Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) (Urgent
Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the
publication of net migration figures. The Minister for Immigration
(Robert Jenrick) The most recent published data from the Office for
National Statistics estimated that net migration in the year to
June 2023 was at 672,000. That places untold pressure on housing
supply and public services and makes successful integration
virtually...Request free trial
(Normanton, Pontefract and
Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement
on the publication of net migration figures.
The Minister for Immigration ()
The most recent published data from the Office for National
Statistics estimated that net migration in the year to June 2023
was at 672,000. That places untold pressure on housing supply and
public services and makes successful integration virtually
impossible. As the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have
repeatedly made clear, it is far too high. The Government remain
committed to reducing levels of legal migration, in line with the
manifesto commitment on which every single Conservative MP stood
in 2019 and the express wish of the British public as articulated
at every single general election in the last 30 years.
Earlier this year, we took action to tackle an unforeseen and
substantial rise in the number of students bringing dependants
into the UK to roughly 150,000. That means that, beginning with
courses starting in January, students on taught postgraduate
courses will no longer have the ability to bring dependants; only
students on designated postgraduate research programmes will be
able to bring dependants. That will have a tangible effect on net
migration.
It is crystal clear that we need to reduce the numbers
significantly by bringing forward further measures to control and
reduce the number of people coming here, and separately to stop
the abuse and exploitation of our visa system by companies and
individuals. So far this year, we have initiated a significant
number of investigations into sectors such as care companies
suspected of breaching immigration rules. We are actively working
across Government on further substantive measures and will
announce details to the House as soon as possible.
Where is the Home Secretary, and what on earth is going on? The
media were briefed that he was going to make a statement on net
migration yesterday or today, but we have had nothing, and he is
nowhere. The Immigration Minister has been everywhere, madly
briefing all his ideas, but who speaks for the Government?
Net migration figures are now three times their level at the 2019
general election, when the Conservatives promised to reduce them.
That includes a 65% increase in work migration this year, which
reflects a complete failure by the Conservatives on both the
economy and immigration. The Immigration Minister is complaining
today—he will be furious when he discovers who has been in charge
of the immigration system for the last 13 years.
Net migration should come down. Immigration is important for
Britain and always will be, but the system needs to be properly
controlled and managed so that it is fair, effective and properly
linked to the economy. Net migration for work has trebled since
2019 because of the Government’s failure on skills and training,
their failure to tackle record levels of long-term sickness and
people on waiting lists, and their failure to make the system
work. Social care visas have gone from 3,000 a year to more than
100,000 a year, yet this spring Ministers halved the programme
for recruiting care workers here. Health visas are up, yet
Ministers cut training places last autumn. Visas for engineers
are up while engineering apprenticeship completions in the UK
have halved.
Will the Government immediately agree to Labour’s plan to get rid
of the unfair wage discount that means employers can pay overseas
recruits 20% less than the going rate, and which prevents
training and fair pay in the UK? Will the Government immediately
ask the Migration Advisory Committee to review salary thresholds
for skilled workers in shortage occupations, which have not kept
up, and where the MAC has warned repeatedly about low-paid
exploitation? Will the Minister link the points-based system to
training and employment standards in the UK and have a proper
plan for the economy and the immigration system?
The Government have no serious plan; they are just ramping up the
rhetoric. They have no plan for the economy, no plan for the
immigration system and no plan for the country. Britain deserves
better than this.
I listened to the right hon. Lady for five minutes or so and
detected absolutely no trace of a plan from her—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am worried, because I can only allow two minutes. Please
do not go telling everybody that I have allowed five minutes.
Honestly, it was only two minutes.
I will keep that as a secret, Mr Speaker.
The only policy that the right hon. Lady articulated is something
that is barely used and would have a de minimis effect on net
migration, but that should come as no surprise to any of us. She
has spent her entire political career campaigning for
uncontrolled migration. She has campaigned for freedom of
movement—she backed a Leader of the Opposition who campaigned for
freedom of movement. She has always supported and lobbied and
campaigned for unfettered access to the United Kingdom. She said
that there is chaos on the Government side of the House, but all
we heard from her was rhetoric and posturing. It would be
laughable if it were not so serious.
Every single Conservative Member of Parliament campaigned on a
manifesto commitment to bring down net migration. I did not see
that in the Labour party’s manifesto at the last election.
