Katie Lam
MP for Weald of Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I spent a day last week with the palliative care team at William Harvey hospital in Ashford, which serves a large chunk of my constituency, and I was amazed by how much time they spent gathering and sharing information.”
“Tomorrow, the Conservatives were going to ask for Parliament to sit for one more working day, so that the new Prime Minister could come here and set out his agenda for the country, which we could then scrutinise on behalf of all the people we represent.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to echo your tribute to a predecessor of mine, Ann Widdecombe. She was an exceptionally effective Member of Parliament, has been a really tough act to follow, and is very fondly remembered in the Weald.”
“Shabir Ahmed has committed some of the most despicable crimes imaginable. As the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, he was responsible for grooming, trafficking and raping children as young as 12 years old. He was jailed in 2012 for 30 counts of child rape.”
“How can he possibly be allowed to walk the streets again? When the law produces an outcome that is clearly so wrong, the law must be changed. The Government must now change this law to make sure that we can remove Ahmed.”
“Twiggy Roberts, who is a veteran himself and runs HX Motors in my constituency, training other veterans to maintain and customise Land Rovers, says that he hears a lot from veterans of his generation about their frustrations as they try to gain access to the mental health services that they need and deserve, especially when dealing with p…”
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Every one of 602 lines we hold for Katie Lam, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 13.
“She promised to cut energy bills by shifting certain so-called green levies from bills on to general taxation, but that does not change the fact that the British people will still bear the costs of this Government’s net zero delusions. It is an attempt to hoodwink the public by shifting the costs from energy bills on to general tax bills. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) has repeatedly made clear, the answer is not to rearrange how those costs fall, but to stop imposing those costs altogether. The pursuit of net zero is sadly leaving this country worse off and is making almost no impact on global emissions, as countries such as China and India race ahead to open more coal-fired factories. Even those who have supposedly done everything right are still being crushed.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a particular pleasure to speak with you in the Chair this afternoon, inspiring envy, I am sure, from your new legions of fans. On Wednesday, the Chancellor said that energy prices were one of the greatest drivers of the rising cost of living. She accepted that the cause of high energy bills must be tackled at source—in other words, at the supply side—and she recognised that the rush towards net zero is driving up energy bills for the British people. Thus far, the Chancellor and I are in agreement—stranger things have happened—but none of that seems to inform the Budget she actually served up.”
“High energy bills mean families forced to cut back on after-school clubs for their children, businesses forced to cut back on staff, and young people forced to delay buying their first home even further.”
“It is a Budget that bakes in net zero, which means more taxes on the British people, more businesses forced to close their doors, more reliance on other countries to keep the lights on, and more emissions exported to countries like China. No country has ever succeeded without cheap, abundant energy. For businesses, high energy costs can be the difference between success and bankruptcy. For people working hard to make ends meet, high energy costs can be the difference between having money to set aside at the end of the month or needing to dip into savings. Punishing those businesses and those people even more in pursuit of arbitrary net zero targets is profoundly cruel. The immense damage wrought by the cost of living crisis cannot be overstated.”
“The gas is already stored in the North sea. The problem with the industry, and what is making it unprofitable, is the Government’s determination to hammer the oil and gas industry. The Chancellor gave no clear verdict on the nuclear regulatory review. Instead, she promised that the Government would set out their plans in three months’ time. That means more delay and uncertainty for companies that might want to invest in British nuclear, and ultimately more delay in reducing the bills of British families and British businesses. This is not a Budget that will make any improvement to the lives of ordinary, hard-working people.”
“That is not the immediate problem. The energy prices currently being baked in by the prices the Government are agreeing at the moment will see energy prices sky high for years and years regardless of what happens to the price of gas. The Conservatives’ cheap energy plan will save households hundreds of pounds and offers a much-needed lifeline to British industry. I very much hope that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero will adopt at least some of its measures.”
“What metric will be used to determine whether the Government have succeeded in halving violence against women and girls, and what are the start and end dates? Did the decade start on the date of the last general election? If not, when did it start? Will the Minister tell us when the Government’s strategy will be published? I know that many people in London and across the country would appreciate the certainty and clarity that a concrete date would provide.”
