Immigration Update

With permission, I would like to make a statement on immigration.

The Government are committed to reducing immigration—both legal and illegal—into the United Kingdom. Legal immigration has risen in recent years in part because we have extended the hand of friendship to people fleeing conflict and persecution in Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. That was the right thing to do. But another factor has been the numbers of overseas students and workers and their dependants rising to unsustainable levels. The steps that the Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) announced last year to cut net migration will mean that around 300,000 people who would have been eligible to come to the UK will now not be.

We have restricted most students from bringing dependent family members, increased the salary that most skilled worker migrants need to earn in order to obtain a visa by nearly 50% to £38,700, stopped overseas care workers bringing dependent family members with them, raised the minimum income for family visas to ensure that people are supported financially, and scrapped the 20% going rate salary discount for shortage occupations and replaced the shortage occupation list with a new immigration salary discount list. The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics show that net migration in the year to June 2023 was 672,000, 73,000 lower than it was six months earlier. The figures are provisional and we need to go further, but these are encouraging signs.

The latest statistics show that the numbers applying for skilled worker, health and care and study visas in the first three months of 2024 were down by 24% on the same period last year. We removed, from 1 January, the right of students starting courses—other than those on postgraduate research programmes and Government-funded scholarships—to bring dependants to the UK via the student visa route. The number of applications for student dependant visas has fallen by 80% since our changes came into force. From 11 March 2024, we have stopped overseas care workers bringing family dependants here, and have required social care firms in England to be registered with the Care Quality Commission to sponsor visas. In the year ending September 2023, an estimated 120,000 dependants came here via that route. In the first three months of 2024, the number of applications for health and care visas was down by 28%—and this is just the start; most of our changes have only just come into force.

Meanwhile, we remain committed to stopping the boats. Following Royal Assent for the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and the ratification of our treaty with Rwanda, we can operationalise our plan to relocate illegal migrants to Rwanda. Rwanda is a safe country that has repeatedly shown its ability to offer asylum seekers a chance to build new and prosperous lives. It has a strong and successful track record of resettling people, hosting more than 135,000 refugees, and it stands ready to accept thousands more who want to rebuild their lives and who cannot stay in the UK. Once flights begin, we will have added another vital deterrent to crack down on the people-smuggling gangs who treat human beings as cargo. The first illegal migrants set to be removed to Rwanda have now been detained, following a series of nationwide operations this week. Operational teams within the Home Office have been working apace to detain, safely and swiftly, individuals who are in scope for relocation to Rwanda, with more activity due to be carried out in the coming weeks. This action is a key part of the plan to deliver flights to Rwanda in the next few weeks.

We have made solid progress in stopping the boats, although we need to finish the job. The number of small boat arrivals fell by more than a third in 2023, and our work with international partners prevented more than 26,000 crossings last year as well as helping to dismantle 82 organised crime groups since July 2020. Our new agreement with Albania has cut Albanian small boat arrivals by more than 90%, and we recently signed a groundbreaking deal with Frontex—the European Border and Coast Guard Agency—which marked another crucial step in the securing of our borders. An initial cohort in the thousands of suitable cases for removal to Rwanda has been identified and placed on immigration bail, with strict reporting conditions. We have a range of measures in place to ensure that we remain in contact with individuals, including both face-to-face and digital reporting, and Immigration Enforcement has a range of powers to trace and locate any individuals who abscond, as well as a dedicated team of tracing officers who work with the police, other Government agencies and commercial companies to help trace individuals and bring them back into contact. It would, of course, be inappropriate for me to comment further on operational activity.

Immigration has enriched this country beyond measure, but it needs to be sustainable and it needs to be fair. Legal immigration should be focused on helping those in genuine need, and on ensuring that our economy has the skills that it needs in order to flourish. It is simply not right for those who can afford to pay gangsters to jump ahead of those who would play by the rules, and whose need is greater. No one needs to flee to the UK from a safe country such as France. Both illegal immigration and unsustainable legal migration place intolerable burdens on communities, and over time they will undermine support for immigration in general, which would be a tragedy. That is why this Government have a plan, which we are putting into action. There is further to go, but we are seeing its positive impact already. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Minister.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, but I have to say that this really is getting quite difficult to watch. Not for the first time, the Minister has come to the Dispatch Box desperately fishing for compliments, when it is his Government, his Home Secretary and his Prime Minister who are the cause of the catastrophic state of both the work-based migration and asylum systems. This is their bin fire—their chaos—yet they expect praise each time they half-heartedly attempt to throw a single teacup of water towards the flames.

Net migration has trebled since 2019 to a barely comprehensible 745,000. Under this Government, the number of people crossing in small boats has spiralled from a few hundred in 2018 to tens of thousands every year. It was toe-curlingly embarrassing to watch the Minister claim that he has made “solid progress” on stopping the boats, when this year the number of crossers is at the highest level on record—more than 7,000 between January and April.

