Immigration Control

I shall do my best to fill the Chamber with hot air, although hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I may not take the entirety of the 63 minutes that are available to me. Nevertheless, I shall try to respond to as many of the points raised by right hon. and hon. Members as I can. The Home Secretary, in one of his more jocular moments, advised me that I should introduce myself at meetings as the ““Immigration Minister for now””. While I remain Immigration Minister, I shall keep the Select Committee’s report close at hand. It was a privilege to read it over the summer, and I add my congratulations to the Committee. Its members worked hard both here and abroad, undertaking research and then structuring it with such analytical insight. In particular, I congratulate the Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), not only on his work in leading the Committee but for the advice that he rendered to the Home Office when I wanted to pose questions. I, too, enjoyed many of the evidence sessions; I watched them on television. I certainly enjoyed many of the comments made by Dave Roberts. Indeed, he paraphrased a remark that I had read much earlier, which was:"““By its very nature, illegal immigration is difficult to measure and any estimates would be highly speculative.””—[Official Report, 20 April 1995; Vol. 258, c. 328.]" That remark was, of course, made during Home Office questions by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), the former leader of the Conservative party. I also thank those right hon. and hon. Members who congratulated many of the Home Office staff and the immigration and nationality directorate. Some of those officials are today sitting behind my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen. I was tempted earlier to offer to throw one of them on the fire to generate a bit of heat, but I would not go that far as they have sacrificed enough in helping the Committee in its work over the past few months. I also want to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) for the courage with which she has, over many years, championed the issue of forced marriage. That is something I tried to understand in more detail during time I spent in Islamabad. It is an issue that affects my constituency, and as a constituency MP I am grateful for the leadership she has shown—it is something that is important to many hon. Members. This is a seminal report and I hope that, alongside the IND review and the review that the Home Office composed on the report under the instruction of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when our colleagues look back in future years they will consider it a landmark in the development of our immigration system. I am particularly glad that the Committee centred so much of its analysis and remarks on the insight that actually immigration is not something that can be managed by part of the Home Office on its own. In a global society, immigration is a cross-Government effort and will only be managed to the benefit of the country and every corner of every community if all of Government work together to help all sections of society shoulder the risks and share the benefits. It is no surprise that there are large areas of the report where the Home Office and the IND are in complete accord with some of the recommendations—for example, that current enforcement efforts are inadequate and not based on harm reduction. In the IND review we said that we would seek to double enforcement and compliance over the next few years and in the future seek to prioritise harm reduction. The Committee said that it was important that the IND secured the benefits of migration for the country, and the IND review said that we would set out a new strategic objective to"““boost Britain’s economy by bringing the right skills to this country from abroad and to ensure that Britain is easy to visit legally””." Where the Committee said that reform for the future was vital, we set out what we think is one of the biggest reforms of the immigration service in its history. The starting point for those changes has to be a set of principles, which, for those who were not in Manchester earlier this year, were set out in admirable clarity by the Home Secretary. I will remind hon. Members what he said:""It isn't fair when desperate people fleeing persecution who need asylum are put at risk because criminal gangs abuse an antiquated asylum system. It isn't fair when someone illegally enters our country and jumps the queue. It isn't fair on British workers if they find their terms and conditions undermined by unscrupulous employers deliberately taking on cheap illegal labour. And it isn't fair, or sensible, if in assessing immigration levels we don't take into account the effects of immigration on the schools, and hospitals and housing.””" That was also at the heart of the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen. In the IND review we set out some of the ways in which we would respond to the analysis presented by the Committee. We did not have to start from scratch due to the achievements of the immigration service, which did not just act on its own, but in partnership with colleagues from across Government. We should consider what has happened at our borders, which is where the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) started his comments. At Calais, around 15,500 would-be illegal immigrants have been detected while concealed in vehicles by using new equipment. Of those, 12,500 were intercepted before they reached the UK. If