“Will the Minister please assure us that the Government’s proposed national inquiry into grooming gangs will properly investigate historical cases in London? Will the Minister also please tell us whether the Government collect data on the nationality and immigration status of those who commit violent crimes against women and girls? If so, will the Government make it available to the public, and if not, why not? Will the Minister also tell us whether the Government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls will address any potential implications of mass migration for the safety of women and girls, no matter how uncomfortable those discussions might be? The aim to halve violence against women and girls in a decade is laudable.”
“That means publishing the full official data on criminals’ nationalities, including for offences that disproportionately affect women and girls. It also means fully engaging with the impact of mass migration as part of any strategy designed to tackle the problem. Over the past few decades, we have seen, in the starkest terms, the results of failing to address difficult questions head on. It is exactly that aversion to uncomfortable truths that led so many in the British state to cover up the rape and grooming gangs that have devastated thousands of victims, mostly young girls, across the country. In London alone, we have heard in recent months that many historical cases of sexual abuse across the capital feature the tell-tale red flags of grooming gang abuse.”
“In London, where foreign nationals account for roughly a quarter of the population, foreign nationals were responsible for up to 47% of sexual offence charges last year. That suggests that foreign nationals are disproportionately likely to be the perpetrators of sexual assaults against women. Each and every case of sexual assault is wrong. Perpetrators must face the full force of the law, regardless of their nationality, and it remains the case that statistically, the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home. However, we should be able to have an informed debate about whether mass migration is making the problem worse, particularly when a large number of recent migrants come from countries where attitudes to women are very different from our own.”
“We must not shy away if identifying those risks might create uncomfortable conversations, including around subjects such as immigration. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse and the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) shared their views on the relevance of migration to victims and survivors. It is also relevant to conversations about perpetrators. The Government refuse to publish full information, but the indicative data that we have suggests significant variations in crime rates by nationality and immigration status. According to data obtained from the Ministry of Justice, foreign nationals made up a third of all convictions for sexual assaults against women. For context, foreign nationals make up between 11% and 12% of the population.”
“In March this year, the then permanent secretary of the Home Office promised that the strategy would be published before Parliament’s summer recess. In July, the Minister promised that the Government intended to publish the strategy in September. In October, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) wrote to the Minster for an update. Last week, as I am sure the Minister will remember, I asked her again in the House of Commons Chamber. Today, we are still waiting for the Government’s strategy to be published. It is complex, cross-departmental work, but victims, survivors and their advocates are concerned at the delay. When the strategy does arrive, the Government must be absolutely sure that it covers the full breadth of risks to women and girls.”
“Given the particular physical threats that women and girls can face, both in the home and at the hands of strangers, we must pay particular attention to the threats posed specifically to that group. The previous Government took steps towards recognising those unique threats, including by, for example, launching the grooming gangs taskforce. In its first year alone, that taskforce arrested more than 550 suspects, and it extended protection to more than 4,000 victims and survivors of grooming and rape gangs, the vast majority of whom are women and girls. In their manifesto, this Government promised to take further action, with a view to halving violence against women and girls over the next decade.”
“As ever, it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for bringing forward this vitally important debate. She spoke bravely of her own experiences. It is foundationally important that everyone in this country is able to go about their lives in the knowledge that they will be kept safe. That includes being kept safe from the powerful—be that crooked and despicable police officers, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), or wealthy and successful businessmen such as Mohamed Al-Fayed, protected by a network of expensive lawyers. I am proud to join the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) as an officer of the newly launched all-party parliamentary group for survivors of Fayed and Harrods.”
“Cross-channel rail was already mentioned this morning. Specifically, trains from Ashford to Paris were a massive boost for my constituents in the Weald of Kent and are much missed. It is fantastic news that Virgin would like to run trains again from Ashford and also from Ebbsfleet, but I know that there are some open questions about how the stations will be updated. It would be great to hear about any conversations that the right hon. Lady might have had with Virgin regarding what might need to happen next to move this forward.”