Although she may be doing what she is because she is reading the
polls or wants to posture, we are doing it out of deep political
conviction. We believe that the number of people coming into this
country is too high, that it places unbearable pressure on our
public services and on housing, and that it is making it
impossible to integrate people into this country and harming
community cohesion and national unity. It is also a moral
failure, because it is leaving people on welfare and enabling
companies all too often to reach for the easy lever of foreign
labour. For all those reasons, we are determined to tackle this
issue. We understand the concerns of the British public, and I am
here to say that we share them and will bring forward a serious
package of fundamental reforms to address the issue once and for
all.
(Stoke-on-Trent North)
(Con)
I congratulate the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member
for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (), as it is clear from the two
ideas she laid out that she has read the 12 points in the New
Conservatives’ immigration plan. She is more than willing to copy
and paste, just as the shadow Chancellor would, had she had the
opportunity.
My right hon. Friend has my full support, although I am sure that
will not help him with those in No. 10. I am deeply concerned and
confused. At the weekend, the Prime Minister said that migration
was “too high” and needs to
“come down to more sustainable levels”.
That is the full-fat option, Yesterday, I got the skimmed option,
with the Prime Minister boasting about our “competitive” visa
regime. Are the Cabinet members who sit with my right hon. Friend
full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed?
I support my hon. Friend in his lobbying and campaigning for the
Government to take this issue seriously. He speaks for millions
of people across the country who see the levels of net migration
as far too high. Of course, it is right that we want the UK to be
a country that is open to the very best and the brightest, and
that is why we have taken action in creating visa routes such as
the global talent one that the Prime Minister was promoting at
the investment summit this week, but we must reduce net
migration. That means taking difficult choices and making a
tangible difference in the months ahead. The public are sick of
talk. They want action, and they want us to bring forward a clear
plan.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
(Glasgow Central)
(SNP)
I wish to take a different approach from the Westminster parties
to the migration statistics. On behalf of the SNP, I thank those
people who have come to make their home here and to contribute to
our universities, public services and health and care sector, and
who have made our society and our economy all the richer for
their presence. Have the Government thought this through? Who
will carry out the vital tasks of those who have come to our
shores if they pull up the drawbridge and send people away? The
CBI has said that two thirds of UK businesses have been hit by
labour shortages in the last year. Pressures on services are
helped, not hindered, by those people coming here. Those
pressures on services are a result of more than 10 years of
austerity from the Conservatives. Under-investment in those
services is the fault not of immigrants but of this
Government.
Interestingly, those who have come on small boats represent only
3% of the total, which is the flimsy basis on which the Minister
and his colleagues want to disapply human rights laws, pull us
out of the European convention on human rights and renege on our
international commitments. It is clear that Scotland has
different needs and attitudes towards migration. According to
Migration Policy Scotland, six in 10 Scots say that immigration
has a positive impact. In Scotland we need to deal with the
challenges and the pressures of emigration over many decades. Can
we finally have an immigration policy that meets Scotland’s
needs? If the Government will not devolve that, Scotland will
need independence more urgently than ever before.
Fortunately, immigration is a reserved matter, and we do not
intend to leave it in the hands of the hon. Lady and her
colleagues in the SNP Government. As she knows with respect to
illegal migration and asylum seekers, the fine words that she
says here in the Chamber are not matched by the actions of the
SNP Scottish Government. For example, in June there were fewer
asylum seekers in the entire city of Edinburgh than in a single
hotel in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North (). Her humanitarian
nimbyism really sticks in the throat.
On legal migration, here is the difference between us: we see
that there is a reason for people to come to the UK, but we also
see millions of people on welfare or economically inactive, and
we care about those people getting back into the workplace. We do
not want companies simply to reach for the easy lever of foreign
labour. That is not a route to sustainable prosperity and
productivity. That is why my right hon. Friend the Work and
Pensions Secretary and the Chancellor set out major measures last
week. That is our vision for this country—one that genuinely
drives up GDP per capita so that we can support and protect all
our citizens.
(East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The figures are unsustainably high, but to put them in context,
they also include 200,000 Ukrainians and 150,000 Hong Kong
citizens. I wonder if those are included in the “something must
be done-ism” from the Opposition. Can my right hon. Friend
explain why 135,000 visas were granted to dependants last year,
up from 19,000 just three years ago, and around 100,000 visas
were granted to Chinese students, up 87% over the past 10 years?
