Mike Tapp
Main Page: Mike Tapp (Labour - Dover and Deal)Department Debates - View all Mike Tapp's debates with the Home Office
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful to the petitioners in the Public Gallery, to my constituency neighbour, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), for presenting the debate, and to every single Member who has contributed. It will be difficult to name everyone, because there have been so many speeches, but I am grateful for them.
Both petitions relate to the earned settlement proposal set out in “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement”, the Command Paper that the Home Secretary introduced to Parliament on 20 November. The proposed reforms represent the most fundamental change to the settlement system in decades and are currently subject to an ongoing public consultation that ends in 10 days, on 12 February. We recognise how important this issue is to Members—we have seen that here today—as well as to their constituents and of course to migrants across the whole country. We will listen, and are listening, to what is being said.
Kerry McCarthy
I have encouraged many of my constituents to participate in the consultation that finishes on 12 February, but I am concerned to hear that some of the changes might be introduced in April this year. I know from past experience with Government consultations that it tends to take an awful long time for the Government to consider the responses and then come up with their own response to them. How does that work in terms of the timing?
Mike Tapp
Some of the rule changes that we will introduce are firm, and that will be laid out today in my speech. Much of the proposal—for example, transitional arrangements—is very much being consulted on. Of course, that will be listened to. If there are any further questions when I finish, I ask Members to please intervene nearer the end.
Barry Gardiner
Will the Minister confirm whether the changes that are firm were also consulted on in the consultation document? If so, why were they consulted on?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for his considered intervention. I will go through my response to the debate, which will lay out exactly what changes are being made and what is going to consultation, and I am happy to talk again at the end.
We will provide further details on how the new settlement system will work in due course after the consultation closes, but I hope hon. Members will appreciate that, while the consultation is ongoing, I am somewhat restricted in what I can say. I will endeavour to be as helpful and fulsome as possible in my response.
Mike Tapp
I will not give way—I will make some progress, so that hon. Members can hear the meat of what I need to say. The Government recognise and value the long-term contribution of migrants to the UK. The proposal is not a deportation policy. Multiculturalism absolutely makes us great. However, settlement here is a privilege, not a right. It cannot be simply a measure of how long someone has been in the UK, but rather of the contribution they have made. If someone wants to settle in this country, they must contribute, integrate, follow our laws and learn our language. Those are the principles that underpin a fair immigration system that the British public could have confidence in.
Net migration ballooned under the previous Government, and we are now faced with the prospect of 2.2 million people being eligible to settle between 2026 and 2030. Around one in every 30 people in this country arrived between 2021 and 2024. Those numbers are staggering. That is not what people voted for. I am surprised that this has not been raised during the debate today.
Such numbers jeopardise our public services, our economy, the whole housing market and cohesion in local communities. Doing nothing is simply unacceptable. Around 1.34 million people are currently on our social housing waiting list—
Pete Wishart
Will the Minister confirm, very clearly, from the Dispatch Box that any changes to ILR will be voted on by the whole House, giving all his colleagues in the Chamber tonight the opportunity to express their genuine hostility to these proposals?
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for his question. They are likely to be, in the case of rule changes; that decision has not been completely made, but Members can of course express their frustration at me here in this Chamber today.
As I was saying, around 1.34 million people are currently on our social housing waiting list, which has increased by 200,000 since 2020. Combining that with a potential 2.2 million people becoming eligible for settled status between 2026 and 2030 would put a massive strain on our public services. We have already set out plans to increase the standard qualifying period towards settlement from five to 10 years.
The earned settlement model will allow people to earn reductions for positive behaviour, such as working in a public service role and volunteering. We want to encourage that behaviour, which underlines the substantial contributions that many migrants make to our country.
People have spoken very well in this debate about stability within the country and the prospect of “moving the goalposts”, as some have framed it, taking that stability away, but I want to stress that people who are here waiting to settle have access to education, healthcare and rent. They can buy a house, work and travel in and out of the country, and have access to financial products.
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this process is not about deporting people; it is about creating a system that is based on contribution and integration, and people who are not committing crime. That is what the public expect. However, the new model will also impose penalties on people who claim public funds or who have breached immigration laws. Those are not punitive measures; they are deterrents for those who are thinking about choosing a life of benefits when they can work, or who fund criminal gangs in order to cross the channel on small boats, endangering their own lives in the process.
This Government will not continue with the status quo, considering the huge numbers that we face. It is right that we implement a system that is fair and that rewards people who work to make this country a better place to live.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, the proposals that are not subject to consultation are five-year discounts for two groups of people. The first group is partners, parents and children of British citizens, reflecting our commitment to treating our citizens fairly and their right to be in a relationship with whoever they choose, regardless of nationality.
