The subject of immigration is of great importance to my constituents in Great Grimsby. They have voted time and time again for Government to take control of who enters our country. I am pleased that the Government are finally bringing forward this Bill to do just that. Let me say first, Madam Deputy Speaker, that control of immigration does not mean stopping people coming here. It means that, as a country, we decide on the means by which people enter. My constituents understand that from time to time we need to provide help to genuine refugees fleeing from war zones or from natural disasters. Equally, we have a tradition of providing asylum to people whose Governments are not as generous or as freedom-loving as our own. We as a country do that willingly and with generosity.
What the people of Grimsby do not accept is people travelling through multiple free, safe European countries then attempting illegal entry to the UK and claiming asylum on entry. This is not asylum seeking. This is economic migration.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am not against economic migration. How could I be with the surname Nici? My late father came from Italy in the 1960s, long before the EU existed or we joined the EEC, but he had a job in the UK before he arrived and then when he came here he worked here with a work permit. He found this country welcoming. He found that Grimsby was a great place to live and so applied for citizenship and became a British citizen. In the process, he had to give up his Italian citizenship, but he did it willingly because he
wanted to participate fully in life in the UK as a British citizen, to work hard, to run a business, to pay his taxes and to raise a family. It is not fair on all those who have followed the proper rules to migrate to this country that illegal immigrants and bogus asylum claimants are treated in the same way.
I have been struck by the contributions of Labour Members giving all sorts of spurious reasons why they will oppose the Bill. What they really mean is that they want to prop the door open and let unlimited people come in. I welcome the measures in the Bill and I will be enthusiastically supporting the Government tonight.
3.20 pm