The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent and sensible point—that is exactly the case. We have worked with local authorities, such as Westminster, Telford and Wrekin, the London borough of Barking and Dagenham and others, and argued for some time that the measurement of population is too prescriptive, too opaque and does not take into account the speed of change in housing tenure and primary and secondary schools, or crime, policing and health, including additions to GP and primary care registers.
That is the background to where we are. I feel a sense of disappointment, not with the Minister, who is competent and capable, but with the lack of preparedness and the
lack of an imperative from the Government to tackle the issue. They knew that it would be important to co-ordinate a policy around immigration upon their election in May 2010, yet there is a feeling that they are playing catch-up, chasing their tail and responding to the media or some Back Benchers. It is disappointing.
As hon. Members know, on 31 October 2012 I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill entitled the European Union Free Movement Directive 2004 (Disapplication) Bill. It received a Second Reading, but it has disappeared, as we know often happens, into the ether. Denis MacShane, in his swan song, was the only person who opposed it, with a passionate speech. Only he would have the chutzpah, the day before the Standards and Privileges Committee published its report, to oppose a Bill that was largely supported. I shall not digress, Mr Howarth. The Bill referred to Bulgaria and Romania and said that that the Government do not need to gold-plate the free movement directive. There is sufficient flexibility in respect of Romania and Bulgaria for us to invoke the key parts of the directive, such as public good, public safety, public health and the habitual residence test. We could do what Spain has done, as has been mentioned, and have a registration regime when someone arrives, when they get married, and when they change address or jobs. Those are methods of reducing the pull factor.
It would be churlish and ungrateful of me not to concede that the Government have acted. I thank the Minister for his letter of 9 April, in which he comprehensively outlines the Prime Minister’s and Home Secretary’s intentions for welfare, housing and health. However, I must say that I do not believe that the Home Office officials advising the Minister have looked sufficiently robustly at what we need to do to reassure our constituents that what they see as unfair will not come to pass from January next year. We have a lot more to do on the habitual residence test. We must start collecting the data on how much child tax credit is being remitted to Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic.