Government Reductions in Policing

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Merseyside police force made the biggest efficiency savings in the country before it received its grant settlement. That means that 800 police officers and 1,200 police support staff will now not be employed, and we are still waiting to find out how many policy community support officers will lose their jobs. Is she as worried as I am that police officers in domestic violence units, undercover police units, child protection units and race hate crime units are no longer to be considered front-line police?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She will know from her constituency the impact that the cuts are having on communities across Merseyside. While Merseyside has certainly done excellent work in getting as many police on the beat as possible and in ensuring that its officers are as available as possible, as well as making very substantial efficiency savings, it is now being penalised. Its services are being hit, and it is the local communities in Merseyside that are paying the price. The truth is that the Home Secretary is making visibility more difficult to achieve in Merseyside, not easier.

It is the same story in Warwickshire, where the force is having to take police officers off the front line to cover critical support jobs that have gone, and South Yorkshire’s chief constable has said:

“A reduction in back officer support will put an increased burden on operational officers, detracting them from frontline duties.”

HMIC said in July last year that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

Student Visas

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

First, as I have just said, I expect the universities to continue to retain their highly trusted sponsor status and therefore to be open to attract individuals to come from overseas to study at them. Many universities have done a very good job of advertising themselves and promoting the quality of education that they can offer. It is for the universities and for us to be absolutely clear in saying to people that our universities remain open for business and provide a first-class education.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Liverpool’s three universities attract approximately £66.6 million in gross income from international students. That income is a significant driver for Liverpool’s economy and is absolutely vital at a time when university funding is being so drastically cut. Will the Home Secretary please expand on what the tougher entry requirements for demonstrating international students’ financial means will be and can she guarantee that the proposals will not prevent genuine students from coming to study in Liverpool?

Higher Education (Student Visas)

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend is right because the uncertainty is already proving damaging, particularly on the language issue, as I will discuss in a second. In East Anglia, we see around us the huge potential for a new rebalanced economy that places relatively less emphasis on financial services and has growth in all these other sectors. We have the potential for a golden triangle between Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich, where BT Martlesham has its own electrical generating capacity, because it uses more electricity for computing power than many small towns.

Where is the role of the universities in all this? It is nothing short of crucial. As the Minister knows, we need more skilled people—all Governments talk about the need for more skills. Our education system produces far too many people who are not equipped to go further, which was the subject of this afternoon’s Second Reading debate. Some people cannot study at university, because they do not have the basics in English, maths and science. We have a shortage of science and maths teachers, which is being made worse by a vicious circle: not enough students reaching the basic standard; not enough students studying those subjects at A-level; not enough good people therefore applying to university to study those subjects; and accordingly not enough graduates to become teachers to help solve the problem.

What is helping to break that vicious circle? The answer is overseas students. In many STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—courses are viable only due to the substantial proportion of enrolments from outside the UK and the EU. If we get all this wrong, we will damage the possibility of our economy recovering and rebalancing away from an over-dependence on financial services. One need only look to the United States to see the enormously important role of a vibrant university sector in driving economic growth.

In 2009, a study by the Kauffman Foundation on the impact of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which analysed the economic effect of MIT alumni-founded companies and their entrepreneurial ecosystem, concluded that if the active companies founded by MIT graduates were to form an independent nation, their revenues would make that nation at least the 17th largest economy in the world. The state comptroller of New York has estimated that college and student spending directly or indirectly provides nearly 500,000 jobs and generates more than $62 billion of economic activity. The comptroller of public accounts in the state of Texas has estimated that every dollar invested in the state’s higher education system eventually returns $5.50 to the Texas economy.

Why are those American comparisons interesting? The United States is the most successful higher education market in the world. It is No. 1, but which is No. 2? Where is the second-favourite destination?

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The university of Liverpool has 3,000 international students, who generate not only £30 million of income for the university but a positive, knock-on effect for our local economy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we do not ensure that those students can come to the UK, we will see, at a time when we are seeing cuts to our university budgets, massive impacts on local economies?

[Mr Bacon]

When funding is tricky, universities are rightly looking for other sources of income—indeed, the Government have told them to do so.

As I was saying, we are the second-biggest education market in the world.

Temporary Immigration Cap

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I imagine that the voters of Oldham East and Saddleworth—who have great knowledge of immigration, owing to the unfortunate activities of my predecessor in this job—will take the view that the Labour party is, as ever, attempting to mislead them completely on immigration, and that that is why it should not be trusted.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the Minister please answer the question that my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State asked him earlier? What is the status of those who applied under the illegal cap and were rejected, and will their applications now be granted? I draw to his attention the example of the international scientist who was unable to come to this country to take part in a cancer research project.

[Damian Green]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not listen to the answer that I gave the shadow Home Secretary, but I am quite happy to repeat it. The judgment was given on Friday but we do not have the written judgment yet, and we will not get it until January. It is clearly absurd to ask us to decide what to do about individual applications in advance of deciding whether to appeal against the judgment, and we cannot do that until we have the judgment in writing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I give that assurance to the House and, beyond that, to business. We held something that has been unusual in recent years: a consultation that genuinely consulted. We listened to business and changed the rules on inter-company transfers. That is also why we got rid of most of tier 1 and left a small remainder for the very exceptional. We now have a system that will not only enable us to get immigration to sustainable levels, but protect businesses and educational institutions that are vital to our future prosperity.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

In light of the concerns about immigration that the Minister has articulated, will he share his justification for this week’s news that front-line UK Border Agency staff at Liverpool port and John Lennon airport will be slashed by almost half?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady has heard me say in response to a previous question that there will be a reduction of more than 5,000 in the UKBA work force. We are ensuring that we use new technology and new working practices to make our border more secure than it was under the Government whom she used to support. I commend to her the very good Institute for Public Policy Research publication, “Immigration under Labour”, in which an adviser to one of Labour’s more successful Home Secretaries—

Controlling Migration

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is important that we see the policies announced in the statement in the context of our welfare reform policy, the Work programme to be brought in next year, and the Business Secretary’s proposed skills agenda, which he introduced in a White Paper last week.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

During last Thursday’s immigration debate, the Home Secretary’s departmental colleague, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), said:

“We therefore aim to reduce net migration to the levels of the 1990s—tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, each year by the end of this Parliament.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 1120.]

The end of this Parliament will, of course, be in 2015. May I offer the Home Secretary another opportunity to confirm categorically that that is still her Government’s policy this week?

[Mrs May]

I say to the hon. Lady that it is the position—[Interruption.] Listen very carefully. I will say this only once: we aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament.