My Lords, my noble friend Lord Horam always talks a lot of good sense, and I am pleased to be able to follow him. The House will be aware that I have a long-standing interest in absolute numbers and whether there is a number that this country can sustain, either permanently or by absorbing it on an annual basis. It is not so much where they come from or who they are; it is just that they are people who make demands on our space, whatever our space may be. It will come as no surprise to noble Lords that a Bill such as this, which in Clause 1 offers the primary objective of restricting illegal migration to this country, has my support and seems to offer a good line of approach.
I am very much aware that this leads to one being described, at best, as heartless. I reject that; I am as aware as any other Member of the House is of the
dreadful circumstances in which many citizens of other countries live. Nevertheless, however difficult or painful, we have to set this whole issue in context. Sadly, the debate about levels of migration, which are inevitable as a result of our increased population, has become rather lopsided and dominated by two groups, both of which favour increasing the rate. The first can be described as the moral case, which is the underlying background to a lot of the speeches today; the other is the economic case of people to fill the jobs.
Let me quote from a recent magazine article:
“The left hates talking about immigration because it thinks any kind of controls, anywhere, are racist; the right has been running an economy, in part, dependent on endless reserves of imported labour, which it doesn’t like talking about. However, few things are more corrosive of public trust than pretending a problem isn’t there. Sooner or later the public notices”.
Where did that come from? It is Mr Andrew Marr in this week’s New Statesman. I do not often quote the New Statesman or Mr Andrew Marr with approval, but they have got this bang on the button.
Both arguments have merit, of course, but what is lacking is any counterview expressed on behalf of the 67.3 million people already settled here, 18% of whom come from minority ethnic groups. Their concerns include economic worries, of course, but also a wide range of what I call quality-of-life factors: access to open space; damage to our ecology and our environment; an ability to achieve our climate change goals; our future food and water security; increased pressure on education, health and social services; and the impact on social cohesion generally. In February this year, I commissioned some polling on these points. If any Member of your Lordships’ House would like to see the polling, I will happily send it to them. The polling revealed that across all ages, all social grades, all regions of the United Kingdom and all voting preferences, about 60% were concerned about future population growth, 51% thought that there should be a cap on the level of net migration, and over 60% were concerned that the Government had no plan in place to consider this.
Since the Blair Government first allowed—perhaps encouraged—large-scale migration, the population of the UK has gone up by 8 million people, equivalent to three cities the size of Manchester. As year has succeeded to year, Governments—including my own—have explained away the successively higher figures as a series of one-off events, but these one-off events have kept on coming and the British people have been presented with a series of faits accomplis. If we as a Parliament do not find ways to address these concerns, wilder and less attractive spirits will inevitably begin to make the running.
In addition to the general direction of travel, the Bill begins to address the problem in two specific ways. First, in Clause 51 it institutes, for the first time, a total cap on numbers—a cap which will be drawn up after consultation with local authorities and debated in Parliament. In this connection, I pay a very sincere tribute to Stephen Kinnock, the opposition spokesman in Committee in the House of Commons, who gave the Labour Party’s support to the idea of a cap. Secondly, the Bill offers fairness. There will be no reward or advantage for an economic migrant who gets on a boat to cross
the channel and so jump the queue. The British people as a whole are generous but they also place a good deal of reliance on fairness, and the Bill offers this.
The House can take one of two approaches. It can follow the line of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and deny the existence of any problem—or at least, deny its existence if only people like the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, would stop talking about it—and attempt to water down the Bill, so that it becomes ineffective, or it can recognise the deeply held views and concerns of our fellow citizens, and work to ensure that we respond to them.
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