I will not give way.
Many people in this country from poor and working-class backgrounds do not have a passport. They have not applied for one. They do not go off to France or southern Italy on holiday every summer, or save up to go to India or the Caribbean. They are lucky if they get to Skegness at best. They have no passport and now they will be forced to buy one because landlords cannot always determine where somebody is from and will want to be sure. Those people without passports will be passed over and others will get preferential treatment.
My father would be rolling in his grave and I can tell Members who would be smiling: Peter Rachman, that famous landlord in Notting Hill who caused so much damage to so many people. It is an absolute shame that we are going down this road.
Despite all the Government’s discussions of the importance of our global economy, anyone who believed in the importance of trade and our export market would do nothing to damage the higher education sector, which brings in £14 billion from the students who come to this country. Every vice-chancellor would say that this Government have got things wrong in their treatment of students and higher education, just as 82% of landlords are asking, “Please do not give us this power. We do not want the power, we are not policemen and we do not want to do this. The Government should do this.” What is the Government’s record? What about the UKBA? How effective is it as an agency? How does it stack up on the list of effectiveness? It is one of the most appalling agencies we have ever seen in this country and that is why the Government have had to tinker with it, change it, get rid of it and take it back into the Home Office.
Why, when 70,000 appeals are being made, 50% of which succeed, would the Government deny people the right to appeal? Because of the race to the bottom, because of the UK Independence party and because we have failed to have the honest discussion with the British public about what we have failed to invest in. Yes, the
last election was marked by this issue, but in 2005 I had to canvass across the country while looking at the posters with that scribbled writing, “It’s okay to talk about immigration—it’s not racism.” I remember those Conservative party posters. We will have that debate again and I hope that the British people will recognise the nastiness at the core of the discussion. In the end, we do down our country when we walk down that road.
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