Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for an excellent introduction and for securing the debate. I ought to draw people’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support I get from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project.

Humanitarian visa routes are an effective tool to tackle irregular migration, alongside efforts to target criminal gangs. From the failure of UK immigration policies under several Governments that focused only on deterrence, we know that that does not impact the irregular journeys of refugees. The push factors are too strong, and it is not hard to see why. Imagine being an 18-year-old young man from Eritrea—a persecuted Christian likely to be conscripted to murder his own people as they flee the evil dictator Isaias Afwerki. He has made his way through the lawless, deadly chaos of Libya, crossed the Mediterranean and found his way through Europe—as if the 30 miles across the channel is a terrifying threat compared with that. As the Home Secretary has rightly said, we need to change people’s calculations at the moment of decision. A viable, safe route will change the calculation of asylum seekers, so that people no longer feel the need to pay smuggler gangs.

We talk about Ukraine and Hong Kong. It is worth bearing in mind how many Ukraine and Hong Kong refugees are in those boats: none, because there are safe routes of one kind or another for those people. In the light of that, the UK-France deal announced in July is absolutely to be welcomed as a framework to build on, because an asylum seeker can apply for safe passage from outside the UK without the need to make dangerous journeys. However, for that to be an effective deterrent or alternative for people, the Government urgently need to ensure that, by the time the pilot is evaluated in June next year, there is some proper data to analyse.

My questions to the Minister are: what steps is he taking to increase the number of people coming to the UK under the UK-France agreement? How is it being advertised to migrants, and how can confidence and trust in the route be increased? Can applicants have a timeline for their applications, so that they know how long they will have to wait for a decision, and so that they do not choose small boats instead? It will not be an alternative to crossing the channel if people do not know about it.

The Government also say that they are looking for community sponsorship to be the resettlement model for the UK. My questions are: how will that be done at scale, what support will the Government offer to communities that want to sponsor, and what changes will they put in place to make the process quicker and easier? Given that refugee family reunion is a safe route, used predominantly by women and children, will the Government’s decision to stop it not push more children and women into the hands of smugglers?

Should we not recognise that the pull factors that bring people to the United Kingdom are not the stuff we hear about benefits, but the fact that we are seen to be a decent and safe country? We should be proud of that.

Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petitions 705383 and 718406 relating to support and accommodation for asylum seekers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I lead this debate for the Petitions Committee, and I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the support I receive from the Refugee, Asylum, Migration and Policy Project. I start by thanking the petition creators, Robert Barnes and Bob Clements, and all those who have signed the two petitions. Mr Barnes’s petition calls on the Government to

“Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there”,

and was signed by more than 256,000 people. Mr Clements’s petition calls on the Government to

“Stop financial and other support for asylum seekers”,

and has more than 427,000 signatures.

Mr Barnes, whom I spoke with last week, does not oppose asylum. He believes that we should grant sanctuary to those fleeing persecution at home. He is absolutely right about that fundamental truth. It is who we are. Our British values of fairness and decency explain why, across generations, we have welcomed refugees from the across the globe—those escaping Hitler’s tyranny, Idi Amin’s brutality or Soviet oppression. Each time, some voices demanded closed borders, and each time, Britain chose humanity over heartlessness.

Those values were in action when, on 14 October 1914, 16,000 Belgian refugees reached Folkestone harbour in my constituency in one day, fleeing Germany’s invasion. Those arrivals instantly doubled the town’s population, yet locals immediately organised food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Some 250,000 Belgian refugees found sanctuary across Britain during world war one, which reflected the instinctive human compassion for others’ desperation—a compassion built into our British sense of fairness.

We see those values enduring in my constituency today, in the activities of the local charity Napier Friends, which supports residents at Napier barracks. The charity has achieved incredible things, running English classes and creating volunteer opportunities to help our local community, including litter picking and organising gleaning, which is essentially collecting extra local produce to donate to food banks for people who need that extra food. My recent Napier visit showed outstanding work both by Napier Friends and current staff, and I thank them for all their work and for the compassion they show in doing it.