The second group that will receive the discount is British national overseas visa holders. We remain committed to the people of Hong Kong and the hundreds of thousands of people who have uprooted themselves and rebuilt their lives in the UK. Prior to this debate, I was at the APPG on Hong Kong discussing exactly that. There are complex questions around income, family income, and assets over income; we are currently consulting on those and, when a decision is made about them, it will be announced.
It is vital that migration enriches our economy, but it is most vital that it enriches our local communities. The measures set out in the earned settlement model promote integration by raising the level of English required and by demanding strict adherence to our laws. We will encourage integration and strengthen communities.
Barry Gardiner
One of the four pillars that the Minister has set out in the consultation document in relation to integration is volunteering. A number of hon. Members have already mentioned that there is an arbitrariness—a subjective nature—to that. Who will certify the volunteer work that is done? One can imagine a plethora of organisations being set up that will then happily sign a chit saying, “So-and-so has volunteered for so many hours a week.” How will the whole process actually operate? It seems arbitrary and subjective. What will the volunteering entail? Will it have to be for the home community or for the wider community?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for making that good point, which we in the Home Office have discussed in detail many times. Indeed, that is why the issue is under consultation. It is subjective, it is complex and right now I cannot give him a definitive answer. However, we will reach one, and announce it in due course.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
I must disagree with much of what the Minister has said. Most immigrants in our country are not benefit scroungers and are not criminals; in fact, most of the immigrants who I have met in my constituency surgeries are hard-working people. Just last week, a woman, her husband and their children were at my constituency surgery in tears because of the proposed policies that the Government have put forward. They told me that both of them work full time and, when one of them is working, the other is caring. They pay into our tax system, they work most weekends, and yet they still struggle to pay their rent and to buy food. I ask the Minister: at what point will they be able to volunteer?
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is right that most migrants are not criminals. Most migrants are thoroughly decent people, and that is recognised by this Government and, of course, by the Home Office.
On the volunteering side of things, I will say again that this process is still a consultation and that we will set out more detail in due course. It pains me not to give more detail now, but that is where we are at.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Minister clarify a previous point on which there was perhaps some confusion? It is most definitely not the case that all migrants go into social housing; in fact, it is pretty much the opposite a lot of the time, and none of those who have contacted me about this issue are living in social housing—not that anyone should have any shame about living in social housing in the first place. Secondly, the Minister talked about firm elements of the Government’s proposals. Were they the exemptions that he mentioned before, or will he be covering other firm elements in the rest of his speech?
Mike Tapp
I have not in any way implied that all migrants go into social housing. My point was the increase of 2.2 million people who would have access to it, with 1.34 million already on the waiting list and our ambition to build just 1.5 million homes in that picture. That simply is not enough, and that is just on social housing.
Tony Vaughan
Does the Minister have evidence about how many people you think are going to switch from not claiming benefits to claiming benefits, or from not being in social housing to being in social housing, or is this just a political judgment?
Mike Tapp
What I am not going to do is make up facts and figures on the spot, but I do not have an absolute fact to give my hon. and learned Friend. What I can say is that around 15% of people on universal credit are not British nationals. That is a reflection on the demand that this can put on our welfare system and, of course, on housing.
Mike Tapp
I am going to make some progress.
Turning to the subject of the first petition, people who come to the UK to take up a job make an important contribution to our economy and our public services, filling essential skills and labour market gaps, but for too long sectors have become reliant on them to fill those gaps and have not invested enough in our domestic workforce. The reforms we set out in the immigration White Paper last year redress that balance. We are reversing the long-term trend of an over-reliance on recruitment from abroad, and instead increasing investment in skills and training for those in the UK.
We implemented the first of those reforms in July last year, raising the skills threshold back to RQF—regulated qualifications framework—level 6, or roughly degree-level occupations, leaving a shortlist of medium-skilled occupations deemed critical to our industrial strategy and critical infrastructure. That restored the purpose of the skilled worker route and meant a reduction of more than 100 occupations. In December, we then raised the immigration skills charge by 32%. We are currently considering the Migration Advisory Committee’s review of salary requirements before making further changes, and will consider its upcoming review of the medium-skilled temporary shortage list in the summer.
Patricia Ferguson
I am grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. Given that we reckon that some 30% of posts in the NHS and care sector are taken up by people who have come from overseas, at what point will the reforms that he referred to just now get us to the point where we can do without that 30% of people? It strikes me that, before we do anything along these lines, he needs to do an awful lot of work with the Department of Health and Social Care to make sure that the balance can be had.
