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Managed Migration

As my hon. Friend notes from a sedentary position behind me, Australia is entirely different—in scale, geography, history, and in terms of its economic needs and demands. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to lump together the Australian system and the points-based system proposed for this country. Essentially, and critically, the UK is not a federal system in quite the same way as are Australia’s six states and one territory. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire draws parallels with Ireland, and conveniently suggests that Irish history began about 12 years ago. He prays in aid a small nation that, until recently, was the one European country with a population much smaller than it was 100 years ago, for all the obvious reasons. I am the son of an Irish economic migrant, and I glory in the success of the Irish economy, but the parallels that the hon. Gentleman draws are, at best, hysterical—I am sorry, I mean ahistorical, although they are probably hysterical as well. They are not appropriate in any way, shape or form, not least for reasons to do with regulation. As I said earlier, I am enormously gratified by the overwhelmingly positive welcome that the Command Paper has received. We will go further by the summer, when we will lay out what we consider to be the next steps, in respect of both consultation and detail. We do not underestimate the nature of the task in any way. Another piece of nonsense to emerge from the debate was the myth that the CRB is a basket case in IT terms. That is not true: the CRB is hugely successful, and works very well. As with passports, the problem was that not enough time was allowed for the introduction of new systems, which were introduced in a big-bang fashion. The things that have been said about the CRB and the passport regime are of no relevance now, even though they are constantly offered as shibboleths for explaining why Government IT systems fail. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East made a good point about the sophisticated requirements for training and resourcing entry clearing officers. The process is under way already, and the Government intend to set out how such elements, along with the new IT systems that are needed, will be implemented over the next 18 months or so. However, if some of the matters that have been alluded to mean that the process needs to take a little longer, so be it. As I said, we do not underestimate the size of the task in any way. These reforms amount to the most significant change in our approach to migration in 30 or 40 years. They do not conform to the rather fatuous description given by the hon. Member for Ashford, who said that they proved that everything that the Government had done previously was wrong. They will radically transform our migration system, which has not been fit for purpose for as long as 40 years. Successive Governments have cumulatively bolted adaptations on to that system and, although I accept that that has happened since 1997, I assure the House that it went on for a long time before that. We are now in a position to implement the managed migration system that this country, collectively, needs. We are ready to have a sane and rational debate about the substantive details of the new system, and about what immigration contributes to the country. The British public will thank us enormously for that. It is clear that most hon. Members are ready for the move, but it will be nice when the Conservative Front Bench catches up with everyone else.