EU Migrants: National Insurance Numbers Debate
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Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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James Brokenshire
I will certainly ensure that his comments about people’s ability to obtain national insurance numbers are passed on to colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions. I point the hon. Gentleman to the ONS’s clear statement on the lack of a connection between national insurance numbers and long-term migration and to what I have already indicated about the best measures.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is quite clear from the Minister’s answer to the urgent question that there are more EU migrants here at any one time than was previously thought. That is now not in doubt. I suspect that the Minister is a good poker player, because he can clearly bluff and misrepresent the facts.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to suggest that a Minister had misrepresented someone else.
Mr Bone
Indeed, Mr Speaker. What I was trying to say, clearly rather clumsily, was that the Minister would be a very good poker player. He is an excellent Minister, and I want to give him some career guidance. The Prime Minister clearly requires that immigration numbers come down to the tens of thousands, but these NI numbers prove that that cannot possibly happen while we are in the EU, so could he advise the Prime Minister to change his position on the EU and recommend that people vote to come out, and the Minister can keep his job?