we look beyond Calais and around the world, we have in place a global network of airline liaison officers who have helped to stop 33,000 inadequately documented passengers coming into this country. On the asylum system, there were fewer applications for asylum in 2005 than in any year since 1993. Initial decisions are now much faster: it took around 22 months to get an initial decision in 1996, now three quarters of decisions are made in about eight weeks. In cases where claims fail, more people are now removed. When I looked at some of the figures over the past week, I calculated that we now remove someone whose asylum claim has failed approximately every half an hour. We do, of course, have to strike a balance. That is why this is often an emotive debate. I welcome the comments made by the hon. Gentleman in the Daily Express—a paper that I read every day—on 19 May this year when he said that immigration has benefited this country economically and culturally. After the election campaign earlier this year, I thought that was an important message for him to express. Migrants now account for about 10 to 15 per cent. of GDP growth in this country. It would be impossible to imagine the city of London or the bio-tech sector without immigration. Foreign students today bring in about £5 billion to our universities every year. In the IND review we set out four areas of work where important change was needed. First, with regard to our frontiers, we said that actually more and more checks need to be made abroad, so that if there were problems with individuals, they could be stopped before they came near our shores. We also said that we wanted to count everybody in and out. I understand why exit controls were dismantled from 1994 and the hon. Gentleman will I am sure be delighted to know that we plan to count around 60 per cent. of people in and out by 2009, so he will not have to hang on until 2014. Secondly, we will continue reform of the asylum system. Opposition Members have often frustrated attempts to introduce those reforms and I hope that some of the changes we will seek to make over the next few months and years will receive rather more support. We want to decide the majority of cases in six months, but we are realistic about the way that needs to be done and, by working in partnership with our courts, we think that can be achieved. Thirdly, our enforcement and removal effort should be changed, sustained, improved and resourced more adequately. The idea of prioritising harm reduction and tackling illegal working must be at the heart of what we do. We will have more to say on that later in the year. Finally, we have clearly stated that boosting the economy must sit at the heart of the work done by the IND. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) for welcoming our work on that. I can reassure her particularly in the matter of policing college admission procedures in this country that it is something we take enormously seriously. I and my colleague the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning frequently discuss that matter. We will announce new measures in due course. I am sorry that some of decisions we have had to make were not welcomed by all of my hon. Friends. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) as he has campaigned ceaselessly on the issue that he spoke about. He has lobbied me consistently on behalf of his constituents and I was very grateful for the work that he did in organising the seminar of people who came to see me at the Home Office. I am sorry that I was simply not persuaded that the benefits to his constituents and others did not outweigh the costs a reversal of policy entails. However, I hope that for the future, he recognises that it is important to introduce stability into such decisions. That is why the migration advisory committee will, in due course, be so important. We also announced in the IND review a series of seven changes that we thought would provide the foundation for a stronger organisation in the future. Hon. Members will be delighted to hear that I will not go through all of them—I will just highlight two or three. First, there is the need to tackle the increasingly over-complex legislative framework that IND officials administer. The question of decision quality was at the heart of the Committee’s analysis and when I look at the pile of guidance and documents in my office, I wonder how some of our officials manage to master the information to make decisions, much of which involves laws that date back to when I was born. We promised in the IND review that we would overhaul and simplify that legislation. I was glad the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) welcomed the fact that the IND should be an arm’s length agency. I do not think that that is a silver bullet, something that will change decision quality in itself, but it is part of three changes that are important for the future. We have to give operational freedom to IND, which is why agency status is so important. We cannot allow IND staff simply to get on with the job. We must have a stronger regulatory framework, so that the work that they do is subject to better scrutiny than is available today. I do not believe that 11 different regulators can sufficiently hold the IND to account, for Ministers, hon. Members or the public. We will, therefore, seek to rationalise the number of regulators, so that there is a bigger, stronger, more consolidated regulator that is better able to hold the IND to account. Another change that I should like to see involves much clearer