“In March this year, the then permanent secretary of the Home Office said that the strategy to tackle violence against women and girls would be published before the summer recess. In July, the Minister committed to September. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) wrote to the Minister six weeks ago to ask for an update and has yet to receive a response. We would all like to see progress in halving violence against women and girls. Commenting on the delay, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, has said: “I fail to see where the momentum within government is coming from to ensure this commitment succeeds.” What does the Minister make of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s words, and can she please reiterate her commitment to publish the strategy before the end of the year?”
“Hoad’s Wood, which was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), is a patch of semi-ancient bluebell woodland in my constituency where criminal gangs have dumped 30,000 tonnes of waste. It took about six months for them to fell ancient trees and bring in lorry after lorry. My constituents are really concerned that something like this might happen again. Over that whole period, the criminals were not stopped or apprehended. Have the Minister and the Secretary of State come to an understanding on who is responsible in such scenarios for stopping it from happening, and have they met the Environment Agency, police and local authorities to make sure that criminals will be stopped in the act if they do this in future?”
“We need people to start new industrial businesses here, but why would anybody do so when the Government are only going to make their lives harder through their commitment to sky-high bills and intermittent, unreliable forms of energy? Those on the Government Benches often talk of sustainability, but there is nothing sustainable about this situation. People across the country can feel it in their energy bills each and every month. Thanks to rising bills, many families simply do not have enough money left at the end of the month to save for a home, plan a holiday, or even send their children on a school trip.”
“Businesses can feel it: far too many are being forced to cut back or close their doors altogether, because the cost of doing business is simply too high. That means that pubs, nursing homes and family farms are all forced to make painful decisions because of this Government. For industrial businesses, it is even worse. Some of the best well-paid jobs of the 21st century—in high-skilled manufacturing or in AI—rely on access to cheap energy. Those are jobs that can revitalise communities and enable people to build successful lives for themselves. Our competitors around the world understand that, but this Government do not.”
“No industrialised country has ever been able to succeed without cheap, abundant energy. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) so rightly says, the Government must prioritise delivering cheap, abundant energy for households across the country. The plan that she laid out last month would knock nearly 20% off the average household energy bill by cutting the disastrous taxes that this Government continue to defend. Not only do this Government plan to keep hitting families with extra taxes to fund their ideological commitment to unreliable and expensive energy sources, but they plan to make the situation even worse by shutting down energy production in this country and making us even more reliant on imports from abroad.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention, but we should still be investing in storage from the North sea; that is still the best storage that we have. The real human cost of Labour’s plans on energy is that the cost of living crisis is being made even worse. And all the while, countries such as China and India continue to open new coal-fired factories. UK emissions are the lowest they have been since the 1850s, while China pumped out more carbon between 2013 and 2020 than Britain has produced over the past 220 years. That is not just because it is a bigger country; China’s per-person emissions are more than double the UK’s, and are rising.”
“It is, unfortunately, a mystery to me. I do not understand why we would be making this trade. It is clearly a bad one. No matter how much we might wish it were otherwise, this Government cannot and will not make a dent in addressing global climate change. We are simply sending our emissions abroad while British businesses and families pay the price. People across the country are being forced to make hard choices because this Government will not face the facts and deliver the cheap, abundant energy that we so clearly and dearly need.”
“In the Weald of Kent, small vineyards—often family-run and started from scratch—are grappling not just with higher duties but with higher label costs, greater packaging charges and yet more red tape. In May, I wrote to the Minister’s predecessor to raise my concerns about the impact of alcohol duty on the wine industry. In his reply, he said that producers below 8.5% ABV could claim draught relief and small producer relief. That is true, but almost no wine sits below 8.5% strength. Might the Minister be able to tell us how many UK wineries actually claimed either relief last year?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on giving us an opportunity to discuss this very important topic that affects so many people and businesses in the Weald of Kent, which proudly produces some of the finest wines in the country. The principle of taxing alcohol by strength may make sense in theory, but wine is an agricultural product. Its strength cannot be engineered to order; instead, it varies naturally with climate and vintage. A system designed for factory production simply does not work for vineyards rooted in the soil. Sadly, our wine businesses have faced steep duty increases, ever more paperwork and, as a result, mounting costs across the board.”