The key question the petitions ask is simple: how should we treat people while they wait for their asylum decision from the UK Government? It is that waiting time that costs the state money, because asylum applicants cannot work for the first 12 months. There is a strong argument for shortening that period to around six months, as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have done, to ease pressure on the accommodation system. Mr Barnes told me that he does not want to throw asylum applicants out on to the street. He wants to end hotel use. He wants to speed up asylum processing. He wants us to be quicker at removing people with no right to stay.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am grateful for the hon. and learned Member’s opening remarks. I too would like to put on record the support I get from the Refugee, Asylum, Migration and Policy Project. The Government have managed to get the number of people waiting for initial decision down by 18% in the last year, which is good, but the number waiting for an appeal is up by 88%. One in two asylum seekers has no access to legal representation through the process, and that is what is slowing it down. Would the hon. Gentleman agree that ensuring that asylum seekers get that representation is just, and also will oil the wheels so we get people moved quicker?

[Tony Vaughan]

I agree with the hon. Member that we absolutely must ensure that those seeking asylum have proper access to legal aid. It is much quicker and cheaper in the long run if we can flush out all the claims at the outset, so that we do not have them raised at the last minute, when perhaps costs are higher. I am absolutely behind the hon. Member on that.

On the points that Mr Barnes made to me, I agree with him, and I imagine that the Government do too. Labour’s manifesto promised to end hotel use by the end of this Parliament, and we are already well ahead of schedule. Hotel use peaked in August 2023 at £9 million spent every day across 400 facilities; since taking power, Labour has already cut hotel numbers in half and slashed £500 million yearly from asylum hotel costs, closing 23 asylum hotels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.

In my constituency we have the Stanwell hotel, which is currently an asylum hotel. From correspondence in my mailbag, I had heard there was the potential for the Home Office to change its policy on use. Hitherto, the capacity for families at the Stanwell hotel was 114, and the families who were there had integrated well. They had gone to local schools, got involved in local churches and in some cases were undergoing medical treatment as a result of pre-existing conditions. There were also some single people there. I visited on 3 October and was told there had been no history of poor interactions between single males and families.

The residents of Trinity Close were very concerned because they got wind of a rumour that the Stanwell hotel was going to be reconfigured from being pretty much families only to being used for single males only, so they asked me to try to find out. I wrote to the Home Office on three occasions and asked how long the contract for the hotel had been signed for, but the Home Office did not reply, so I had to raise it with the Home Secretary on the Floor of the House. I was assured that I would receive a response, including a date when I could visit. The Home Office team were then all cleared out; I could speculate on the reasons, but the Government will know.

I finally got a chance to visit on 3 October, when I spent two hours there and learned a number of things. First, the hotel had not quite transitioned to full capacity for single males. I was told it was going to take a matter of weeks, so it is possible that it has been done now. This is of great concern to local residents, who much preferred it when the hotel was used for families only, because of its proximity to schools and green spaces, which makes Stanwell village a pretty inappropriate place for 98 single males only.

I saw the conditions people were in, with two to a room. One thing really got to me. The Government’s line is that they want to reduce the number of hotels, so they are going to sweat the existing estate harder by putting more people into it so that they can close things down. I was aghast to find that the Stanwell’s capacity as a families-only hotel was way higher than when it is used for single males, which did not make sense to me.

Having written to the Home Office to ask when the contract was going to end, I was told in a letter that that was not the sort of commercial information it was customary to share. I was delighted to get a letter yesterday confirming that what I had heard on the visit was correct and the contract ends on 31 July next year.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes the local council has been trying to find out what has been going on, as I have in parallel. At an emergency general meeting the Conservative group on Spelthorne borough council proposed an amendment calling for the hotel to be returned to use as a community hotel, which is exactly what the community wants. It is the place where people went for weddings and funerals, for playing cards in the afternoon and for Sunday lunch, and that is what they want it to be again. I was fairly surprised, then, that Spelthorne borough council, which comprises independents, Liberals and Labour, voted against returning it to use as a community hotel, which is Government policy. The Minister might wish to follow that up with Labour councillors in Spelthorne.

[Tim Farron]

I commend the hon. Member for taking the time to visit to see for himself and to hear people’s voices, and I mean that sincerely. More colleagues should do that before forming opinions. What he is talking about is the use of a private asset for public purposes and at the cost of public money. At the same time, those in that hotel are on £9.95 a week, so they are not living the life of Riley, as I am sure the hon. Member agrees. There is a cost to the taxpayer, and misery and hardship for the asylum seekers. Does he think that one answer is to give asylum seekers the right to work, so that they can pay their own way and integrate better? It would be better for them and their families, and better for the taxpayer.

