Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Robert Steele was a beautiful four-year-old boy who died three weeks ago in Newark when he was thrown from an off-road bike that was being driven by a 24-year-old man. This is the culmination of a number of incidents in my town, and many others across the country, involving off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.”
“The Minister said that Governments are elected to lead. Most people would assume that means that Ministers are elected to lead, because they are accountable to Parliament and to the people.”
“There is an air of total unreality hanging over this debate. Successive Governments have run down our Royal Navy to its present enfeebled state, they have conspired to surrender other British sovereign territory and we have a Government who procrastinate about signing off a new oil field in the North sea—let alone about one in the south A…”
“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his position. I have known him for a long time—I wish him well. He has a huge task ahead of him. Earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister said that walking the streets of Makerfield lodged in his mind that so many working people want to see the personal allowance raised.”
“Imagine that you are a worker at JLR worried about your future, and you have the misfortune of watching the Chancellor’s speech, which contains searing economic insights like, “I want to see businesses make a profit.” There was nothing about scrapping electric vehicle mandates, bringing down energy costs by getting rid of net zero targets…”
“The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on th…”
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“We are also working with the UK Health Security Agency to work through some of the challenges the hon. Gentleman raised around communicable diseases, and to ensure that, when migrants come to vessels of this kind, they have been properly health screened in advance and offered vaccines, where appropriate, and that the correct checks and processes are in place to ensure diseases do not spread throughout the vessel or into the local community. Those are exactly the sorts of questions that we would now want to work through with Wirral Council, the hon. Gentleman and other local stakeholders. I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the Floor of the House, and for raising understandable and important concerns on behalf of his constituents.”
“We would also provide funding for the police in Merseyside to ensure they are able to support the safety of the migrants on the vessel, the security of the port and the safety of residents in neighbouring communities. We would also work with the local integrated care board to ensure that there is suitable healthcare provision. What we are offering on a similar vessel in Portland in Dorset is a basic primary care facility located on or beside the vessel sufficient to meet the immediate needs of the migrants, and reduce pressures on local GPs and primary care providers, and some funding to the local healthcare authorities to ensure they are able to provide that and that there are minimal knock-on consequences for the wider healthcare economy.”
“The use of a vessel, whether it be at Birkenhead or in any other location in the UK, would only be for a very limited period. In most cases, we have proposed using these vessels for 18 months, after which they would be moved away and a different solution found. The hon. Gentleman raised the understandable concern about the impact on his local authority and other local services in his area. All parts of the country face pressures on public services, but I understand that Birkenhead has particular challenges in respect of deprivation and we as national Government should take those challenges seriously. If we were to proceed with the project, we would provide funding to Wirral Council to recompense it for any work it does to support the project.”
“Indeed, some are ferries that have been used for police and other staff at the Olympics or at COP26 in Glasgow. It would therefore be wrong to characterise them as inhumane or indecent. That is not the intention of the Government. The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the important regeneration project at Wirral Waters. As a former Local Government Secretary, I am familiar with that, as there was—and I believe continues to be—a role for Homes England in its development. Nothing that the Government do should in any way imperil the success of that important regeneration project. We have already made that commitment to the parties we have spoken to and, in our future engagement with Wirral Council, we will do everything we can, should that project proceed, to protect the integrity of the Wirral Waters scheme.”
“Gentleman implied that this was an unorthodox approach. It is one that is being used both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe today. The Scottish Government have used vessels to house Ukrainian refugees, for example, in Leith in Edinburgh, over the last year or two. My understanding is that that experience has been broadly successful both for the refugees and for the local community. The local council has been extremely helpful in supporting those individuals and the Government have rightly provided resource to the council to meet the costs of doing that. The barges and ferries that the UK Government are looking at have in many cases been used by British workers, such as those working on large construction sites, or oil and gas projects.”
“Gentleman’s specific questions. He asked whether the vessel would be, in his words, a “prison ship” or a non-detained facility. The Home Office has no intention of using the vessel as a detained facility. The migrants who would be housed on it would be living in a non-detained manner, which means that they could leave the boat and spend time on the shore, whether that be in communities nearby in Birkenhead or further afield. That would be carefully managed by the Home Office to ensure the safety of the migrants, community cohesion and the impact on local town centres and high streets. There are ways in which we are able to do that, which we have learned throughout our experiences elsewhere in the country, such as at the non-detained facility that we operate at Napier in Kent. The hon.”