It was excruciatingly painful to watch the Home Secretary boast on social media about removing people with no right to be here, when the removal of failed asylum seekers has collapsed by 44% under this Government since 2010, when the removal of foreign criminals has plummeted by 27%, and when he has completely lost track of the 3,500 asylum seekers he claims have been identified for deportation to Rwanda. It is also painful to hear Government figures bragging in the media that their Rwanda policy is somehow a success because a single person, who did not even cross the channel on a small boat, has chosen to fly to Rwanda voluntarily, with thousands of pounds of Government money stuffed into his pocket by the Home Secretary. This is not a policy; it is a headline-chasing gimmick, a fiasco and a farce.

Labour has been absolutely clear that we reject the £500 million Rwanda scheme, based on its unaffordability and unworkability. It will cover only 1% of small-boat asylum seekers, and the Government have no plan for the other 99%. We will repurpose that money to smash the criminal smuggler gangs with our new cross-border police unit and a security partnership with Europol. Crucially, our new returns and enforcement unit will ensure that more flights take off to other countries, which will remove foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and visa overstayers so that we can restore some control and integrity to our asylum system in a way that is firm, fair and well managed. We will also end the use of 250 asylum hotels and other inappropriate accommodation for asylum seekers, which is costing the British taxpayer millions of pounds every single day.

What a quite extraordinary response! The fact is that this is a Government who have a credible plan to bring net migration down by 300,000, and all those measures are now in flight. As I have been able to set out for the House, it is beginning to deliver the results we said it would deliver.

I will take no lectures from the shadow Front Bench about the issue of domestic employment. I was one of the Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions that was proud to bring forward the back to work plan and the comprehensive reforms of the welfare system that we are taking forward as a Government. We are also seeing enormous cross-Government join-up to support more domestic workers into those roles. That is the right thing to do: to support people in this country to take on those roles and fill those vacancies. And let us not forget the record of every single Labour Government: without fail, they leave unemployment higher at the time of leaving office than it was at the start. Under this Government, we have seen record low unemployment benefiting communities across the country.

We have begun the process of delivering the measures in relation to legal migration, and we are also delivering when it comes to illegal migration. We have a plan. We are now getting on and closing hotels—150 asylum hotels have been closed. That is a positive thing. It is the right thing to do to make sure that we accommodate people in appropriate accommodation, but get away from the model of providing hotel accommodation for people. What is Labour’s plan on that? We have seen massive gains when it comes to asylum decision making and productivity around those processes. What is Labour’s policy on that? We have seen crossings down by over a third last year compared with the year before. We have seen Albanian arrivals falling by 90%. Again, what is Labour’s offering to achieve likewise? There isn’t one.

We will continue to sustain the progress that we have made, and we know from everything that has been said in recent days that the Rwanda policy is beginning to have the desired effect: the deterrent is clear. When it comes to the hon. Gentleman’s meagre offering, I would just say that we have already doubled funding for the National Crime Agency for organised immigration crime work, and we already have approximately 5,000 officials working on these matters within migration and borders. That is all that Labour Members are offering; it virtually resembles a blank sheet of paper. The truth is that they offer no deterrent. They have nowhere to send people. They have no plan. They have no solutions. They try to bluff that they do, but they are kidding nobody. They are terrified that our plan is going to work. They are terrified that they will have to scrap it, and they are terrified that they have no alternative. Only we have a plan. It is delivering results and we will see it through.

Again, no hint of a plan for how we deal with failed asylum seekers from countries to which they cannot be returned without the Rwanda scheme. I am pleased with the progress that the Minister has made on reducing net migration, but I am worried about the figures that came out yesterday. Of the 5,700 migrants who have been identified for removal, only 2,145 can be located. This reflects the evidence from the second permanent secretary to the Home Affairs Committee earlier in the year, when some 17,000 failed asylum seekers who should have been removed could not be located. Where are these people, and what is the Department doing about tracking them down and making sure that they can be removed, as needs to happen as swiftly as possible?

My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot go into the granularity of the operational work that is ongoing to ensure that we can deliver on this policy, but I can say that an initial cohort of suitable cases of around 2,000 people has been identified for removal, and they have been placed on immigration bail with strict reporting conditions.

For those outside that group, there is still a wide range of tools to maintain contact with them. That includes, as I said earlier, face-to-face and digital reporting, and many individuals also reside within Home Office accommodation. The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) leads on this work and he is confident of the whereabouts, once the decision to detain is made, and this is just one of the cohorts of people who may be eligible for removal to Rwanda. The policy is clear and we are getting on and operationalising it. That includes detaining people for the purposes of relocation.

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

It is hard to know where to start with this complete and utter drivel. The Minister comes here today proud of this tawdry, pathetic, self-defeating piece of fascist nonsense—[Interruption.] The Tories—[Interruption.] They do not like it, but it is true and I will explain to them why. The Home Office has put out—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, they do not like the truth. The Home Office has issued a promo video this morning of people being detained, and it absolutely turns my stomach. This is a Government who glorify their state-sponsored people trafficking plans as they cuff people and take them out of their beds to be sent to another country against their will. It is sickening.