[Lincoln Jopp]

When President Macron visited earlier this year, he said part of the problem was that there were far too many pull factors in Britain. Giving people the right to work would, to my mind, be another pull factor. The Government would quite rightly say, “Well, you didn’t manage to do it either,” but I would much rather we were able to control our borders ab initio, so that we did not have to face the problem of asylum hotels.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

Antisocial behaviour is pernicious wherever it happens. Of course, we need to ensure that the police have the right resources. As the Home Secretary said, police allocation decisions will be made in the autumn, but I am happy to have a conversation with the hon. Member about the particular issues he is facing in his constituency to ensure that, when it comes to issues such as police cars and vehicles, we are making the most of taxpayers’ money and making as many efficiencies as we can on that front.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

In line with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) about how we best tackle antisocial behaviour among young people, does the Minister agree that it is really important that outdoor education is integrated in the Government’s youth strategy? The first draft made no reference to outdoor learning whatsoever, yet it is proven to broaden people’s horizons, give people things to do with their lives and make them much less likely to fall into antisocial behaviour.

[Sarah Jones]

I am happy to take that question on board. I have spoken to the heads of all the violence reduction units across the country today, and it is clear that some of the most important work they can do is in partnership with other agencies and other bodies, whether in education, our youth services or others. We need to pull the resources we have together, use what works and follow the evidence.

Borders and Asylum

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We need to end asylum hotels across the board, and that means ensuring that we can clear the appeals backlogs through major appeals reform, because that is currently the main obstacle to the faster closure of hotels. It means preventing people from taking up accommodation in the first place when they are not entitled to it, and it means looking for alternative sites that are more appropriate, which will mean working with other Government Departments. It also means, crucially, recognising that carrying on with the system that we inherited—the frozen system, in which the last Government were not returning people and not making asylum decisions—would have left us with tens of thousands more people in asylum hotels. That is the system that Conservative Members want to go back to, but it would be deeply damaging for my hon. Friend’s constituents, and for the country.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Providing safer routes for refugees is not going to eradicate the entire problem—none of us is saying that it will—but it is surely part of the solution to stopping trafficking across the channel. Is it not just cruel madness to restrict family reunion, which is one of the few safe routes that currently exist, particularly when we know that 93% of the refugee family reunion visas granted this year were for women and children? Will this not increase the number of people putting themselves at the mercy of evil traffickers, and the number of tragedies in the channel?

[Yvette Cooper]

I know that this is an issue in which the hon. Member has taken a very strong interest over a long period of time. Since he and I first started discussing this issue many years ago, the way in which the family reunion system is used has changed. It has gone from people applying one or two years after they have refugee protection here in the UK to people applying in around a month. That means that the people applying have often not left asylum accommodation or asylum hotels. They do not have housing, jobs or ways to support family members whom they seek to bring to the UK, and we have also seen that criminal gangs are using and exploiting the system. That is why we are temporarily pausing the existing refugee family reunion route, and we will consult on the new arrangements that should be brought in. We will aim to bring in some of those arrangements by this spring.

In the interim, refugees will be covered by exactly the same rules as everyone else, and by the same conditions as everyone else, through the appendix FM process. But there is a concern, because there are no conditions on refugee family reunion at the moment. The way in which it is being used has changed, and there is a responsibility on us to not have huge problems with homelessness assistance for local authorities, and to have a managed system that also supports contributions and does not simply end up being exploited by criminal gangs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Minister talks about concerns raised by the constituents of the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham). They are concerns created by this Government not valuing people from different parts of the world who serve in our national health service and social care system in Cumbria and elsewhere. Will the Minister be much clearer that this proposal will not be retrospective for people who underpin our health service in Cumbria and across the country? Will she be mindful of the impact on our health service if she goes ahead with a decision—which, at the moment, it looks like the Government are going to—that will hugely undermine the flow of workers who come here to support us and keep us all well?

[Seema Malhotra]

May I gently disagree with the hon. Gentleman? We do recognise the vital contribution of overseas NHS workers, and we have not yet defined what contributions will reduce the period for settlement, but the proposed changes are subject to consultation. In addition, we are committed to ensuring that the NHS remains supported, while reducing long-term reliance on migration.

Immigration System

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Returns dropped by around a third under the previous Conservative Government. I think that is very damaging; I think the rules should be respected and enforced. We have inherited a system in which it seems the only people they tried to remove or to get information on were those who had been convicted and had prison sentences. We believe that we need information much more widely and a faster process to ensure that the rules and the laws are upheld.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Given that lengthy A&E, cancer treatment and ambulance waiting times in Cumbria are a direct result of the lack of social care workers, meaning that our hospitals are full to bursting, what assessment has the Home Secretary made of the damage that this policy could do to patients and NHS workers in my communities, where the most regular experience we have of migrants is that they care for us and our loved ones?

