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Romanian and Bulgarian Migrants

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) on securing this important debate. As I have not had the chance to do so on the Floor of the House, may I also congratulate him on his chairmanship of the Home Affairs Committee, which is already shaping up quite an interesting agenda on the migration front for the months ahead? I very much look forward to appearing before him on 27 November, when we will discuss this issue in a little more detail. My right hon. Friend has consistently championed the case for Bulgaria and Romania, and he has invested considerable time in understanding this question in Bulgaria and Romania as well as here. He is an excellent European, and I am sure that he will not mind my saying that he is an idealist without illusions. I think he was at the Helsinki summit when the then Prime Minister made his promise to push for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. I want to join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of our ambassadors in Bulgaria and Romania, and of the diplomatic representatives of Bulgaria and Romania in this country. I should reaffirm that the UK is committed to the principles of the single market. Of course, we led the way in opening up our labour market when eight countries joined the EU in 2004, and our intention is to continue that process by opening our labour market to Bulgaria and Romania, albeit more gradually. I am very grateful for the advice tendered to us by both Governments as we put together the evidence base on which the Cabinet made its decision earlier this year. Before I respond to some of the detailed points made by my right hon. Friend, I should say that he is absolutely right to point to the wider debate about immigration that we are having, and need to have, in this country. It is a vitally important context for this decision, and the tone of respect and mutual obligation in which he composed his remarks is precisely the one that we should hear in this debate. I believe that there are signs that a new consensus is emerging. It is interesting to reflect over the past 30 or 40 years of this debate, and to look at some of the things that are different and others that have stayed the same. Back then, much of this debate was conducted in the language of race. Cabinet Ministers talked about the ““colour problem”” before legislation on this issue was passed in 1962. That is not true any more. There are two themes from those early debates that are still with us: a concern about public services, which was at the heart of some of my right hon. Friend's comments, and a concern about the way in which values are protected, preserved and enhanced, rather than diminished, in immigration policy. Those two features of the debate will, and should, stay with us over the months to come. It is therefore regrettable that, every now and again, we hear throwbacks to that unfortunate side of the debate 30 or 40 years ago. My right hon. Friend was correct to underline how right it was for the Conservative candidate in Halesowen to resign. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has had the chance to read this morning's edition of The Birmingham Post. It ran an excellent front-page leader in which it makes the point that Mr. Hastilow"““was responding to a higher level of debate started by Tory leader David Cameron, but he in fact subverted that debate by handing extremists a golden opportunity to stoke the fires of racism.””" It goes on to point out that Enoch Powell"““was actually sacked because he was hopelessly out of touch with a changing society.””" There are elements in political debate today who, I am afraid, remain as out of touch.