My Lords, perhaps I should begin by declaring an interest as the son of an immigrant—admittedly one who came here during the Second World War and, as such, was quite welcome because he immediately joined the right side, as they say. The Bill is the result of a manifesto commitment; there is no doubt about that. There is no surprise. The Government won an election with the main provisions of the Bill clearly in the manifesto. It is been an interesting debate, but the contents of the Bill are not extraordinarily right wing compared with the public opinion that is to be found in many areas of this country.
I have listened with great interest to the debate. Having heard the speeches from the Liberal Benches, I now understand why there are only eight Liberal Democrat Members in the House of Commons because they are totally out of touch with the feelings in the country. My good friend the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, somewhat overegged the pudding. Lots of representations will come forward on the Bill. Our job is to make it workable, but we cannot gainsay the thrust of the Bill. Indeed, had there been a different result in the election in the summer, the Labour Party would also have been looking at bringing forward some legislation because some points covered in the Bill need covering. Indeed, the Labour Party has agreed with a number of the points in the Bill.
I saw on the lunchtime news that the number of illegal immigrants coming into the European Union has now exceeded 1 million this year. Of course, very few of them come to Britain. Many of them have gone to Germany and a good proportion to Sweden, but that could well not be the end of the story. As some noble Lords know, I hold a different view on Syria from many of them. If Assad is toppled and his defence of the minority communities ends, we will see a refugee tide that we will feel obliged to help. We will see a very large refugee tide sweeping into Europe. I have said this before, but we should be careful what we wish for there.
I also briefly mention the economic consequences of migration. I was recently in Frankfurt talking to an economist at the ECB. He made an interesting point that the cost of migration in Germany this year will be about 0.5% of GDP. Germany estimates that in five years’ time, the cost will be zero and in 10 years’ time the migrant community will contribute positively to German GDP. We must get away from the image that all migrants are necessarily bad. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Horam mentioned the conflict between the migrants who work in our hospitals, who are welcomed into our country, and others who somehow are not seen as being quite as good or quite as welcome.