“However, we have identified the port as a potentially viable location and are seeking to engage the local authority, the local NHS, police, other emergency services and other public agencies to help to inform a final decision. A multi-agency forum is being established, and will meet imminently, to assess the risks and identify mitigating actions. The forum, like others that we have established elsewhere in the country, will include representatives from national, regional and local public sector agencies and the Home Office. I hope that local stakeholders, including Wirral Council, will participate in the forum in the collaborative manner envisaged. It is certainly important for statutory officers, such as those of the council, to participate and fulfil their responsibilities. I will use this opportunity to answer some of the hon.”
“The challenge we are facing as a country is a significant one and it calls for innovative approaches, such as the use of military sites and vessels. These sites are undoubtedly in the national interest and the UK Government approach is in step with those of our northern European counterparts. A number of other European countries, such as Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, are looking at similar approaches and how they can house very large numbers of asylum seekers in ways that are of lower cost to the taxpayer and more sustainable while they work to find solutions to the migration crisis that the whole continent is experiencing. We have not made a final decision to place a vessel in Birkenhead port.”
“The enduring solution is of course to stop the boats and break the business model of the people smugglers, which is why we have brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill. In the meantime, however, it is right that we take steps to minimise the impact on local communities and reduce the burden on the taxpayer of the use of hotels. The Home Secretary and I have been clear that hotels are inappropriate and we must shift to more suitable forms of accommodation. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a hotel in Kirkby in the Liverpool city region which was the subject of violence—unacceptable levels of violence—earlier this year, but that highlighted the difficulties of pursuing this route for housing asylum seekers and the need to find better, more sustainable solutions.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for securing this debate. The concerns of Members of this House and their constituents should be taken seriously, and they are being taken seriously. I will set out shortly the work we are doing and are looking to do with Birkenhead. First, however, it is right to set this in the national context, as the hon. Gentleman did, because the situation we as a country find ourselves in is not sustainable. The number of people crossing the channel in small boats has placed the asylum system under enormous pressure. The continued occurrence of these dangerous, illegal and wholly unnecessary journeys has left us in the invidious position of having to resort to using hotels to house asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute in order to fulfil our legal obligations.”
“We are taking concerted action to deliver a fair and effective immigration system that benefits our citizens, our businesses and our economy. We are determined to get this right because it is demonstrably in the national interest.”
“The package includes removing the right for international students to bring dependants unless they are on research postgraduate courses and removing the ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before their studies have been completed. This is the right and fair thing to do. It ensures we protect our public services and housing supply against undue pressure and we deliver on the promises we have made to the public to reduce net migration. Our education institutions are world-renowned, and for good reason, and the Government remain committed to the commitments in the international education strategy, including the goal of 600,000 international students coming to the United Kingdom each year. But universities should be in the education business, not the immigration business.”
“However, immigration is dynamic, and we must adapt to take account of changing behaviours and if there is evidence of abuse. The number of dependants arriving alongside international students has risen more than eightfold since 2019, from 16,000 in the year to December 2019 to 136,000 in the year ending December 2022. Dependants of students make a more limited contribution to the economy than students or those coming under the skilled worker route, but more fundamentally, our system was not designed for such large numbers of people coming here in this manner. Yesterday, we introduced a package of measures to help deliver our goal of reducing net migration.”
“Net migration is too high, and the Government are committed to bringing it down to sustainable levels. The most recent official statistics estimated that net migration in the year to June 2022 was at 504,000. This is partly due to temporary and exceptional factors such as the UK’s Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes. Last year, more than 200,000 Ukrainians and 150,000 Hong Kong British nationals overseas made use of the routes to life or time in the United Kingdom. Those schemes command broad support from the British public, and we were right to introduce them. The Government introduced a points-based system in 2020 to regain control of our borders post Brexit. We now need to decide who comes to the UK and operate a system that can flex to the changing needs of the labour market, such as the skills needs of the NHS.”
“We do not want to do anything that would harm the international reputation of our universities, but it is right that we pay particular concern to pressure on housing supply and public services, to integration and community cohesion and to making good on our commitment to the British public that we will bring down net migration, which is what the vast majority of the public want to see done.”