He mentioned care worker scandals and the 78,000 visas to care
workers. Is it true that some visas have been granted to care
workers to work in care homes that do not exist?
My hon. Friend raises a number of issues, all of which are worthy
of consideration and which the Home Office is working through at
present. It is certainly true that a very substantial number of
dependants have come to the UK alongside visa holders, whether
students, care workers or skilled workers. It is a choice for the
country whether we want to continue to pursue that. There is a
strong argument that it is unsustainable for the country to
continue to take so many dependants, who put pressure on housing,
public services, school places and so on. We could base our visa
system on different models to stop so many dependants coming into
the country. We have seen a very substantial number of care
worker visas issued, and those care workers bring dependants with
them on almost a one-for-one basis. As my hon. Friend knows, we
are actively considering that.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
Although today we are discussing one single set of net migration
figures, we know that net migration has hugely varying impacts in
regions and communities. We also know that the most skilled
migrants flow disproportionately towards London and the
south-east. Has the Minister given any thought to developing a
more regionalised approach to immigration, to ensure that
communities across the country benefit evenly and fairly from
it?
In recent years we have given thought to the concept of creating
a more regional system, but it is difficult to create in
practice—I would welcome ideas from the right hon. Lady’s
Committee. As a general rule, we have maintained one single
United Kingdom immigration system, but there are a number of visa
categories that reflect particular issues facing different parts
of the country. Those include the seasonal agricultural workers
scheme, which is focused on rural England, and global talent,
which increasingly takes individuals with a science or technology
background and will impact those parts of the country with a
science cluster. The system is able to support different sectors
and needs of parts of the country.
(South Holland and The Deepings)
(Con)
Does the Minister recognise that many myths about immigration are
perpetuated by the unholy alliance of greedy globalist corporate
businesses and guilt-ridden bourgeois liberals? One of them is
that immigrants bring only economic benefit and no cost. In
practice, dependants of the kind he described bring more economic
costs than benefits, so will the Minister immediately introduce
measures to restrict the number of dependants who can come here?
In doing so, will he recognise that we are relying on him to sort
this out, because we know that he shares our concern that it is
time for British workers for British jobs?
My right hon. Friend and I are at one on this issue. He is right
to say that there are two challenges: the sheer number of people
coming in, and the types of people coming into our country. It is
right that we make careful judgments about who will benefit our
citizens and who will add to our country’s economy and skills
base, and not simply allow very large numbers of people with low
or, at best, mid skills. They are unlikely to add to our economy
and, in many cases, will be net costs to the Exchequer. Those are
the choices that we need to make to establish a more discerning
migration system. I have already answered the dependants
question, and we are carefully considering it.
(Sheffield South East)
(Lab)
The Government had a commitment in 2019 to deal with immigration.
I have a simple question: why has it taken four years for them to
recognise that they need a plan? Social care relies on workers
from abroad, because there is no strategy in place for workforce,
training or funding. So before the Minister agrees to increase
the salary at which people can come from abroad to work as social
care workers, will he agree to do a full impact assessment on
what that would mean for the social care sector? What measures
will be put in place to provide better salary and training for UK
residents to take those jobs?
First, I would say politely to the hon. Gentleman that it is only
because we left the European Union that we have the levers at our
disposal to control net migration. It is crucial that we use
those levers to deliver on the promise of Brexit. With respect to
social care, I dispute the fact that there is not a plan; there
is a workforce plan for the NHS and social care. It is essential
that we take a rounded judgment about the individuals who come to
the country to work in social care. Of course there are vacancies
to fill, but enabling an individual to come with their dependants
will cost the British taxpayer a great deal. We must ensure that
we are coming to the right judgments about what is in the best
interests of the UK. Those are the conversations that we are
having across Government. I hope we will be able to bring forward
proposals very soon.
(Ashfield) (Con)
People in Ashfield have had enough of this. There are 7,000
people on the council house waiting list. People are struggling
to get a GP or dental appointment and are struggling to get
school places. Is it not about time that we had a cap on
migration and put a clear divide between us and that lot over
there?
My hon. Friend speaks for my constituents as well as his—he
represents a constituency near mine—in saying that the British
public want us to get on with the job and bring down the numbers
coming into the country. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary
and I are committed to bringing forward a set of fundamental
reforms that I hope will achieve the objective that my hon.