[Yvette Cooper]

We need to support social care and recognise the importance of that job. That means tackling the long-term recruitment issues here in the UK, not simply always thinking that we can ignore those problems and turn to migration instead. The hon. Gentleman will know that there have been huge problems, including abuse and exploitation, as a result of that route. Some 39,000 people who came here on a care worker visa, often in good faith, ended up being displaced when checks were finally introduced. That is why regional hubs have been introduced to ensure that employers can still recruit from those displaced workers, rather than continuing to recruit from abroad.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clauses 14 and 18, and to various other new clauses and amendments that stand in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) and for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), who are sitting beside me. They toiled with enormous fortitude and patience through 12 Committee sittings. They did extremely diligent and good work, and I put on record my thanks to them both.

The new clauses and amendments that we have tabled are made necessary by the Government’s abject and appalling failure, since they came to office last July, to control small boat crossings of the English channel. They came to office saying that they would “smash the gangs”, a claim that is now in tatters. Let us take a look at what they have done since 4 July last year. Since the election, 35,048 people have illegally crossed the English channel. That is a 29% increase on the same period the previous year.

This year—2025—how is smashing the gangs going so far? Well, 11,806 people have crossed, which is the worst start to a year in history. That is an appalling and abject failure, for which this Government are responsible. Yesterday alone, 232 people crossed, and we understand that today, as we stand here, several hundred more people have made that illegal crossing. There is no control over who they are. There are suggestions that some of the suspects in the recent Iranian terror case were living in asylum accommodation and may therefore have crossed by small boat. I certainly recall that some people crossing the channel had very serious prior convictions. The Government have no idea who these people are, and they certainly have no control.

The people crossing are almost entirely young men. They have pushed themselves to the front of the queue by paying people smugglers. I do not see them as victims; they are committing a criminal offence by entering the United Kingdom in this way. It is a criminal offence contrary to section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971, as I am sure everybody knows.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

If the former leader of the Liberal Democrats wants to say something to the contrary, I would be glad to give way.

[Tim Farron]

I could not help myself, I’m afraid. Some 87% of Eritreans coming over are refugees. The right hon. Gentleman talks about young men. The refugees are young men, because Christian young men in Eritrea are conscripted to murder their own communities, so of course they are disproportionately represented. Why does he not take part in this debate on the basis of evidence, rather than playing tabloid nonsense?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman will know that around the world, there are very many female and child refugees. The last Government welcomed many of them here under the UK resettlement scheme from Syria. The young men who push themselves to the front of the queue in Calais are displacing potentially more deserving applicants. They are embarking from France, which is a manifestly safe country with a well-functioning asylum system. Nobody—including young men from Eritrea—needs to leave France to seek sanctuary when they can perfectly well claim asylum in France. Article 31 of the refugee convention, which in general terms prohibits the criminalisation of refugees, expressly says that that only applies if someone comes “directly” from a place of danger. France is not a place of danger. Much better that we choose the deserving cases, rather than having people pay criminal gangs to enter this country illegally from a place, namely France, which is safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to the support provided to my office by the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. I also chair the all-party parliamentary group on refugees. I thank the Ministers and members of the Public Bill Committee for their work on this Bill, which I continue to support as a whole.

My constituents in Folkestone and Hythe want to see Parliament give our law enforcement agencies the powers that they need to tackle these highly sophisticated, organised criminals. The small boats industry, which was allowed to run for years under the Conservatives, flourished in part because of the lack of powers for the National Crime Agency and the lack of co-ordination with our European partners. We absolutely do not need the performative politics of the Conservatives, including their new clause 14 to disapply the Human Rights Act from immigration functions.

We have just had the VE Day 80th anniversary, and it was that fundamentally important victory over tyranny in Europe that led to European democracies uniting to safeguard the rights of everyone living in Europe. When I met Ukrainian politicians at the Council of Europe in January this year, they were very clear that they need human rights, the rule of law, democracy and unity of values in Europe, and they need us, the United Kingdom, to help them in their fight against an enemy that lacks those principles.

We are at a point in history when it is more important than ever to be clear about our values, what makes our society one to be proud of, and what we have in common with our neighbours and friends. Rightly, the Government will not disapply the Human Rights Act from one group today; maybe the Conservatives would want to deprive another group of it tomorrow. The Opposition’s new clause, which I will oppose, is a reminder of this important dividing line in our politics.