These plans are damaging to our society, to our economy, to the people who need care and to the people who want to love, live and study here. Universities are up in arms about the cuts to student numbers. It makes absolutely no sense. The draft rules that the Government have issued on adults at risk in immigration detention were released this week, but instead of taking action on the serious recommendations of the Brook House inquiry, the Home Office is instead doubling down on its policy of indefinite detention. And Labour Members are going along with all of this. Shame on them.

Far from what the Minister said, small boat arrivals are up this year. Rwanda is no deterrent because none of their other policies has proved a deterrent. The thousands of people they want to send there have disappeared, never to be seen again, and who can really blame them, if they are going to be plucked from their beds and taken away by Ministers and sent to countries against their will? Indeed, who can blame them? The risk is that these people will end up being exploited because they have gone into hiding. They will be exploited, they will be trafficked and they will be vulnerable. Why is the Minister not acknowledging the impact that this policy will have on vulnerable people?

It is a perfectly respectable position to want to protect our borders. It is right and proper to want to ensure that we have a fair and balanced system of legal migration that is sustainable. I make no apology whatsoever—and nor will this Government or any of the Ministers in the Home Office—for placing front and centre the determination to protect people’s lives. We have seen too many lives lost in the channel at the hands of evil criminal gangs with no regard whatsoever for human life who take people’s money, exploit them and send them out to sea in unseaworthy vessels. Candidly, beyond that, I am not going to edify the hon. Lady’s contribution with anything further.

I very much welcome the fact that the Minister is able to come to this House with the first encouraging signs of lower migration numbers, which will be welcomed widely outside this House—including, I suspect, in Scotland. Does he agree that the lesson we should draw from this is that taking practical, detailed measures to crack down on the exploitation of certain types of visa routes is the way to make progress on bringing immigration numbers down, rather than the windy rhetoric we heard from the Opposition spokesman?

My right hon. Friend is a distinguished former Home Office Minister who had responsibilities in the immigration space, and I would argue that a lot of the measures that we have announced, and that are now all in flight, build on the earlier efforts of colleagues such as him. He is absolutely right that the policies are balanced and measured and that they deliver on the legitimate aim of wanting to reduce inflows of legal migration into our country, to ensure fairness, to ensure that the model is sustainable and to ensure that people who come here are able to be properly supported. I think that that is something that the British people strongly support, and I entirely share his sentiments.

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

The National Audit Office estimates that it will cost £11,000 per person to fly people to Rwanda. Can the Minister tell the House which airline he will use to transport people to Rwanda? What is his estimate of the number of people who will be sent to Rwanda in the first three months of operating the policy?

The Chairman of the Select Committee, for whom I have enormous respect and admiration, will understand why I am not going to get into operationally or commercially sensitive matters on the Floor of the House. We have consistently seen great efforts to thwart this policy, in a whole host of senses, over the course of weeks, months and years. We will not be thwarted. We have made commitments, and we will get on with delivering this policy. There is a plan and, as the Prime Minister has said, we will send a flight within the next 10 to 12 weeks. That is where our focus lies, and it would be entirely inappropriate to share the logistics on the Floor of the House.

As mass migration has been shown to depress GDP per capita, and as it is clear that it is easier to control the much higher number of legal migrants, may I encourage the Government to return to their promise of having migration in the tens of thousands?

Again, I am not going to set out today what the Government’s future ambitions may be. What I am able to say is that we have a package of measures that is delivering a reduction of 300,000 in net migration, spanning various different routes. I think it is a very credible offer to meet the ambition of the British people to bring those numbers down, not least for the reason that my right hon. Friend touches on: legal migration to this country needs to be sustainable. When we consider, for example, that we saw 100,000 care workers come with 120,000 dependants, I do not think that any fair-minded person would, by any objective yardstick, think that that was a reasonable position. That is why we are bringing it to an end, and I am pleased that the measures we have introduced are delivering results.

The Times reports this morning that the number of visas granted for care workers in March this year was 83% down on the figure for March 2023. Does the Minister expect that reduction to continue? If he does, who will do the work that those carers would have done, and what impact does he think it might have on the national health service?

We have committed to monthly reporting on the net migration measures we have introduced to allow Parliament and others to take a view on our progress. There are extensive efforts across Government to employ more people from our domestic labour force. I wish Liberal Democrat Members were as enthusiastic as I am about the back to work plan and our work on recruitment and retention. We are taking forward those credible efforts to try to support more people in this country into these roles. We are also working intensively to improve the processes for rematching individuals who are already here on health and social care visas. These are the right steps to take, and I will not pre-empt what the figures might look like in the coming months. The right hon. Gentleman will be able to look at them in the same way as everybody else.