“I say to the Minister today, “Please look again.” I know that he did not create the duty framework, but my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon is right that we seem to have reached the tipping point at which our taxation system is so complex and onerous that it is collecting less money than a simpler lower-rate system would. It would be great to hear what plans the Minister has to support such an exciting and dynamic industry creating jobs and amazing export opportunities in rural parts of the country such as my home, the Weald of Kent.”
“We are also home to small start-ups, such as the husband and wife team I met last month in Hamstreet taking a leap of faith into the sector. It if is tough for the big names, it is tougher still for the small ones. Now, they face not just duty increases but rising national insurance costs, higher minimum wages, an end to flexible employment contracts, changes to inheritance tax relief, and packaging fees that penalise glass, which is the only viable material for quality sparkling wine. When I last raised the broader issue of wine in England, I asked the Minister’s colleague in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether he would support the sector’s call for targeted help, and he said it was a matter for the Treasury.”
“Large multi-national producers may be able to absorb that; small family wineries cannot. They cannot dial down their ABV without changing the taste or quality of the product. They cannot dilute wine without destroying it. These are new entrepreneurial businesses built on enormous risk and long-term investment. Many vineyards in the Weald have put everything they have into buying land, planting vines and waiting years before their first sale. In my constituency, we are proud to host many of Britain’s leading wineries, including Chapel Down, Gusbourne, Balfour, Biddenden, Westwell, Woodchurch and Domaine Evremond—the list goes on. They bring visitors, jobs and pride to the Weald, and it is an utter pleasure to visit them all.”
“Duty on 14.5% ABV wine is now almost half as much more again as it was in August 2023. As my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon rightly pointed out, well more than half the shelf price of a bottle of wine is now tax. In France, the equivalent duty is a few euro cents, and in Spain, it is nothing at all. This duty system, combined with the general tax rises in the last Budget, is putting businesses at risk. Could the Minister please rule out any further duty increases in the upcoming Budget? Countless small producers in the Weald of Kent, and about 1,000 independent merchants across England, are already struggling under the weight of new bureaucracy and tax pressures. Winemaking is not an exact science. As I mentioned, alcohol strength fluctuates from year to year, and small differences can double a producer’s duty bill.”
“It is not for me to speak for them, but it is reasonable to say that the system we have does not work very well. It would not be right to pretend otherwise on behalf of my constituents who have to deal with it every day. The Minister’s predecessor also said that the new system benefits lower strength wines, including many British wines. Since February, overall rates have risen. Might the Minister be able to tell us what share of English wines are paying less or more duty now than under the previous system? Finally, the previous Minister said that reforms would strengthen the tax base, yet as far as I can see, between April and September, alcohol duty receipts were almost £300 million lower than in the same period last year, despite the rates rise. It would be useful if the Minister could explain that.”
“Some have said that their properties are becoming unsellable because buyers will not take on the liability of these charges and this management. In one case, two sisters are trying to sell their late father’s flat. He bought it for £150,000 and they now cannot even sell it at £60,000. At auction, the price has fallen below £20,000. They told me that local estate agents refuse to list it because of the fees associated with managing the property. Much of this is part of a wider pattern. Many residents on these estates pay twice for what most people would regard as the same basic services. They pay full council tax to their local authority, as everyone does, but on a growing number of estates, the council has not taken over the roads, street lighting or green spaces and therefore does not maintain them.”
“Constituents in Yalding and Headcorn have told me that they face a 70% and a 40% rise in their management fees respectively. Those are not minor uplifts, and nobody can tell them clearly what they are paying for. I understand that costs are rising not least for things like insurance, but at the very least, hikes like that should be clearly explained. Constituents in Marden and Kingsnorth have documented cases where no maintenance at all was carried out for months, despite repeated chasing—grass not cut, lights not fixed and rubbish not cleared—and yet the bills keep coming. Finally, constituents in Tenterden and Coxheath have told me that it is beginning to affect the value of their homes, as my hon. Friend mentioned.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing this debate in the House. Earlier this year, I wrote to hundreds of residents across the Weald of Kent to get a better understanding of how property management companies operate across our home. What I discovered was very worrying and, as many Members here will recognise, it is an all too common story. To date, I have heard from nearly 100 people across 11 estates all complaining about their property management company FirstPort. The pattern is as depressing as it is predictable: steep and unexplained increases in service charges, slow and inadequate responses to maintenance issues, and a serious lack of accountability and transparency. Let me share a few examples.”