regionalisation of the IND, so that members of the public can see how it is doing where they live. They must be able to compare the performance of their regional office with that in other parts of the country. The public should be able to expect accountability and transparency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen said initially that he hoped for an update on some of the work that we have done since providing our response. I shall update the House on one issue, which was at the centre of some of the remarks that were made—foreign national prisoners. The report contained an echo of much of the analysis that the Home Secretary offered. He went on to set out eight areas in which he thought that change was imperative if we were to learn the lessons of the foreign national prisoners episode. I shall provide a commentary on where some of those measures have got to, because I suspect that some of them will be in the news in the next week or so. Many people will perhaps criticise the fact that we do not let foreign national prisoners out when they have reached the end of their sentences if we have not yet fully considered their cases. Some people will accuse us of placing undue pressure on the prison system. I understand that criticism. None the less, it would be worse to carry on letting out foreign national prisoners without due consideration. The key for the IND is to get ahead in its decision making, so that prisoners coming to the end of their sentence are considered a good six months in advance. We are not there yet. The result is that more foreign national prisoners will be in our jails awaiting deportation. That is simply the price that we will pay. The Home Secretary was clear: he said that we would not allow foreign national prisoners out until their cases had been fully considered, and he meant it. To solve the problem for the future, the Home Secretary proposed eight changes. First, we need to solve the problem of the lack of a single identifier throughout the system. Over the summer, therefore, we brought together our plans for identity management and our plans for border controls, and in the next few months we shall publish an identity management action plan. I hope to have that published before Christmas. It will set out some of the principles that we will apply to solve that problem in the criminal justice system. Secondly, to address the lack of a legal requirement to prove nationality when in contact with the criminal justice system, we have spent a good deal of time over the summer working with front-line agencies in four parts of the country to identify how we can change the situation. We have identified a number of options that will be tested on the ground in the months to come. Thirdly, to ensure that operational guidance in this area is robust and consistent, front-line staff have been interviewed over the summer and a new framework for ensuring consistency will be put in place early next year. Fourthly, the process for producing policy has been audited and the policy clarified. The immigration rules were changed earlier this year to confirm that deportation is the norm for foreign national prisoners who meet the current criteria. Fifthly, we said that we would change the law to make the link between criminality and deportation stronger and more straightforward, and I can confirm that we will seek an early legislative opportunity to do that. Sixthly, we have audited the referral arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and robust new arrangements are in place. Seventhly, new arrangements have been put in place to ensure that foreign national mentally disordered offenders who are removed from restriction are now considered for deportation. Lastly, arrangements for prisoner transfers are being enhanced. We have changed the Police and Justice Bill, which is making its way through Parliament. The link that we promised between criminality and deportation will, I hope, be made stronger as a result. My final remarks relate to the point made by the hon. Member for Ashford about the direction of travel. Much of what we need to do in the next three or four months is in the field of enforcement and strengthening decision making, including decision-making abroad. First, it is important to talk about money. We said that we would double the amount spent on enforcement and compliance over the next few years. I am glad to say that, on Monday, we began that process by issuing a consultation document about the principle of flexibility in how we raise money from foreign nationals who seek to visit, work or study here, so that we can begin putting in place arrangements to bring that new money on stream, beginning in the next financial year. My second point concerns the strategy for how some of that money will be spent. In this respect, we have an enormous amount to learn from what the Home Affairs Committee said. Prioritising harm reduction has to be a core element, as do much more effective cross-Government working and shutting down the magnet of illegal working. I listened very carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and I have read many of the arguments to which he referred. I have discussed the issue with the general secretary of the TUC and with trade unions in my region. The conclusion that I reach is different. I was quite open with the Committee about my open mind. That got me into a bit of trouble, but I wanted to be honest about it. We rejected the idea of regularisation. Despite my hon. Friend’s analysis, my view is not enormously different from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). I simply do not believe that a regularisation scheme would be fair. Many people seek to come to this country and apply for the right to work, and I do not believe that those who have come here and broken the rules should be allowed to jump the queue. That is not to say that we cannot do a great deal more to protect vulnerable workers in this country who are being systematically and ruthlessly exploited by unscrupulous employers in a race to the bottom. