Immigration Controls

I think it beyond dispute that the Government have mishandled immigration. In recent months, they have been active in trying to address a problem that they themselves allowed to grow over the previous 10 years. When they came into office in 1997, the attitude was that it was racist to talk about control of immigration—indeed, I should know, because I was talking about the control of immigration. The initial signals sent out were all that the system would be relaxed: the primary purpose rule was abolished; an amnesty was granted to 25,000 asylum seekers who had not even had their applications processed; and some high-profile deportation decisions taken by the previous Government were reversed. So, the signal went out: the system is now more relaxed. Fairly recently, when the Opposition were asking for quotas—as we were allowed to do under EU law, and as some other countries were proposing to do—when we faced the likely influx of immigration from eastern Europe, the Government's attitude was that we were being alarmist, that we had it wrong, and that it would all be perfectly all right on the night. That was a disastrous prediction, which has proved to be wholly without foundation. I think that there is merit in some of the Home Secretary's proposals, and I welcome some of them, but they have come very late. We all tend to talk about immigration as if it were a single mass lump, but it is roughly divisible into three separate strands, although of course there are sub-strands. The first strand is work permits. On the whole the work permits system benefits us: we compensate for the deficiency of skills by bringing people in. However, what was said by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) is very true: over the years, it has become a rather stealthy method of entering the country for the purpose of home settlement, rather than merely to gain work at a restrictive time. Although there may be nothing new about that, if we are now thinking seriously about how to limit immigration, I think it right for us to examine the link between those who come here lawfully on work permits, but as a means of—equally lawful, at the moment—permanent settlement.