Extracts from Parliamentary proceedings - July 17
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Extract from Commons Emergency debate on Scheduling of
Parliamentary Business Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab):...In
1922 Battersea became the first constituency to elect an Asian
Labour Member of Parliament, the Indian radical Shapurji
Saklatvala. Of course, we also had the heroic Charlotte Despard,
the Anglo-Irish suffragette who dedicated her life to championing
the rights of the poorest in Battersea, and whose statue can be
found in the central square of Doddington estate....Request free trial
Extract from Commons
Emergency debate on Scheduling of Parliamentary
Business
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab):...In 1922 Battersea became the first constituency to elect an Asian Labour Member of Parliament, the Indian radical Shapurji Saklatvala. Of course, we also had the heroic Charlotte Despard, the Anglo-Irish suffragette who dedicated her life to championing the rights of the poorest in Battersea, and whose statue can be found in the central square of Doddington estate. In 1933, at the age of 89, her last public activity was to address the crowds at a big anti-fascist rally in Trafalgar Square. Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that I have as much fire in me when I am that age... Extract from end of day adjournment debate on Acid Attacks Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab):..A report compiled in 2014 by J. Sagar Associates of India for Acid Survivors Trust International points to what it sees as two main flaws in the UK’s approach to acid violence. The first is that weak restrictions on sales of acid are failing to prevent its acquisition for criminal use. The second is the inconsistent approaches taken by the courts in considering mitigating factors when sentencing those found guilty of acid attacks. Jaf Shah, executive director of Acid Survivors Trust International, advocates an age restriction of 18 on purchases and the prevention of cash sales to aid tracking, so that sales can be made only with a credit card. He suggests research to establish whether substances could be made less concentrated, more viscous or possibly even crystalline so that they are less easy to use to cause harm... To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE Extracts from Lords debate on Brexit: UK-EU Movement of People (EUC Report) The Earl of Clancarty (CB):...In both those respects it is worth quoting the observation on page 18 of the report made by Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London. He is concerned about the problem of the definition of an immigrant as someone who arrived in the UK intending to stay for more than one year. He said: “That was probably quite meaningful … in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when people who planned to come and live here came from the Caribbean or India with a work visa … If you are coming from Poland, Latvia or France, there is no legal, moral or practical obligation on you. When you come here and flash your passport with no visa in it, you may very well not know whether you intend to stay for a month, six months, or the rest of your life. Even if you did have some vague intention, it could well change and you are perfectly entitled to do that”... Lord Bilimoria (CB):...The Government have set out their direction of travel and they keep talking about “skilled” and “non-skilled” workers. This is a key aspect: where is the evidence for all this? The report highlights a major problem. What are we basing these statistics on? I challenge the Minister on this. I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness because time after time I have been asking like a stuck record both in Parliament and outside why the Government do not reintroduce physical, visible exit checks at our borders. I travel extensively around the world, including to European countries. Everywhere I go, whether it be South Africa, India, the United States or Switzerland—I have just come back from the Netherlands—my passport is checked when I go in and it is checked when I leave. If we scan passports both in and out of the country, we know who has come in, we know who has left, and therefore we know who is here and who should not be here. It is very simple, so why do the Government not do it? I tell them that it is negligent on their part. From the security point of view, given the dangerous world we live in, it is negligent. The Government’s primary responsibility is the security of their citizens, but they are letting those citizens down by not doing this, let alone not being on top of immigration. I am sorry, but e-borders are a nonsense because they are not visible or physical. Passports need to be physically scanned. That is my challenge to the Government. I have said it time and again and I will keep saying it until something happens.EU immigration as a proportion of all immigration into the UK in 2016 was estimated at 44%. The Government want to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. We know that the figure has been around 300,000 and that it is now about 275,000. In the year ending June 2016, some 49% of all EU immigration was made up of people from the old EU 15 member states, and by that month 72% of the EU nationals moving to the UK reported doing so in order to work. In contrast, the reason given by most non-EU nationals coming to the UK is to study, but we continue to include international students in our net migration figures. Once more, like a stuck record, I will ask the Government again: why do they not remove international students from the net migration figures? This is damaging our reputation. I am the chancellor of the University of Birmingham, a Russell Group university, one of the finest in this country and among the top 100 in the world, and I chaired the advisory board of the Cambridge Judge Business School. These institutions and everyone else are unanimous in asking, “Please take international students out of the net migration figures”. They can be counted as immigrants when we submit figures to the UN; that is fine, but take them out of these net figures. Our competitor countries, such as the United States of America, Canada and Australia, all do so. Here we are with our international student intake either flat or declining while the number of international students from countries such as India is rising at a rate of 8% a year. The United States has seen an increase of 25% in the number of Indian international students while the number coming here has halved over the past five years. Wow, we are doing really well in this global race. International students bring £25 billion to the economy of this country. As the president of the UK Council for International Student Affairs—which represents the 450,000 international students in this country, of whom 130,000 come from the European Union—has said, they are a very valuable source of export income and they enrich the experience of our domestic students as well as the collaborations that are built up with foreign academics, many of whom are from the EU. This is a point I have made time and again. We are worried about losing university research funding from the European Union, but we are more worried about losing our collaborations. When two universities collaborate anywhere in the world, the weighted impact of their research is three times higher than when they work on their own. Why do the Government not understand all this? When we talk about weaknesses in the migration statistics, let us look at the International Passenger Survey. It is a joke. I have seen it. I have seen Jo Johnson, the Universities Minister, who I accompanied on a visit to India when the Prime Minister was there in November, being stopped and asked the International Passenger Survey. We started laughing... ...I now come to the crux of it: public support for continued EU freedom of movement in exchange for access to the single market. A survey from just now—14 July—finds that Britons favour a deal that resembles Norway’s relationship with the EU. That very clearly involves the free movement of people. Cambridge University was a part of that survey. Here is the news: on free trade deals, the high commissioner of India has very clearly said that India has welcomed and wants to do a free trade deal, but it has to include talking about movement of people and students. India has nine bilateral free trade agreements in the whole world. The United States—the biggest economy in the world—has 20 bilateral free trade agreements around the world. Guy Verhofstadt has said:
“Improve the Brexit offer to EU citizens, or we’ll veto the
deal”... |