UK Borders Bill

Tomorrow we reach the end of the beginning of the long goodbye to a Labour Prime Minister who has been more successful than any Prime Minister we have had. Last week, one of the polling organisations, instead of thrusting questions in front of the sample, asked open-ended questions about the voters’ biggest disappointment with his 10 years of stewardship as Prime Minister. Whereas we in the House would probably say Iraq, they said, by a clear majority, that he had failed to protect our borders. It is therefore a particular disappointment for me and for my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) that we did not discuss the amendment that my hon. Friend had tabled, which would allow us to reconnect with voters on the very issue with which the Bill deals—the establishment of a commission to report not only on labour market needs in respect of immigration, but on the social impact, which in some areas has been so devastating that it is difficult to describe. By the time we reach the final goodbye to our Prime Minister, I hope that the Bill will have been considered in another place and that the amendments we could not move for reasons of time will be considered there and will come back to us, so that that major charge against the stewardship of our current Prime Minister is answered, not in the distant future but in the Bill itself.