Friend sets out. There are definitely strong arguments for using
caps, whether in general or on specific visas, but those are
conversations we need to conclude within Government.
(Orkney and Shetland)
(LD)
Instead of sitting in Whitehall and trying to persuade people
that this is some sort of threat to them, why does the Minister
not get out and talk to the businesses in communities such as
mine that are crippled by labour shortages? He first promised me
a meeting to talk about the issue of visas for deck hands in the
fishing industry. He is obviously scared—because he has not met
me yet—to sit across the table from people like my constituent, a
skipper of a crab boat in Orkney, who has had to sell one of his
two boats because he cannot get the crew to work on it. That is
the reality of the Minister’s failure.
The right hon. Gentleman obviously missed our announcement
earlier in the year where we added various fishing occupations to
the shortage occupation list. That was as a result of a very
helpful meeting I had with other colleagues from across the
House, which he did not come to.
(Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister will know that some of us have been banging on about
this ever since he took office, saying that we should increase
the level of work visas to average UK earnings. We have not done
that because Ministers are worried that the care home sector will
fall over, but if we did insist on people coming to this country
earning a proper wage, would there not be a sort of virtuous
circle? The care home sector would have to pay proper wages—after
all, what is more important than looking after our elderly
population?—and we could get more people off benefits because
there would be decent jobs for them to go to. It is ridiculous
that the care home sector is handing out visas like sweeties and
employing people, for starvation wages of £20,000 a year, from
all over the world. So, more power to the Minister’s elbow. We
know he is on the right side. He just has to persuade the Prime
Minister now.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and agree with everything
he says. It is absolutely critical that we get a handle on this
issue. The points he makes about social care are entirely valid.
It is not sensible that our social care sector is reliant on
importing foreign labour from overseas, including their
dependants who then have to be housed, have access to public
services and be supported on the NHS. We need to take a more
sensible, sustainable attitude to how we pay and look after
people in such an important career.
(Feltham and Heston)
(Lab/Co-op)
The increase in net migration has been fuelled by an increase in
health and care visas last year of around 150%. I want to bring
the Minister back to the central question. I am sure he shares
Labour’s ambition to upskill the workforce here, but the central
question is why the funding for the new social care workforce
pathway was halved earlier this year. He will know that the
shortage of social care workers is contributing to bed-blocking
in our NHS. That is the last thing we need ahead of another
potential winter crisis.
As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have set out a
social care plan. The Chancellor and the Health Secretary set out
a long-term plan for the NHS workforce more generally. It is
absolutely right that we train more people in this country to be
nurses and doctors than we have in the recent past. That is why,
for example, the Health Secretary set out a plan for further
medical schools in a number of parts of the country, including in
places where there have been shortages. That is the way forward.
It is not a sustainable future for the NHS or social care to
recruit in other parts of the world. Even those places are now
encountering shortages. There is a highly competitive
international market for doctors and nurses, so the future of our
NHS has to be by persuading more of our own young people to go
into those sectors and train people properly here.
(Dudley North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the people of this country will not
be fooled by the shallow, opportunistic tough talk coming from
Labour Members? They were the Members for remain, which would
have meant completely open borders. They are the party of
re-join, which would again mean completely open borders,
including to those people who have since migrated into European
countries and who would then be completely free to come to the
UK. Does he agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield
() said, it is time for a cap
on net migration?
I do not think anyone listening to the debate will be fooled by
the damascene conversion of the right hon. Member for Normanton,
Pontefract and Castleford () and her colleagues to
controlled migration, when they have spent their entire lives
campaigning for completely the opposite. One of the few pledges
that the Leader of the Opposition launched his campaign on just a
few years ago was freedom of movement. We have committed to
controlled migration. We share a deep conviction that we have to
get the numbers down. I am hopeful and confident that the package
the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will bring forward very
soon will do just that.
(Sheffield Central)
(Lab)
International students contribute £42 billion annually to the UK.
They are vital to the economies of towns and cities across the
country. Most return home after their course. Those who do not
are granted a visa for further study or a skilled workers visa,
because we want them in the country. Students are not migrants.
The public do not consider them to be migrants. Is it not time we
took them out of the net migration numbers and brought our
position into line with our competitors, such as the United
States, whose Department of Homeland Security, as the arm of
Government responsible for migration policy, does not count
students in its numbers?