“It is right that universities attract the best and the brightest and that those who are on longer courses, such as PhDs or MPhils, can bring dependants with them, but it is not right that education is a back door for immigration into the country. The statistics I quoted earlier show the significant increases in the number of student dependants. In 2019, 16,000 visas were issued to student dependants. Last year, the number was 136,000—an increase of eight and a half times. In 2019, for every 10 Indian students, there was one visa issued to a dependant. Last year, that doubled to one in five. For Nigerian students studying in this country, 65,000 dependant visas were issued in 2022 to only 59,000 students.”
“No, we will not devolve immigration policy to the Scottish Government: it is right that the UK benefits from one immigration policy and that is the way it will always continue to be under this Conservative Government. I am afraid that the hon. Lady was misguided on a number of fronts. First, it was this Government who created the international education strategy, which set a target of attracting 600,000 international students to the UK. We have met that target 10 years early and are likely to exceed it this year. The action we are taking today does not take away from that goal: it ensures that there are no unintended consequences. It was never the intention of that policy to enable a very large number of dependants to come to the UK with those students.”
“Obviously that cost varies widely depending on the country of origin and the skills of those individuals. The points-based system is set up in such a way as to encourage higher-skilled individuals to come to the UK for work purposes, but my right hon. Friend is right to say that it is a relatively accessible system, and that has meant large numbers of people entering the UK for a range of different reasons in recent years. We should be acutely concerned about the pressures that is putting on housing supply, public services and integration, particularly in those parts of the country with heated housing markets, such as the one he represents. That is why it is right that we take action of the kind we are taking today.”
“Gentleman support, that will make a tangible difference on this issue. It will reduce very substantially the number of people coming into the country as dependants, but there might be more that needs to be done. We are determined to tackle this issue and to ensure that we bring net migration down.”
“I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman has had a damascene conversion to tighter border controls. Unfortunately, I do not think the British public will believe that. It is the same old Labour party—the party that has always believed in open borders. Its own leader campaigned for the leadership of the Labour party saying that he wanted to defend free movement. Only the other day, the chairwoman of the Labour party, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), said that she expected migration to rise under a future Labour Government. It is the same flip-flopping approach—and the same open door policy. We want to ensure that we bring net migration down. We consider that to be a solemn promise to the British public, and an important manifesto commitment. This is a significant policy, which I am glad to hear the hon.”
“It may be, if individuals come to the UK to study and then spend a period of time here on the graduate route, and certainly if they bring dependants, that we will start to see a significant increase in the number of people staying here, making a life in the UK and not returning home, in which case policies of this kind will become more important.”
“I respect my right hon. Friend and his deep knowledge of this area, but I do not think it is helpful to change the way in which the statistics are reported. I do think that we have to consider the fact that anyone coming into this country will place pressure on our housing supply and on public services, particularly if they are bringing dependants, including young children or elderly relatives, into the UK. In the present climate, in which there is significant pressure on public services and significant pressure on housing, particularly in certain parts of the country, that is extremely important. We have seen, historically, that the vast majority of students leave the country and go back to their home country to continue their careers and lives. It is too early to say whether the graduate route will make a material difference to that.”
“Lady an example, last year there were 315,000 foreign masters students in the UK. These are very large numbers of individuals, and if those people were to bring dependants at scale, it would put pressure on public services and on housing in the UK. I am surprised the hon. Lady does not appreciate that, particularly given the state of some public services in Scotland.”
“We did think very carefully about this measure and had detailed conversations with colleagues across Government, including of course the Department for Education, and indeed with universities. In my experience, leaders of universities understand the issue we are grappling with here. They can see for themselves the significant increase in the number of dependants who have come to the UK in recent years, and why the Government would feel the need to take action. The measures we are putting in place will ensure that there will still be a route for student dependants to come to the UK for research courses, such as PhDs, where people will be here for a sustained period of time, but there will not be that route when people are here for short courses. To give the hon.”
“I do think the package of measures that we have announced will make a tangible difference to net migration. Taken together with the easing of exceptional factors, such as Hong Kong BNO individuals coming to the UK over the next year or two, there is good reason to believe that net migration will fall and that we will be better placed to meet our important manifesto commitment. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that it is critical that we do so, that we should consider further measures and that we have to think carefully about how migration interacts with the British labour market. It is quite wrong to perpetuate an economic model that is overly reliant on foreign labour, with people coming here and taking jobs from British workers, and not to tackle the core issue, which is the number of economically inactive people in our country.”
