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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

Germany was in favour of enlargement, as were Denmark and Finland, but they all had intelligent transitional schemes that allowed them to manage the process. They took a sensible attitude towards the enlargement of the EU. The hon. Gentleman ought to know better, but this country did not and we have ended up having nearly 200,000 people come here. It was unplanned and we have yet to see whether it was a good or bad thing. Every two years since the Government have been in office, we have had a big announcement followed by a failure. In 1997, the promise was a swift and fair asylum system. The reality is that it is not fair to anyone—not to genuine refugees, lumped in with the fraudsters and forced to plead their case; not to immigrants who spend their life savings paying people smugglers for the chance to come to Britain; and not to opposition party members of Zimbabwe who are caught up in this Government’s public relations offensive and face torture or worse if they are sent back. Again, in 1997, the Prime Minister promised to achieve firm control of immigration, but the reality is that annual net immigration into the UK tripled. Another promise was made in 1999—that we would have a fairer, faster and firmer asylum system. The reality was that, a few years later, the number of asylum applications in one year passed 100,000 for the first time in our history. Two years on, in 2001, the promise was to remove more failed asylum seekers from Britain. The result was that a smaller proportion is removed now than was the case when this Government came to office. In 2003, the Government promised to"““derail the gravy train of legal aid””," but the result is that the legal aid budget for asylum and immigration has soared by 682 per cent.—from £26 million to £204 million. This year—election year—the shortest lived announcement of all was made. While the Prime Minister was quickly adding his sixth election pledge and promising to get a grip on immigration, almost simultaneously the Home Secretary was telling a private meeting of Labour supporters:"““We want more migration, more people coming to study and to work. We want more people coming to look for refuge.””" One statement or the other is true: both of them cannot be. We are locked in a two-year cycle of big announcements, bold promises and botched policies.