I do not think fiddling the figures is the answer to this
challenge. The public want to see us delivering actual results
and bringing down the numbers. Of course, universities and
foreign students play an important part in the academic, cultural
and economic life of the country, but it is also critical that
universities are in the education business, not the migration
business. I am afraid that we have seen a number of
universities—perfectly legally but nonetheless abusing the visa
system—promoting short courses to individuals whose primary
interest is in using them as a backdoor to a life in the United
Kingdom, invariably with their dependants. That is one of the
reasons why we are introducing the measure to end the ability of
students on short-taught courses to bring in dependants.
Universities need to look to a different long-term business
model, and not just rely on people coming in to do short courses,
often of low academic value, where their main motivation is a
life in the UK, not a first-rate education.
(Sleaford and North
Hykeham) (Con)
I am glad to hear the Minister, on behalf of the Government,
recognising that the legal migration figures are far too high. I
am glad he recognises that migrants bring not just economic
benefit, but potentially economic cost and pressure on public
services and communities. Will he confirm whether his plan will
be published and brought to the House before Christmas, and will
it include a raise in salary thresholds and an increase in the
minimum salary required to bring in dependants?
My plan would have been brought to the House before last
Christmas if I could have done that, but let us hope we can bring
forward a substantive package of reforms very quickly. I am
working intensively with the Prime Minister and the Home
Secretary. We are at one on this issue. I hope my hon. Friend
will not be disappointed.
(Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
(PC)
The main driver of the ONS net migration figures is healthcare
professionals. According to the Royal College of Nursing, 53% of
nurses registered to practise in October had been trained
internationally. The only in-patient ward at Ysbyty Tywyn
Hospital has been closed since April because it cannot get staff.
High visa fees are already a red tape barrier to filling
vacancies. In claiming credit for cracking down on visas, will
the Minister also take responsibility for shutting down hospital
wards?
I think the right hon. Lady is rather overdoing the hyperbole. We
are on course to meet our manifesto commitment to increase the
number of nurses here in the UK. A significant proportion of
those have come from overseas, but the sustainable answer to the
problem of recruiting nurses, in the right hon. Lady’s
constituency and everywhere else, is to train more of them in the
UK, rather than reaching out to developing countries and seeking
to bring their nurses here.
Sir (New Forest East) (Con)
If the Government ever decided that it was not in the country’s
security interests for large numbers of communist Chinese
students to be educated in our universities, would they be able
to do anything about it?
We do control the levers of our immigration system, so we have
the ability to make determinations on individuals who come from
different countries around the world. We do not today operate a
system that discriminates between nationalities, although we do
have different levels of security vetting on a case-by-case
basis, which is particularly important in the case of certain
nationalities. However, my right hon. Friend makes an important
point.
(Liverpool, Riverside)
(Lab)
Serco’s half-year profits for 2023 are £148 million, while many
asylum seekers are living in unsafe and insanitary conditions.
Can the Minister explain why the Home Office refuses to disclose
the amount that providers are allowed to make before part of that
share is returned to the Home Office? Does he agree that the
money should go to local authorities, to enable them to provide
services in their own areas, and does he also agree that we need
to lift the ban on unemployment rights?
I have made an open offer to local authorities that want to
provide asylum accommodation. None have come forward so far, but
if the hon. Lady’s local authority wants to provide such
accommodation, I would be more than willing to consider that. The
sustainable answer to reducing the reliance on hotels and other
forms of accommodation is to stop the boats, but the hon. Lady
has voted consistently against every measure that the Government
have taken to do so. I would strongly encourage her, for example,
when we introduce the emergency legislation on Rwanda, to support
it with vim and vigour.
(Penistone and Stocksbridge)
(Con)
One of the principal arguments against reducing the number of
care worker visas is the shortage of workers in the care sector,
and of course there is a shortage. However, in the 12 months to
July, 70,000 people were recruited from abroad for care roles,
while the number of vacancies in the sector dropped by just
11,000. Is it not the case that the principal impact of the care
worker visa scheme is the displacing of British workers from the
system? It is not having an overall impact on the size of the
workforce. Is it not also the case that until we turn off the
taps to stem the arrival of cheap labour from abroad, employers
will not improve pay and conditions here?