“Just a few years ago, only 5% of the income of British universities came from international students. Today, it is 18% and growing. There are obviously benefits to having income from international students, but we should not be overly reliant on it.”
“We have given careful thought to this announcement, as I have said, and we have worked closely with the Department for Education, which is of course the bridge to universities. It is important to stress that we have met the Government’s target of 600,000 international students 10 years early and are likely to exceed it this year, so there is no suggestion that the number of international students is going to diminish rapidly. What we are doing is tackling a particular issue—an unintended consequence of earlier liberalisations—which is the very significant increase in the number of dependants following international students. I would also say that it is not healthy for British universities to become overly reliant on international students.”
“The education of international students is an important export industry. I believe that it is the UK’s fourth or fifth-biggest export industry, and that is a good thing, and it is supported by the Government. That is why we created the international education strategy that has proven to be so successful. But what we are doing today is ensuring that we do not see unintended consequences and unnecessary pressure on public services as a result.”
“As I said, we have already met our target of 600,000 students coming to the UK from overseas. That is 10 years early; in fact, last year there were 605,000. We expect the numbers to increase this year beyond 600,000. There is no suggestion that universities will be short-changed as a result, but in the medium term it will obviously involve fewer dependants coming with those international students. For the reasons that I have set out, we think that is a good thing. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not.”
“The Government keep that under review, because we do not want to see employers reaching for international labour rather than seeking to recruit and train domestic labour, reducing unemployment and reducing the number of people who are on benefits.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support. He is right that, having left the European Union and taken back control of our borders and migration policy, it is critical that we make good on our promise to bring net migration down, because it does put intolerable pressure on public services and housing, and it does strain community cohesion, particularly when it happens at a scale and speed that is too great for many people in British society. My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the workings of the points-based system and the salary thresholds for the shortage occupation list and for general work visas.”
“The Home Secretary and I are completely at one in our determination to reduce net migration. That is what our party stood on a manifesto to do and that is what we intend to achieve. The Home Secretary and I want to find ways in which we can tackle abuse and unintended consequences within the system, and the package of measures that we have set out this week will do so in this important area and, as Labour appears now to support it, in a clearly significant cross-party way.”
“We said in the announcement this week that, with the Department for Education, we will launch a consultation with the university sector to design a longer-term alternative to the system that previously operated, which could be a more nuanced approach. But I think that the determination that we have made this week is the right one, which is that those people coming into the UK to study will be able to bring in dependants only if they are doing those high-value, usually longer-term, research-based courses such as PhDs, and those coming for short courses will invariably not be able to do so. That will cut out some of the abuse that we have seen in the system and will focus universities on their primary responsibility, which is teaching and education, rather than in some cases being a back door to immigration and to work.”
“That is what Governments have to do when trying to control an immigration system. Perhaps he does not want controlled immigration. We do, and that is why we have to take these steps.”
“It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman did not spread misinformation to his researcher or indeed anyone else. It was the Government, through the international education strategy, who created this commitment, which has proven to be so successful that it has led to 600,000 international students coming to the UK—perhaps including the lady he referred to. We also created the graduate route, which has enabled people—potentially including his researcher—to move seamlessly into the workplace here in the UK after their studies rather than having to apply immediately for a work or family visa as used to happen. There is no suggestion of any diminution in our support for universities or international students, but it is right that we get a grip on abuses or unintended consequences.”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Universities such as Keele—I do know that university well—have played a critical role in the economic development of local communities, and we want to encourage that. But it is important that universities primarily focus on education, not creating courses marketed overseas to individuals whose primary interest is in coming to the UK for immigration and work purposes, with those courses being a back door to that.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes a curious argument. Of course, it was as a result of leaving the European Union that we have created an entirely non-discriminatory immigration system that has enabled people to apply to come to the UK, whether for work purposes or as students, from anywhere in the world, rather than making it more difficult for those from outside the EU and having a large number of EU citizens come here. Today’s proposals will tackle this particular unintended consequence of the opening up to international students. I do not see any evidence that it will harm particular nationalities. There are some glaring examples such as the Nigerian one that I mentioned previously, but this will apply to everyone. It is an entirely non-discriminatory policy.”
