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Points-Based Immigration System

I shall certainly try my utmost, although I may not get it right on every occasion. In creating the points system, we are trying to remove a degree of the instability which has bedevilled changes in the immigration rules over the past 40 or 50 years. We want a system that is more open, transparent, predictable and stable, and an end to policy changes that are not anticipated and are often retrospective. Although I believe that there will be a element of consensus on some of the basic policies, I also believe that we should be frank about the element that divides us. The cap which has been has been proposed does not constitute a limit on overall migration. According to the international passenger survey of 2006, 229,000 people entered the United Kingdom, about 77,000 of whom were returning British citizens. I am delighted that no Member so far has proposed to prevent British citizens from returning home. About 136,000 were European citizens. Again, I think that there is all-party support for the principle of free movement. It is a little-known fact that there have been some nine free movement directives since we joined the European Union. Seven were passed under Conservative Administrations and two under Labour Administrations. The 2004 directive was unopposed. Of the people who entered the United Kingdom during the period covered by the survey, 114,000 were students. We are now educating people from all over the world, and it is an important part of our economy, worth some £8.5 billion. Another 74,000 of the people who came in were dependants—and there is now a degree of consensus that we should not reintroduce the primary purpose rule, which this Government abolished in 1997. That leaves the number of non-EU citizens coming to this country to work, which the Office for National Statistics says is about 101,000. If we were to add in a reasonable share of their dependants, that would mean that about 140,000 people will be affected by the proposed cap. That is, of course, only about 30 per cent. of the non-British people who came in. In effect, therefore, the proposed cap is not really a cap at all; it is more of a colander. The number for the cap is a secret. The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) has proposed that the net balance should be zero, whereas the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) wisely said in The Guardian a year or two ago that it would be wrong to speculate too far in advance on what the right number might be; I acknowledge his caution, and he is probably right. It would be helpful if Members of all parties made it clear that this cap would affect only, at best, 20 to 30 per cent. of the people who came into this country. When I look at these numbers, therefore, I see that there is probably more of a consensus in this House than a difference.