As ever, my hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The
health and social care visa has not worked as well as even its
proponents would have wished. Not only have far more individuals
come to the UK, including a significantly higher number of
dependants than was envisaged, but, as she says, there has been a
displacement effect whereby British workers have left the care
sector to be replaced by foreign workers. The key necessity in
care, as in other sectors, is to encourage the sector to pay
better, improve conditions and improve productivity and skills,
so that British workers can put themselves on a sustainable
footing.
(North West Leicestershire)
(Reclaim)
The Minister is a gifted orator at the Dispatch Box but, as
always, his fine words butter no parsnips. We have heard it all
before from his predecessors, every one of whom has said that the
Government will reduce net migration. After 13 years of broken
promises, when the Minister says that he has a cunning plan to
reduce it—undisclosed at the moment—why should the public believe
him?
We are working intensively across Government to fine-tune our
plan, and I hope we will be in a position to set it out very
soon. I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my determination to
tackle this issue. It is critical for his constituents and mine
that we bring down net migration and make use of the levers that
we now have at our disposal, and that we do not betray those who
voted for Brexit and wanted to give us those levers so that we
could use them.
(The Cotswolds)
(Con)
These figures were, I regret to say, entirely predictable, and
they are unsustainable: they put too much pressure on our public
services. My constituents want to know—and we have been talking
about this for years—when they will see a drop in the
numbers.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the figures are
starting to fall—although the ONS’s methodology itself keeps
moving around, so one has to treat that with a degree of
scepticism. It is now critical, to my mind, that we introduce a
set of fundamental reforms. The time for tinkering is over, and I
hope that the package that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary
and I will put together in the coming weeks will meet the
expectations of my hon. Friend.
(Birkenhead) (Lab)
We should not forget that we are talking about fellow human
beings who have made, and will go on to make, enormous
contributions to our society—not least in holding together a
health and social care sector that has been left broken by 13
years of Tory failure. Does the Minister regret, as I do, the
fact that the fearmongering and hyperbole that we have heard from
his Benches today will give succour to the forces of the far
right who seek to divide our communities, and will he join me in
welcoming, and expressing his solidarity with, all those who have
chosen to make the UK their home over the last year?
There has been no fearmongering whatsoever on the Government side
of the House. There has been a simple and clear articulation of
the view of the British public—including, I suspect, the hon.
Gentleman’s own constituents—that the levels of net migration are
too high, and of course we want to bring them down. I recall that
when the hon. Gentleman and I had a discussion about housing
asylum seekers in Birkenhead, he was not too keen on that, so I
think we all have to engage in an honest debate and take the
actions that are needed.
(Elmet and Rothwell)
(Con)
My right hon. Friend is working on many policies to try to solve
the problem, but he will be aware that the performance of the
Home Office in processing all kinds of applications has been
chronically poor. Can he update us on the actions that are being
taken, and on the direction in which he hopes efficiencies may be
moving when it comes to processing the policies that he wants to
put in place?
On that front, I can give my right hon. Friend good news. The
visa service and the Passport Office are performing in a way in
which they have not performed for many years, and are meeting
their service standards in almost every respect. As for the
asylum case working system, there has been a complete
transformation over the last 12 months. A year ago, 400 decisions
were being made each week; today the figure is about 4,000, and I
pay tribute to the many dedicated civil servants who have
achieved that—particularly the director general of HM Passport
Office and UK Visas and Immigration, Abi Tierney, an outstanding
civil servant who has transformed that service.
(Glasgow North) (SNP)
Can the Minister explain to the musicians in Glasgow North who
can no longer afford to travel to Europe, the academics in
Glasgow North who have lost so many opportunities to collaborate
across borders, and the hospitality and care sector venues that
are crying out for staff why he thinks that the end of freedom of
movement has been such a good thing?
If the hon. Gentleman is arguing for higher levels of net
migration than we see today, I suspect that he is a lone voice in
the country. We are seeing substantial numbers of people coming
into the UK, in all visa categories, and we want to take action
to bring those numbers down.
(Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend and perhaps the Home Secretary, who is
present, tell me whether they share my concern about the fact
that an increasing amount of questionable European Court of Human
Rights case law, via judgments, is actually being drafted by
foreign non-governmental organisations—unaccountable—and foreign
judges—often unqualified—many of whom have close links with NGOs?
I should like an answer to this, please.