“I encourage the Government to accelerate the implementation of those elements of the Act. My constituents do not want to wait, say, another year to see itemised, comprehensible service charge bills and prompt access to redress. They accept that the streetlights must be maintained, the gutters cleared and insurance bought—they know all of that costs money—but what they will not accept, and nor should they, is paying more for less with no answers and no accountability.”
“I very much hope that this is true. But, in case that does not happen, the last Government took important steps to address this through the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The purpose of the Act is to give residents clear information about what they are being charged and why; to widen access to redress when something goes wrong, which is crucial; and to ensure that disputes with management companies can be resolved fairly. But residents will not see those benefits until all the secondary legislation is brought into force, guidance is published and management companies are given a clear expectation that they will need to comply. I caution the Government against assuming that the answer might be to layer on fresh regulation or to draft a new Bill.”
“The council says, “It is private land”; the management company says, “You are contractually obliged to pay us anyway”; and the person who lives there, who cannot simply switch provider and who must disclose the charges when they come to sell, is left with little ability to challenge poor value. People are paying more and getting less. There is a continuing lack of transparency, with residents routinely denied a proper breakdown of charges, not given meaningful answers and, in some cases, not even given the dignity of a reply. FirstPort is one of many property management companies that have been allowed, in some respects, to conduct themselves with impunity, largely because local residents have almost no consumer power or transparency. I have met representatives of FirstPort, and they assure me that the company is changing and improving.”
“I am afraid so, and fairly regularly in fact. The legal action that the hon. Member mentions is important to reflect on because it can in some cases be deeply distressing and seem very aggressive for people just trying to get what they have already paid for, which in some cases does not even exist yet. Residents are required to pay a second set of charges on top of the council tax to a private management company, such as FirstPort. They pay council tax for street lighting and then they pay a private company for street lighting. They pay council tax for maintaining the verges, and then they pay again for someone to cut the grass—except of course in many cases the grass is not cut. In these situations, the homeowner has almost no practical leverage.”
“My hon. and right hon. Friends have set out well how the Government’s account of how the case collapsed simply does not add up, so in the interests of time I will make just this one point. If, as many on the Opposition Benches and I suspect to be the case, the Prime Minister’s account of this situation is not factually correct, he has allowed this case to collapse to win favour in Beijing. That is a profound state of weakness. Even if the Prime Minister’s account of the situation is true, that means he does not have control over his officials. Serious national security decisions are being made without his knowledge. That, too, is a profound state of weakness. It is important to establish the facts.”
“I regret that I cannot; I promised to speak briefly. Whatever the facts may be, this is not how serious countries behave. Regardless of our politics, we should all want our country to be respected by our friends and our adversaries. Under this Government, our friends see us as unreliable and our adversaries see us as a pushover. It is time for the Government to tell the truth and undo some of the harm that they have done to this country’s standing in the world.”
“GPs surgeries across the Weald of Kent, including in Woodchurch and Charing, tell me how much they struggle with rising staff costs, and the national insurance increases in last year’s Budget put huge pressure on them. Alongside the investment that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned, what discussions have he or his colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care had with Treasury colleagues about protecting GP partnerships from further NI burdens in the upcoming Budget?”
“Will he please commit today to a concrete timeline for the closure of asylum hotels, and to fully tracking, including in the welfare system, the lifetime costs of asylum claims?”
“It is unfair, unaffordable, democratically illegitimate and dangerous. British taxpayers must not foot the bill for a crisis that they have voted to stop and that was created here in Westminster. We can end it, and we must. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) is right to say that Britain deserves better. Many hon. Members have mentioned that the previous Government failed to fix the crisis, which is true, but we have had a Labour Government for well over a year and it is their job to control our borders. Instead of doing any better, the situation has got worse. Will the Minister commit today to preventing those who arrive here illegally from applying for asylum? If not, will he please explain why not?”