Mike Tapp
My hon. Friend’s point is well made. I can assure her that that work is going on, and I will come to it shortly.
Let me address some of the questions raised by hon. Members. One was on an impact assessment. It is important that one is produced and made public, and that will come once the consultation ends and we have made all the final decisions. It is important that we match the migration market with the skills market and the jobs market. We are working hard across the Home Office to ensure that we are attracting the right workers to fill the jobs we need them to work.
Let me turn to care workers. This Government are immensely grateful to those who come to the UK with good intentions and continue to play a vital role in the adult social care sector. However, it is clear that international recruitment went too far, and the route admitted unprecedented numbers of migrants and their families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said, around 600,000 migrants came to the country to fill just 40,000 roles in that sector.
Barry Gardiner
Does the Minister share with me a sense of irony that the former Home Secretary and the former Immigration Minister who were responsible for giving out those 616,000 have now joined Reform?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for a point well made. This place never ceases to amaze me—but that is politics.
Some Members have raised Unison’s campaign on sector-wide visas. There is a commitment in the immigration White Paper to look at how we make it easier for those workers to change employer—that is being looked at seriously within the consultation. However, we want to retain the ability to punish those dodgy employers who are dishing out visas when they clearly should not be.
The Government are committed to providing opportunities for British workers. It is only right that we reduce reliance on international workers, and last year the Health Secretary announced a £500 million investment in a fair pay agreement for adult care workers, boosting their wages across England. But we still need to act to ensure that those who arrived while the requirements were relaxed earn their settlement and demonstrate that their integration and economic contribution to the UK meets the standards that we are setting.
The petition also touches on transitional arrangements, and whether the proposals will apply to those already halfway to settlement. As we have seen in this debate, this is a hugely important issue. We have asked for views on that in the consultation, and I hope Members will understand that while I acknowledge their keen interest and the concerns of many individuals, I cannot say anything that could prejudge the outcome of the consultation. The consultation will be published when it closes.
Some strong points were made around family income, the gender pay gap, those who are more vulnerable, those who are disabled, those who have university fees, and of course those on armed forces concessions. All of that is being considered within the consultation, and there will be more detail to come. I can only apologise that I cannot give more detail on that today. I assure Members that we will listen to what people tell us in the consultation before deciding how earned settlement will work.
Turning to the second petition, we are considering whether benefits should only be available to British citizens and not, as is the case now, to those with settled status. I know Members have concerns about this issue. The Government have a responsibility to British taxpayers to ensure their money is spent in a fair and equitable way. It is therefore right that we reassess the point at which migrants can access public funds.
We know the challenges that the country faces, and that this Government have inherited. One of the most significant challenges is a serious lack of social housing. We are taking steps to tackle the challenge, but we must be realistic. I have already set out the number of people who are expected to apply to settle over the next five years under our current system. All of those people could be eligible for benefits and social housing. I am sure that many of us in the Chamber will have constituents who have spent years on the waiting list for social housing. Continuing to add to that list will not solve the problem.
Ayoub Khan
The Minister talks about what potentially might happen, but, with respect, that is almost scaremongering. Most of those people are hard-working citizens. Does the Minister not believe that that kind of language raises this spectre, which is precisely why we are having the debate? That kind of language does no justice to what is really happening in our migrant communities.
Mike Tapp
I disagree. There is nothing in my language that is raising the temperature. The hon. Member would do well to listen to my praise of migrants in my contribution. I have made it clear that I do not think that all those who seek to settle would seek to access the welfare system and housing system, but it is quite clear that some would, and we are already at capacity, with 1.3 million of our constituents on the social housing waiting list.
We would like to hear people’s views on the measure, so I encourage anyone who is interested in providing those views to do so before the consultation ends. I am conscious of time, so before I finish, I want to again express my thanks to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe and to all Members who have contributed today. These are sweeping reforms, and I understand the strength of feeling toward them. I have heard the points that have been raised here, which will all feed into the important consultation. It is important that everyone who may be affected by the proposals has a fair and equal opportunity to make their voice heard.
As I have set out, the consultation is currently open to all until 12 February, and further information on how to respond and provide views can be found on the Government website. We want to ensure that any decision taken has a robust evidence base and a clear understanding of how people may be affected, and that is why this may be unclear to some of our constituents at this point.
Clearly, these are issues of great significance, not only in the context of the immigration system, but for our nation itself. I say to colleagues here and across the House that we understand the importance of our task, we are determined to get this right and, as I have set out, we are proceeding with the seriousness and care that the public and Parliament rightly expect.