I agree with my hon. Friend.
Such an honest debate must include discussion of how we assist communities that face challenges because of significant levels of migration. It must be about how we incentivise migrants to live in the parts of the United Kingdom that most need them and can most easily accommodate them. It should be about whether and how we can properly count those coming in and out, and how we can enforce the rules we already have, rather than create endless new rules. The debate must no longer proceed on the basis of the vicious climate of hostility policy that the Government pursue, and which affects all of us. We need a better approach to migration than the ludicrous one-size-fits-all target, which actually incentivises—my hon. Friend alluded to this—the exclusion of husbands and wives, the persecuted and the bright young students who will be the leaders of tomorrow.
We should reject this flawed Bill, which is designed to pursue a flawed target. Indeed, saying that it seeks to pursue that flawed target is in itself almost certainly being too kind, because it has zero chance of getting us anywhere near the target. This is not pursuit, but pretence. The Bill has been well described as “immigration theatre”. That is the fundamental flaw at the heart of the Bill, but there are so many problems with its pernicious clauses that it is not possible to do them all justice in the time available.
The Government may feel compelled to be seen to do something about net migration, but in reality the Bill will do nothing to resolve the challenges of migration, nor to maximise its benefits, and it will not certainly achieve the bogus target. However we look at it—from the perspective of the rule of law, human rights, the best interests of children, or just simple common decency—the Bill is pretty desperate stuff. I encourage Members to vote against it on Third Reading.
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