I also want to comment on new clause 3 on safe and managed routes to asylum. I raised this issue in the Chamber on Second Reading. I fully accept that safe routes will not, on their own, stop small boat crossings; that is why we need the enforcement measures in this Bill. However, it is unsustainable to continue to make it virtually impossible to claim asylum lawfully, and then criminalise those who have made valid claims, but who have no lawful means of accessing the asylum system. I am grateful to the Minister for Migration and Citizenship, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), for agreeing to meet me next week to discuss this issue. A recent report by the APPG on refugees proposed a pilot system for those from specific conflict zones who have strong claims to be allowed to travel here, so that their claim could be fully examined on UK soil. That would build an evidence base on the issue, to inform future policy.

Finally, on British citizenship, though the Government are repealing the measure that bars citizenship for those arriving unlawfully, they have effectively reintroduced it via policy. I would ask them to rethink their approach. By the time a person in that situation applies for citizenship, they will have been granted asylum, having a well-founded claim. They will have been here for over five or six years; they will be of entirely good character; and they may be making a valid contribution to our society. However, because of their method of entry all those years ago, they could be prevented from accessing citizenship and integrating in this country. We need measures to promote, rather than hinder, the integration of those lawfully present here. Despite these points, I support the Bill, and thank the Government and Members for their work on it.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, including my work with the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project.

New clause 21 would help the Government to tackle poverty, prevent homelessness and demonstrate competence. Enabling asylum seekers to work would reduce the asylum support budget because they could instead support themselves. It would help cohesion between host communities and asylum seekers if asylum seekers were seen to be paying their way. It would also reduce the need to use hotels to house asylum seekers. Those seeking asylum should have the dignity of being able to work, and the taxpayer should get the benefit of the massively reduced costs that that would bring.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am more than happy to meet with the right hon. Gentleman to talk about his experience on the ground with respect to both Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd and Clearsprings Ready Homes.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I hope I am not the only person here who is utterly depressed by the complete lack of compassion shown by the shadow Home Secretary and the lack of recognition that the people we are talking about have stories of their own and have experienced horrors that we can barely even imagine. Is it not right that we look at this in a more thoughtful way? To reduce cost to the taxpayer and help those who will be successful asylum seekers to integrate, would it not be wise to allow people who are asylum seekers to work after being here for three months?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Those asylum seekers who have not had their claims processed within a year through no fault of their own are allowed access to work. I am unconvinced that allowing access to work earlier would do anything other than create more demand for people to come here.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I visited Bedfordshire police before Christmas, and I agree that it is an excellent force. Decisions around funding will be made in due course.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Refugees here from Ukraine under the Homes for Ukraine scheme are not eligible to indefinite leave. They have a three-year visa, which in many cases, obviously, is about to expire. They have a very short window to apply for what is only an 18-month extension. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is not long enough for Ukrainian families here to be able to plan their future, and will she reconsider?

[Yvette Cooper]

I can say to the hon. Gentleman that we continue to support the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which remains extremely important—I have a family from Ukraine still living with me in Yorkshire. We will continue to support those families and will ensure that people are not disadvantaged by the deadlines that have been set.

Migration and Border Security

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Clearly the Rwanda scheme failed, and the Leader of the Opposition knows that it failed. That is why she does not want to reinstate it, contrary to the views of the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who seems to want to spend another £700 million over another two years to send another four volunteers to Rwanda. The criminals who organise the boats are incredibly dangerous. We have seen children crushed to death and people drown as a result of these flimsy and dangerous boats, and the gangs are making profits of hundreds of millions of pounds. We should not be letting them get away with it. That is why we need to work across borders to go after them.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Migration plays a significant part in our economy. In the Lake district, 66% of hospitality and tourism businesses report that they are failing to meet demand because of a lack of workforce capacity. Migration is part of the answer. Will the Home Secretary listen to leaders of the Cumbria hospitality and tourism economy and meet them to discuss options such as a youth mobility visa scheme? It would enable us to shore up our workforce, which is brilliant, but far too small.

[Yvette Cooper]

All I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that there are some deep and fundamental problems in the UK labour market that we have inherited. He is talking about workforce shortages when net migration has quadrupled and when overseas recruitment for work has quadrupled. I think that shows that there is a much bigger challenge in the workforce, where we have a huge drop in training and where we do not have proper strategic approaches to the workforce. That is what we should be putting in place instead. We have to look at the issues around training, pay and conditions and at the key sectors to make sure they get support, rather than continually looking to increase migration instead.