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow will take some comfort from the fact that I have started conversations with colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry about what more the immigration service, the IND and the Home Office can do to support the pilots on vulnerable workers that were announced earlier this year. As a very strong constituency MP, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen will be interested in a poll that I conducted among my own constituents in Hodge Hill earlier this year. One idea that we have posed was that employers employing people illegally should pay the price of that. When I asked some of my constituents whether that was a good idea, 92.2 per cent. said yes; only 7.7 per cent. thought that it was not. I am referring to a series of measures that will command a great deal of support in communities up and down the country. We shall clarify our concept of operations over the next two or three months. My third point involves introducing powers to reinforce strategy and make best use of the new resources that we put in place. There is still work to do to ensure that front-line staff on our borders and in-country have the right powers to do their jobs, and we will make proposals on that to the House in due course. My fourth point is about infrastructure and how we ensure that, in a society of global movement, our immigration and border staff have the right tools to do their jobs. In the next few months, we will set out why identity and identity management systems are fundamental to policing movement more effectively. That cannot and will not be a policy-free zone: it will not be simply a technology solution, because policy has to change. Once we have put in place our enforcement strategy, I will seek to put in place and publish a new strategy for visas. In that regard, many of the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen and my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow, for Burton and for Keighley will be extremely illuminating. As I said, I followed in the Committee’s footsteps not only to Islamabad but to Mirpur and Gerry’s/FedEx, to which I have been dying to go since I was elected to the House a few years ago. I, too, was struck by some of the changes that we can introduce to make it easier for people to understand whether they have any entitlement or chance of coming here in the first place. That applies particularly to the many of my constituents who are from Dadyal, which is somewhat north of Mirpur. It is an enormous inconvenience to have to go Mirpur to apply for visas. If we can put more of the pre-screening tools online so that people can do some of the assessment before they invest in travelling, we will do a great deal of good. I expect that in future identity systems will have a triple ring. We will have to make a much bigger investment in biometric visas. In the pilots so far we have found well over 1,000 people through biometric testing who have, shall we say, an adverse immigration history, and who sought to return to the country by misleading us about their identity. The fact that we were able to identify them through the limited pilot that we have in place shows the system’s potential. That system will be integrated with our plans for electronic borders and a system of counting people in and out, and that system will in turn be integrated with our plans for ID cards for foreign nationals. I was disappointed when the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said at the Tory party conference on 1 October:"““ID cards are wrong, they're a waste of money and we will abolish them.””" When I asked my constituents whether we should make ID cards for foreign nationals a priority, an extraordinary 80.5 per cent. thought it a good idea, so I think that we are right to press ahead with it, particularly when we contrast our proposals with those of the Opposition parties. All that they offer in place of ID cards is the chaos of a damaging, distracting and disruptive reorganisation of three agencies on the front line into a single border force. That idea is outdated and is rooted in a concept of a frontier that is long past. It is simplistic and dangerous in the disruption that it poses. The number of people who seek to come to this country might double in the next 10 to 15 years, and I simply cannot think of a worse use of time than to consume front-line staff in the process of reapplying for their own jobs in a reorganisation, the benefits of which we are already achieving by equipping different agencies with the powers to do each others’ jobs. I know that there is an ongoing policy review—I noticed with great interest that it looked as though Dame Pauline Neville-Jones was going to come out in favour of ID cards—and that the Conservative party does not have a strong track record of welcoming all the conclusions of that sort of commission, but I hope that it recommends this one. I hope also that the commission will go further and put the idea of a single border force in the bin, where it belongs. Question put and agreed to.