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Points-Based Immigration System

It always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). He spoke for 40 minutes but did not tell us precisely what the policy of the Conservative party would be in respect of immigration. On the central point of the Conservative party's policy—the cap—he refuses to spell out in the House or outside exactly what numbers he is talking about. If the Conservative party wishes to play the numbers game, it should be specific about what those numbers would be. It is sad that he was not able to be specific. We learned something new today: the Minister carefully studies the speeches of the hon. Member for Ashford, and the hon. Gentleman carefully studies the Minister's speeches. Between them they have spoken for an hour and a half. Perhaps they should send each other e-mails to reduce the length of their speeches in the House. However, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on so many occasions. I do not wish to pick on him because he was so generous, as was the hon. Gentleman. This is a short debate, so I shall not give way as much as they did if anyone seeks to intervene on me. The Minister began, rightly, in a measured way by talking about the benefits of migration. Although the hon. Member for Ashford has a particular attachment to the House of Lords report, everyone in the House recognises that the United Kingdom is a great country because of the arrival of so many immigrants throughout its history, including the Asian community over the past 30 to 40 years and the Irish community over a longer period than that. As we heard from the Work Foundation report, which was published today, the arrival of high levels of immigration has benefited us and the economy, and that has been good for the country as a whole. I shall deal with the continuing problem that we seem to have in the immigration debate and that has now gripped the tabloid media. I am thinking of the arrival of the central and eastern Europeans in the United Kingdom. That happened under our treaty obligations, into which we entered in good faith. We originally signed up to those obligations when we accepted the principle of freedom of movement, which happened when the right hon. Member for St. Albans was in the Cabinet. The Maastricht treaty and subsequent treaties all enabled this country to honour those commitments.