Draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2018
Debate between Neil Coyle and Andrew Percy(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Some colleagues might think that when they call a Westminster Hall debate, it has zero effect; I am pleased to say that the Westminster Hall debate that I secured on 12 October 2011 at 4.30 pm, which called for just this change, has finally led to it. I assumed that I had been simply ignored, but it turns out that the report of that debate has gone into the depths of Government and resulted in this very sensible policy.
I specifically welcome this measure in my role as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Canada, because one of the principal issues raised with me on my visits by Canadians who come to the UK, not just for business but as visitors, is the delays they experience at the border. In fact, for many visitors, particularly from a country such as Canada, which shares so much with us—intelligence and security, our “Five Eyes” partnership and even a Head of State—it is a very unwelcome feeling to arrive in the United Kingdom and be told that they have to go through this much more strenuous system.
I was surprised to hear the shadow Minister say that we do not make exceptions on the basis of nationality at our border when that is exactly what we do. What we have at the moment is a border system that says, “If you are white, you will be treated differently than if you are non-white”, because we prioritise European Union citizens over everybody else, and that is a—[Interruption.] I will give way on that point, of course.
Neil Coyle
It is absolutely outrageous to suggest that there are only white citizens living in EU member states. That is a massive insult to the 40% black and minority ethnic community in my constituency, let alone the BME communities across all the other member states of the European Union.
Andrew Percy
If the hon. Gentleman, instead of shouting, had allowed me to continue to develop my argument, he would have heard me go on to say that, absolutely, the European Union has a diversity of population, but overall it is overwhelmingly a white club and it provides—