“The incentives are clear: come to Britain and be fed, housed and given full healthcare and money to spend, all funded by the British taxpayer. If the Government were really serious about ending the small boats crisis, they would put a stop to asylum support and close the hotels as these petitions request. Those who have arrived here illegally would be sent back to their home country, if it is safe for them to go, or to a third country. Those who make the crossing in future should be detained and swiftly removed. Anybody who arrives here illegally must never be able to apply for asylum. This is a generous country, as many hon. Members have said this afternoon—remarkably so—but allowing access to Britain to tens and tens of thousands of young men who are willing to break our laws by coming here from the safety of France is not generosity.”
“Since the small boats crisis began in 2018, nearly 200,000 people have come to Britain via that route. In 2025 alone, more than 35,000 people have made the crossing. On arrival, more than 95% of those people have claimed asylum, and having done so, they are afforded generous support, including direct cash transfers. Often, they are placed in hotels, where they can pose a risk to local people, particularly men posing a risk to women and girls. We have already heard about one such horrifying case from the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) today, and I am sorry to say that there are many more. Illegal migrants can stay in the asylum system for years, launching endless appeals. Increasingly, our system is approving asylum claims on the thinnest of grounds.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. I thank the Petitions Committee, my constituency neighbour, the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), for presenting these petitions, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have made their voices heard by signing them. Despite the clear wishes of the British people, successive Governments of different parties have failed to control immigration, both legal and illegal. This is a complete scandal and is probably the single biggest reason for the declining trust in our politics. It is a particular scandal that, as an island nation, we have failed to stop people from coming to this country illegally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) rightly said.”
“Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) has said, the last Government, like the Governments before them, promised to do exactly that. Like the Governments before them, they failed to deliver.”
“It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I believe I am the first member of my party speaking in this place to welcome the Minister to his new place. I look forward to working across from him, socks and all. I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough), the Petitions Committee and the members of the public who signed the petitions before us today. The hon. Member is right to note that there are many different strands to the issue. This evening, I will speak about the proposed changes to ILR qualification for the skilled worker visa. Over the past 30 years, millions of people have immigrated to Britain. The level of migration to this country has been too high for decades and remains so. Every election-winning manifesto since 1974 has promised to reduce migration. As my right hon.”
“Member for South Norfolk and by too many other hon. Members to list. We can feel great personal sympathy for such people, but our primary, indeed our only, fundamental responsibility is not fairness to foreign nationals but fairness to the British people. It is our sacred duty to put them first, and to act in their interests and their interests alone.”
“At the moment, after just five years, most migrants can claim ILR, allowing them to stay here indefinitely, access state support and begin the path to citizenship. My shadow Home Office colleagues and I have repeatedly argued that the qualifying period should be extended from five years to 10, but that alone is not enough. No new visa should be issued to, no new ILR status should be granted to, and existing ILR status should be revoked from, those who have committed a crime, accessed state support, or are unlikely to contribute more than they cost. Those who have no legal way to stay here would then need to leave. That is how immigration works. Many hon. Members in this debate have commented on the fairness and perceived fairness of retrospective rule changes to those who have come here. That point was made in opening by the hon.”
“I will make a little progress first. It is particularly concerning that the vast majority who have come to Britain in the last few years, including many of those on the skilled worker route, are unlikely to contribute more in tax than they cost over their lifetimes through their use of public services and state support. As things stand, the lifetime cost of the recent wave of migration is set to be hundreds of billions of pounds. It is one of the biggest scandals in British politics and most people, including the Prime Minister, now acknowledge that the accelerated migration of the last few years was a profound mistake. When we make a mistake and have the power to reverse it, it is right that we do so. We absolutely have the power to reverse this particular mistake, and that would start by changing the rules on indefinite leave to remain.”
“A five-year visa does not confer a right to apply to settle here indefinitely. Those who come here must make a genuine and sustained contribution to our country, and unfortunately most of those who have come on the skilled worker route in recent years are unlikely to do so. If, as the Prime Minister says, our “open borders experiment” has been a mistake, why should British taxpayers be saddled with the cost of that mistake for the rest of their lives? Finally, although I do not agree with the argument made by the petition on skilled worker visas, I believe that that process should be subject to an open and frank public debate.”