarter or a third while often opposing some of the measures needed to bring about that reduction.

I believe the issue should be an important objective of government and that we should have proper immigration control. I recognise the contribution of immigrants to society and their worth as individuals, and I believe that when they come to this country and are legally entitled to be here they should certainly be welcome. We must bear in mind, however, that demand to come to this country from less economically developed countries is almost unlimited. It is one of the major duties of a Government to impose proper immigration control in the light of that demand, which our constituents know about and can see reflected in news stories and developments in other parts of the world.

As the demand to come to this country is almost unlimited, to keep our quality of life we must have regard to population growth and population density. Immigration is a major driver of population. Our population is 62 million, and to keep it below 70 million net migration must be carefully controlled, and certainly brought down from 250,000, which is what it was at the end of the previous Government’s time in office. Otherwise the population increase—5 million, as has been said, would be due to migration—would produce a population of 70 million, which is equal to the populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Oxford added together, and accommodation would have to be made for that.

On the Opposition’s policy, I was not encouraged by the response from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to my question about whether the Labour party would have a target for net migration. The Opposition draw attention to the fact that we cannot control all the factors that relate to net migration. Of course we cannot control how many people choose to leave the country, but that does not mean that we should not control those factors that we can control, including the number of people who are permitted to enter the country. If we give way to the demand for lots of people to come to this country, net migration will run much higher than the figure to which it has been brought down by the Government.

I am not encouraged by the policy on migration adopted by the Leader of the Opposition. In his first foray into that policy area, he told readers of the Sunday Mirror that he wanted a new policy on migration linking foreign workers to apprenticeships. He said:

“We think that can create up to 125,000 new apprenticeships over the course of five years. And that is a massive boost in skills of our young people and that is really important.”

No doubt it is: many of us would say that that is something that we should do anyway without linking it to migration. The right hon. Gentleman also made the point that he wanted to link every one of those apprenticeships to the admission of a foreign worker into this country, which means 125,000 extra people, as well as their dependants, as it is the custom to admit dependants with foreign workers who are allowed into this country for work.

With other things being equal, and without any change in policy in other directions by the Opposition—there has certainly been no indication that there will be a reduction to compensate for this in other migration flows—over the lifetime of a Parliament we would see an increase of 125,000-plus in net migration, or 40,000 a year, which would go a considerable way towards doing away with the reduction achieved by the Government. That puts into context the Opposition’s quibbling about whether net migration has fallen by a quarter or a third. If he has time, I invite the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who speaks knowledgeably on these matters, to confirm that that is the Labour party’s policy, and that 125,000 foreign workers would be admitted in line with the 125,000 increase in apprenticeships. Will he confirm that in addition to those foreign workers, their dependants would be admitted, and will he provide an estimate of how much extra net migration would result? In my calculation, that would produce at best some several hundred thousand net migrants over the course of a Parliament.

We need a much more serious approach to the question of migration control. I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their approach. This is something that is important to our constituents—certainly to my constituents—as we do not want to live in a grossly overcrowded country, with all the consequences that would flow from an increase in population to upwards of 70 million as a result of the policies that have been outlined by the Opposition. This is an important subject. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends for their approach. “Firm but fair” is an expression used by the Opposition. I believe that this is a coalition Government with a firm but fair immigration policy, and I exhort my right hon. and hon. Friends to stick with it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Jeremy Corbyn.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and James Clappison

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clappison]

As I said earlier, I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote. I want to make progress and for that reason, and the other reasons I have mentioned, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 33, page 8, line 16, at end add—

‘(7) A Minister of the Crown may not give a notification under Article 10(5) of Protocol (No. 36) on Transitional Provisions annexed to TEU and TFEU that the United Kingdom wishes to participate in an act that has ceased to apply to it pursuant to Article 10(4) of that Protocol, where the AFSJ Protocol would apply to the procedure for dealing with the notification, unless a Minister of the Crown has given an oral statement to the Chamber of the House of Commons on Her Majesty’s Government’s intention to give the notification.’.—(Chris Heaton-Harris.)

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 82, page 8, line 16, at end add—

‘(6A) A Minister of the Crown may not make a formal decision as to whether to exercise the right of the United Kingdom to make a notification to the Council under the terms of article 10(4) of the Protocol (No 36) on Transitional Provisions annexed to TEU and TFEU, unless—

(a) the decision is approved by Act of Parliament, and

(b) the referendum condition is met.

(6B) The referendum condition is that set out in section 3(2).’.

Amendment 83, page 8, line 16, at end add—

‘(6C) A Minister of the Crown may not make a formal decision as to whether to exercise the right of the United Kingdom to make a notification to the Council under the terms of article 10(4) of the Protocol (No 36) on Transitional Provisions annexed to TEU and TFEU, unless the decision is approved by Act of Parliament.’.

Amendment 84, page 8, line 16, at end add—

‘(6D) A Minister of the Crown may not give a notification under Article 10(5) of Protocol (No 36) on Transitional Provisions annexed to TEU and TFEU that the United Kingdom wishes to participate in an Act that has ceased to apply to it pursuant to Article 10(4) of that Protocol, unless the notification in respect of the Act has been approved by Act of Parliament.’.