European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Matt Western Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about the benefits to our public services of immigration, such as doctors and nurses in the health service. That was partly recognised in the change I made last year to remove nurses and doctors from the tier 2 cap. The new immigration system set out in the White Paper, which refers specifically to benefits for the public sector, is perfectly compatible with the needs of the public sector.

The White Paper sets out proposals for a secure and streamlined border. EU visitors will be able to come to the UK without a visa and will continue to be able to use e-gates. In keeping with our position that the EU should not automatically receive preferential treatment, we announced at the end of last year that the use of e-gates would be extended later this year to nationals of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. That is evidence that the UK is open for business and committed to ensuring the swiftest possible entry for visitors.

In line with the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee, our future immigration system will contain a route for skilled workers. We will expand the definition of skilled workers to encompass those in mid-skilled occupations. The route will be uncapped, and we are removing the resident labour market test for highly skilled workers. The Migration Advisory Committee argued that it burdened businesses with unnecessary bureaucracy and was ineffective. Both those changes will greatly assist businesses and speed up processes.

We will retain the protections that exist for British workers, such as the skills charge. For intermediate-skilled jobs, we will engage with employers and businesses to consider whether a form of the resident labour market test would still be appropriate.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. How does he envisage his approach working with someone like Steve Jobs’s dad, who came from Syria? How would such people come into this country and contribute to the prosperity and wealth of this nation?

[Sajid Javid]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I think he will see as I progress with my remarks what routes of entry we have for those who bring talent and skills to our country.

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the salary threshold for the skilled worker route be £30,000. There has, of course, been a lively debate on that point already. We will run a 12-month process of engagement with business, employers, universities and others. Only at the conclusion of that work will we determine the level at which the threshold should be set. In any case, we will retain the shortage occupation list, which allows for a lower threshold in jobs such as nursing where there are shortages.

There will also be a new route for workers at any skill level, but it will be for only a temporary period. That will allow businesses to have the staff they need as we move to the new immigration system. It also gives them a clear incentive to invest more in training young British people now. Access to low-skilled labour from abroad should never be a substitute for investment in the skills of British people. Our new system will ensure that it is not.

Members have pointed out that agriculture has a particular reliance on migrant labour. I have listened carefully to those concerns and we will pilot a seasonal agricultural workers scheme in the spring. That announcement has already been well received.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell).

As elsewhere, the people of Warwick and Leamington remain extremely concerned about this crisis the country now faces. Like others, I came into Parliament to work to make our society more equal and to make lives better through a stronger economy. I therefore cannot vote for any deal that will lead to people being worse off, and I have to say this deal would lead to that.

We were told over a year ago by the Prime Minister that nothing had changed. Certainly in the past month nothing has changed. The Prime Minister is still in place, despite the efforts of a great many in this House. A month on from when I was due to make my speech before the vote on 11 December, nothing has changed: there are no reassurances, and no re-reassurances; there is nothing in writing and no changes to the Prime Minister’s deal—and let us be clear, it is the Prime Minister’s deal.

Two and a half years on from the referendum, we learn that the Prime Minister has made her first phone calls to union leaders. We heard on Wednesday that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) had not once in the last two and a half years had contact from the Prime Minister, and nor had the Leader of the Opposition. It has also been revealed that, disappointingly, there has been a Government strategy to marginalise Parliament, first by claiming that analysis did not exist and then by limiting MPs’ access to the Government’s economic impact studies showing the economic damage that would be wrought not just by no deal but all other deals.

The process of Brexit has also shown that for nearly all this time the Prime Minister has worked as some kind of rogue negotiator in parallel to the Brexit Secretary of the day. Evidence of that came to light with the Chequers deal, which the Prime Minister shared with her Cabinet colleagues just hours beforehand—apparently the Brexit Secretary was blissfully unaware of the details. There was also evidence of that in the Prime Minister’s disastrous general election campaign when she failed to collaborate with Cabinet colleagues. We are now witnessing once more her autocratic tendencies.

These past few months have seen Parliament being subjected to what can only be described as relentless verbal waterboarding. The Prime Minister tells us all that it is either her deal or no deal. This week’s Brexit Secretary tells us it is her deal or no deal, and so it goes on. This is not debate, and it is not leadership either. Sadly, it is the Prime Minister’s failure to utilise the talents on her own Benches or to engage those of us across the Floor that has caused this impasse. That was brought into sharp focus on Tuesday evening when the Prime Minister finally met MPs of all parties to hear our views on why no deal was not an option. I thank her for meeting us, but why did she not consider doing that 18 months ago?

Two months ago, I attended an event here hosted by the Japanese embassy. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Secretary of State for Transport were also in attendance, along with many others. If anyone here was present that evening, they will recall the speech made by the chair of the Japanese chamber of commerce. His words were chilling. He said that his member companies would act with purpose to protect their investments. That is natural, but let this country be under no illusion: there are 1,000 Japanese companies with major investments here in the UK employing 150,000 people. They are here because they sought and want continued open access to the European market and European talent.

The Government are playing the ultimate game of brinkmanship, running down the clock and seeking to force Parliament to accept the deal. We are not seeing the Government taking back control. The harsh reality of the global economy is that many UK companies own foreign businesses and vice versa. Just yesterday, we heard from Ford and Jaguar Land Rover about the pressures that they face from the downturn in the global economy.

I mention that because I fear more than anything the social and economic damage that will be caused by leaving the EU’s customs union and the single market, neither of which is covered by the withdrawal agreement. If businesses needed any reason to divest from the UK, Brexit and particularly a no-deal outcome will provide it. Since the referendum was called, international companies will have been actively reviewing their UK investments and evaluating the risks. Now, this is all being brought into sharp focus by what is happening globally, primarily as a result of the downturn in the Chinese economy. As I said, job cuts at Jaguar Land Rover were announced just yesterday.

The “Project Fear” of 2016 was misdirected. I am talking about what I see as “Project Reality” and how Brexit will ultimately impact on UK manufacturing—not today, this year or in the next five years, but certainly in the next 10. It is worth reminding people of the statement made by the economic liberal Professor Patrick Minford, who claims that any loss of manufacturing in the UK will be a price worth paying for leaving Europe. Universities, too, will be hard hit. We are seeing a decline in the number of EU students applying for graduate and PhD courses in the UK; it is down 9% on last year.

Had the situation not been so serious—this is surely a national crisis—and had the Government not been in the death throes of their final negotiation with Europe, there is no doubt that the Prime Minister would be no longer. Two days after she pulled the meaningful vote, she was facing a leadership contest. We are running out of time. That is why I was pleased to support the amendment tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) to accelerate the next steps of the process. We have to move on from the vote next week and consider all the other options. The clock is ticking, and the Prime Minister knows it. Autocratic government is not what is needed in a time of crisis. Her deal must be voted down. As an exercise in negotiation—including drawing up red lines right at the beginning declaring what she did not want out of the deal—it has been an abject failure. We must let Parliament take back control of this process and ensure that the people are represented and all options are urgently considered, then let the best deal be put to the public against the option of remaining in Europe. But let us also be clear that no deal is absolutely not an option.

[Several hon. Members rose—]