We are very concerned about some of the issues that have arisen
out of the Court in Strasbourg, including the so-called pyjama
injunctions of the kind that blocked a flight to Rwanda in the
summer of 2022. That is why we are working with the Court on a
package of reform. The first proposals in that regard have now
been mooted, and the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor and
the Home Secretary are working to put them into practice. This
issue did raise fundamental questions about the rule of law, and
we want to see those resolved.
(The Wrekin) (Con)
Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad: five coups in three
years in sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel. What more can the
Government do to work across Government in order to reduce the
number of failing states becoming a situation in which Islamic
State, the Wagner Group and other terrorist organisations use
push factors and illegal migration into Europe as a weapon of
war?
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. There is some
evidence that hostile states are using migration as a weapon
against countries such as the United Kingdom. The new Home
Secretary in his former role and I in my role as Immigration
Minister have been to many countries in north Africa and beyond,
and time and again we have seen persistent conflicts, climate
change and instability driving migration. That is going to be one
of the features of the 21st century, and that is why we want to
be a strategic partner to those countries, using our diplomacy
and our overseas development aid budget to support
refugee-producing countries and crucial transit countries such as
those in north Africa for mutual benefit.
(Ipswich) (Con)
It is quite clear that my right hon. Friend gets it on net
migration. It is a shame that many people do not get it. In 2019,
I stood on a manifesto when net migration was around 220,000 and
I promised my constituents that it would come down. Last year the
figure was 740,000. This year it was 650,000. This is a truly
shocking state of affairs. The disconnect between where most of
the public are on migration and the reality is growing and
growing. Does the Minister agree that this growth in the
disconnect has become an affront to our shared democracy and that
urgent, radical action is needed now?
I agree with my hon. Friend that for 30 years the public have
voted in general elections to reduce the levels of net migration,
and it is important that we as politicians, if we want to
maintain their trust and confidence, act upon that. That is why
the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I are working on a
package of fundamental reforms, and I hope that we will be able
to bring those to the House very soon.
(Great Grimsby) (Con)
I would like to thank the Minister for all the hard work he has
done while he has been in his place, because I know how much he
has done and how he has worked with colleagues here to make sure
that he can drive this initiative through. It is absolutely the
truth that the vast majority of people in this country want to
see both the legal and illegal migration figures go down, and
near to zero in the case of illegal migration. Does he agree that
we have seen from the Opposition today that their plan is not
really to affect any figures, which is to prevent democracy from
happening, but also to tinker around the edges and reclassify
people to pretend that they can solve immigration when actually
what they are going to do is just tell a few untruths,
perhaps?
Well, what a difference between the questions on our side of the
House and those from the Opposition Benches. The right hon.
Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford () said that the Labour party
had a plan, but each and every one of her colleagues behind her
set out reasons why we should have higher levels of net
migration, not lower. So we all know what would happen should
there be a Labour Government; it would be uncontrolled migration
once again. A leopard does not change its spots. The Labour party
has always stood for open door migration and it would do so
again.
(Stoke-on-Trent South)
(Con)
The UK has been an extremely open and welcoming country, but I
think most people can see that even the most basic maths shows
that numbers in the hundreds of thousands are not sustainable and
cannot continue. This is having an unbearable impact on our
housing, on our public services and particularly on schools. In
schools in Stoke-on-Trent, some of the classrooms have nearly
every single child speaking a different first language, which is
having a massive impact on those schools without any additional
funding. Can my right hon. Friend ensure that we take urgent
action now to address these serious issues?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to take
urgent action. He is also right to point out the profound impact
that very high levels of net migration have on certain
communities in particular, such as the one that he represents. It
is often the poorest communities that feel the impact of legal
and illegal migration most keenly in terms of a lack of social
housing, lack of access to public services, and people living
more segregated lives. We want to build a more cohesive and
unified country.
(Blackpool South) (Ind)
Time and time again, the British public have told us that
immigration is too high and needs to come down, and time and time
again we have sadly left them bitterly disappointed. The levels
of net migration we have seen over recent years are completely
unsustainable, have no democratic mandate whatsoever and are
completely unacceptable. Surely it is time to put this House and
MPs in charge of the issue and to set legally binding caps on the
numbers of migrants and asylum seekers. That might finally be a
net zero policy I can support.
The great reform that this Government have achieved is taking
back control of the levers of migration by leaving the European
Union. Now the task falls to us to use those in a judicious and
discerning way to bring down the levels of net migration, and
that is exactly what we intend to do.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I thank the Minister for answering the urgent question.
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