“I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. As I said earlier with respect to the announcement we made today, we will be carrying out a consultation with the Department for Education that will give universities the opportunity to set out their case and refine the policy if necessary. He highlights one of the other elements of the announcement we made this week, which is clamping down on abuse. There are a small number of unscrupulous education agents who may be supporting disingenuous applications that are selling immigration rather than education. One measure we are taking this week is to clamp down on those with much more targeted and effective enforcement activity.”
“As I said many times before, we have no intention of devolving immigration policy. On the broader questions, there is no material difference between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of unemployment or economic inactivity, so there is no compelling case for a bespoke immigration system for Scotland versus the rest of the United Kingdom. The sheer scale of the number of international students who have come into all parts of the UK, including Scotland, in recent years suggests that this Government’s policies have increased the number of international students, not diminished them.”
“I am pleased to say that UKVI is today a very well-run organisation under the superb leadership of an official in the Home Office called Marc Owen. In every one of the visa categories, it is meeting its service standard or significantly exceeding them. [ Interruption. ] I know the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) always likes to deal in anecdote rather than statistics, but—I am afraid to disappoint her—it is.”
“I have affection for the hon. Lady, but she is probably the greatest nimby in the House of Commons today. She always opposes new homes, new development and new infrastructure in and around Oxford, so it is quite wrong for her to say that we should have an open door immigration policy, welcoming more and more people into her community and others, without meeting the demands that come with that in terms of housing and infrastructure.”
“We believe the changes we are setting out today will make a marked impact on net migration. We will, obviously, monitor them very closely for some of the unintended consequences my hon. Friend refers to. The consultation we will do with universities and the broader sector will help us to refine the policy, should that be necessary.”
“There is no one single intervention that will solve this challenge, but this is a significant intervention that will make a material difference to net migration. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the overwhelming majority of international students historically have left at the end of their studies, or shortly thereafter. It is possible that the system that has evolved since 2019 will see different trends. In 2020, only 7,400 non-EU students stayed on post study and those numbers will be dramatically higher in the years ahead. It may be that the mix of individuals, the countries they come from and the fact that they are bringing dependants with them in many cases, will lead to a far higher number of individuals staying on post study, but I do not think we will see those trends clearly enough this year.”
“Alongside the package of measures today, we are, as I said earlier, taking further targeted enforcement activity against unscrupulous education agents who are selling entry to the United Kingdom, rather than education. We will also work closely with universities and the Department for Education to improve communication, to universities and their affiliates, of the immigration rules, so we can clamp down on the kind of poor practices my hon. Friend describes.”
“Immigration is a reserved matter. I would just add that I am seeking a meeting with the relevant Cabinet Secretary in the Scottish Government to discuss illegal migration, but her office has so far not offered a meeting.”
“We will implement the policy we set out yesterday, but concurrently we will launch the consultation with universities and, if we need to refine the policy as a result of that, we will do so. To the hon. Gentleman’s first point, I do not think there is any reason why a Chinese student would be less likely to bring dependants with them to the United Kingdom than a Nigerian, a Vietnamese or a Bangladeshi. I do not follow his logic there at all. We want an entirely non-discriminatory approach and that is what we have said to our international counterparts this week. That has always been our approach to this. We welcome international students from any part of the world.”
“I was pleased to be at Manchester airport on Friday, meeting my Border Force officials and seeing the expansion currently under way. I do not foresee any serious loss of revenue for an airport such as Manchester. The number of international students coming to the UK has risen very significantly in recent years. To the extent that that provides income to airports, they will have benefited from our existing policy and I expect them to benefit in future.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, there is no material difference between unemployment or economic inactivity in Scotland and in the rest of the UK—the hon. Lady is incorrect in that regard. The UK benefits enormously from a single immigration policy and offer to international students in universities in all parts of the world.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth. It is this Government who established the international education strategy that led to 600,000 international students coming to the UK every year. Indeed, that number is likely to grow next year. With respect to public services, we created the health and social care visa, which last year led to 76,000 applications. Their dependants were able to join them. That was 11% of all the visas issued to individuals wishing to come to the United Kingdom. We are doing everything we can to support public services, but we must address the fact that very high levels of net migration place intolerable pressure on housing, public services and integration.”
“If the hon. Lady is referring to pressure on school places, that would be a good argument for reducing the number of dependants coming to the UK, because the children of the students will be using primary schools in her constituency.”