Immigration Controls

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), who made excellent speeches. In welcoming this debate, may I make the point that immigration has been the taboo subject of British politics for far too long. The reason is self-evident. Ever since Enoch Powell made his infamous speech in Birmingham back in 1968, politicians from mainstream parties—with a few exceptions who have perhaps been brave, foolish or sometimes both—have avoided the subject for fear of uttering a wrong word or saying something politically incorrect, and thus being labelled as racist or anti-immigrant. Because mainstream politicians have not debated such issues as numbers and the effect that immigration might—I say might—have on public services, particularly in inner-city areas, the only parties that have talked about those issues have been racist or xenophobic parties such as the British National party, which has been left with a wide-open field to talk about immigration on its own terms and to draw its own conclusions. There is not the slightest doubt, furthermore, that the wider electorate want the mainstream parties to debate this issue. In nearly every single opinion poll asking voters what issues they are most concerned about, immigration appears as one of the top five priorities. For us to ignore the fact that the electorate want us to debate the issue and instead to peddle the simplistic mantra that globalisation is wonderful, that we need immigration to grow the economy and that the trickle-down effect benefits everybody while ignoring the very real pressures that an increasing population puts on public services, particularly in inner-city areas, does a great disservice to the cause of good community relations in our multicultural society. As I have already said, I welcome this debate and I also welcome the frank comments made by the new immigration Minister, irrespective of whether he subsequently retracted them. I support the Government's steps to make the immigration system stronger and fairer, particularly to ensure that only applicants with skills needed here can come to work or study and that newcomers learn to speak English. But, above all, I welcome the fact that the Government will now ensure that people visiting the United Kingdom are counted in and counted out. At long last, we will know how many people enter the country legally each year, and how many leave. For a number of years, after embarkation controls were abandoned by the previous Conservative Government, I tabled questions asking how many people came legally to visit and study, and how many left. The Home Office consistently told me that an average of nearly 900,000 people came every year, yet it had no idea whatever how many left. That was nonsense, and I welcome the change proposed by the Home Secretary. The constituency that I represent—Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath—is probably the most diverse and multicultural in the country. Apart from what we could call the old immigration—from Ireland, Scotland and Wales—there has been immigration into Birmingham and my constituency from Pakistan, Kashmir, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Yemen and, latterly, from Somalia and the horn of Africa. The multicultural make-up of my constituency and Birmingham has added to the vitality of that great city. We must be careful, however, that we do not undermine the excellent community relations that we have built up in that city. The spectre of rising unemployment poses the greatest threat to multicultural cohesion because it is self-evident that if unemployment rises, we need fewer people coming to the country, as the new immigration Minister has said, especially when in parts of my constituency, in Sparkbrook, the unemployment rate has remained above 15 per cent. even during the 10 years of economic growth and falling unemployment nationally.