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Points-Based Immigration System

The chances of our having a huge influx from the European Union in normal years are minimal. However, I shall come to that point later, when the hon. Gentleman will perhaps want to intervene on me if he disagrees. It is bizarre that even when it became clear that the estimates for EU immigration were wildly wrong, the Government did not take rapid countervailing measures. Clearly they could not do much to affect the flow from the accession states; nor would it have been right to do so. We in this country benefit enormously from the free movement of people in the European Union. Indeed, more British people live in other member states than other member states' nationals live here. That might have something to do with the sunshine or with other factors. Whatever the reason, pulling up the drawbridge on other EU nationals could cause a wholesale repatriation of British pensioners from Spain and Portugal, for example, which would be disastrous for our own public services and would deprive many of our citizens of an option that they clearly prefer. However, it would be wise to use immigration flows from non-EU countries, over which we have some control, as a balancing factor. The Government have not done that. Therefore, net immigration—immigration minus emigration from the UK—of non-British people trebled from fewer than 100,000 a year in the early 1990s to more than 300,000 in 2006. That is a large, completely unplanned and unforeseen increase. As I have said, the British people are a tolerant lot. We have been open to waves of immigration on a greater scale throughout our history than almost any other European country, and we have benefited enormously from that. Far from being an island fastness, our easy access to the sea means that we have always been more open than many other countries. However, one thing that the British people will rightly not tolerate is incompetence from their Government, but that is what we have seen in the mismanagement of immigration over the past 10 years. Nor can the official Opposition escape responsibility in this regard, as it was the last Conservative Government who took leave of their senses and began the process of dismantling exit controls. Perhaps they thought that we did not need to worry about anyone leaving. However, their action ignored the disastrous consequence that we were no longer able to check whether non-EU visitors had overstayed their visas. An essential element of control was lost, and that is why the Liberal Democrats have argued that the Government must get a grip on the management of immigration through a national border force—an idea that has now been taken up elsewhere in the House—and the reintroduction of exit controls. The results of the recent mismanagement were detailed by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). They include local authorities not having the resources to tackle the needs of new communities, health authorities being unable to plan for the needs of their populations, and police services being stretched because population projections have been so far out. There have also been parts of the country in which particular trades have been hard hit. It is not easy for a trained brickie to find that their skills now earn only a fraction of what they got a couple of years ago. If the points-based system gives us a better grip on these random impacts of immigration, that will be all to the good, and a balancing factor between EU and non-EU immigration seems to be an essential part of that, alongside a greater effort to predict and respond to local impacts and to ensure that local authorities have the means to make the necessary adjustments. The official Opposition have called for a national cap on immigration, which suggests that they have forgotten their other commitment, to the market economy. The needs of market economies are not always easy to forecast, and they are certainly impossible to plan. There has to be a flexibility, which a rigid cap would belie. With great respect to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who intervened to give us instruction on what it means to respect market economics and the price level, I have to tell him that when I was employing people in the City, there were occasions on which I needed to hire someone with particularly unusual skills that I could find only in New York or elsewhere. The idea that there was going to be a sudden market clearing because the price would go up was absolute nonsense, because it takes a number of years to train someone and to equip them with an economics PhD, let alone some of the other qualifications required. If the official Opposition's policy had been operating at that time, the impact on my business could have been devastating. We must not use excessively blunt policy instruments to score cheap hits in the tabloid headlines. In addition, it is not obvious to me that all parts of the country have the same needs. That is a point that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) quite rightly made. It is another reason why a national cap might well be inappropriate. For example, there is a strong desire north of the border for Scotland's population to stop falling and, if anything, to rise. Scotland has more than one third of the UK's land area, but less than 10 per cent. of our population. Exactly the opposite situation arises in my own region in the south-east, where the density of population now substantially exceeds that of the most densely populated country in Europe, the Netherlands. Moreover, we have arguably reached the limits of natural sustainability—for example, in water resources. We have had recent examples of the impact of drought in the south-east, and the UK as a whole—though primarily the south of England—has less available water per person than most other European countries. London is, in fact, drier than Istanbul, and Waterwise has pointed out that the south-east of England has less water available per person than the Sudan or Syria. It may be strictly outside the scope of this debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but surely we as policy makers must have some view about the sustainability of our own population—and I challenge the hon. Member for Ashford to answer that point. In turn, that must have some consequences for how the Government adjust the tap of non-EU immigration. I accept that the logic of ensuring that immigration is appropriate in different parts of the country may be to adjust the points system to take account of the area in which the proposed immigrant wants to settle, perhaps making visas conditional on particular travel-to-work areas in the first instance. One may not want to apply conditions subsequently, but it is a policy option that we should put on the table and discuss since the points-based system would allow for some variation in the points awarded according to the proposed area of work within the UK—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) wish to intervene?