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 8 of 13.
“Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) spoke authoritatively and movingly about the deeply upsetting plight of the Uyghur people and the role that slavery shamefully plays in that. I am happy to take this opportunity to reassure him that he is neither tired nor showing his age, but his points about the need to keep our laws up to date were well made. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) does great credit to the proud history of his constituency in fighting the evil of slavery. He was right to speak of the complexities of the British state and the challenges that they pose in tackling modern slavery. In the same vein, the hon. Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) was right to mention the need for co-ordination across Government and the role that local authority empowerment and responsibility can play in that. The hon.”
“It is horrifying that an estimated 80% of children living in the world’s orphanages have at least one living parent but have been separated from their families, sometimes forcibly, to be exploited and used to raise money for corrupt orphanage directors. I imagine the Minister, who is also known for her commitment to the victims of these appalling crimes, will want to work with her to ensure that our laws protect the vulnerable as well as they possibly can. I would like to pay tribute to Baroness May, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands, and to former members of this House who campaigned on this issue, including, but not limited to, Anthony Steen, Baron Randall and the late Frank Field. I thank everyone who has contributed to today’s debate. The hon.”
“Indeed, she was the Home Office Minister for preventing abuse, exploitation and crime at the time of the passage of this Bill and has done considerable work, including with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, on stamping out this revolting practice. Now, of course, she continues to put her expertise and dedication to protecting the vulnerable to excellent use as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. My right hon. Friend makes some powerful points about the need to keep this legislation world-leading, as she has done repeatedly in this House and elsewhere. She speaks, for example, of orphanage trafficking and the work that has been done in Australia to tackle it.”
“As she rightly said that day, modern slavery “is an affront not just to those it affects, but to the collective human dignity of all of us.” —[ Official Report , 8 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 166.] The way that some people treat and exploit their fellow human beings is, sadly, nothing short of disgusting, and such behaviour has no place in Britain. Those were not just words. She acted, too, bringing forward this legislation—the first of its kind in Europe—which received Royal Assent a decade and a day ago today. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) on securing this debate today. She has a long and proud history of campaigning on this issue.”
“On Tuesday 8 July 2014, the then Home Secretary and later Prime Minister, and now the right honourable Baroness May of Maidenhead, stood at the Dispatch Box to present the Modern Slavery Bill, as it was then, on its Second Reading. She spoke powerfully of those “tricked and coerced into a horrendous life of servitude and abuse: women forced into prostitution, raped repeatedly, and denied their liberty; children groomed and sexually exploited for profit; vulnerable men conned into brutal and inhumane work in fields, in factories and on fishing vessels; people forced into a life of crime;”. She talked of sexual violence, beatings, humiliation, hunger and mental torture.”
“The right hon. Lady talks of financial responsibility, but will she please tell us when Government bond yields hit their highest levels since the global financial crisis, and who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer then? If she needs a clue, we can bring her a mirror.”
“As we pursue this noble goal, we should remain aware of and sensitive to the potential negative impacts of our good intentions. Small venues across the country are already struggling, and we must be cautious about adding to that burden, but we are happy to support the Lords amendments today.”
“I urge the Minister, who I know is very conscious of the different pressures and the need for balance, to keep the thresholds under review, which clause 32 provides for, and to continue to assess the impact of this legislation on community institutions. We continue to have concerns that in its current form the legislation risks adding to the already enormous burden of regulation and paperwork that small hospitality and community venues such as pubs, churches and village halls must navigate on a daily basis, so we welcome amendment 8 on consultation. It is right that people of this country should be able to go about their daily lives and go to events in the knowledge that they are safe. It is also right that we take action to ensure that horrific attacks like the one carried out in Manchester in May 2017 do not happen again.”
“This is a noble goal and one that colleagues on both sides of the House undoubtedly support. When the Bill was last in this place, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), spoke of the concern we all share to get the balance right. Our safeguards against potential future terror attacks must be robust but also proportionate and pragmatic. He spoke of the spirit of support, co-operation and openness in which we suggested small amendments to the Bill, and I believe amendments were tabled in the other place in that same spirit. We particularly welcome the change from invitations to tickets and the clarity that provides on private events being out of scope of this legislation. We are sorry not to see more of those amendments in this place for debate.”
“On 22 May 2017, Islamist extremist Salman Abedi carried out a sickening attack on the Manchester arena following a concert. This barbaric act of terrorism killed 22 people and injured more than 1,000 others, many of them children. It was the deadliest act of terrorism in this country since the 7/7 bombings in 2005. What was taken from the victims and those who love them can never be given back. That of course includes Figen Murray, whose determination and fortitude we honour this afternoon and whose son Martyn Hett we remember, along with all the others who were killed or injured on that horrible day. This Bill, inherited from the previous Government, is an attempt to address an insufficiency in our anti-terror framework by ensuring that our public spaces and public events are better prepared for any future attacks.”
“What other statutory powers do the Church Commissioners intend to use to facilitate Project Spire, bearing in mind that, as a statutory corporation, they can act only in accordance with powers granted by statute? Are the commissioners proposing to set up a new charity to administer Project Spire, the Bishop of Salisbury’s remarks at last month’s General Synod meeting suggest? The Bishop of Salisbury also specified that it is necessary to seek approval from the Charity Commission for the project. If the project is already within the rules, why is that necessary? If the Church Commissioners are confident that this activity is permitted by law, under what section of which statute? If Project Spire will instead be ultra vires—which is to say, unlawful—have the Church Commissioners spoken to the Charity Commission about this?”
“It is particularly wrong to do so in this manner, which is opaque, unaccountable, and evasive. In the light of the direct involvement of the archbishops, bishops, and clergy in the Church Commissioners’ governance, and in order to get the full picture of the Church’s financial position, which is necessary to debate the Measures properly, I ask the Second Church Estates Commissioner the following questions. What information can she provide on when discussions about Project Spire began between the Charity Commission and the Church Commissioners? What legal advice, if any, has been obtained to ensure that the proposals for Project Spire are within the statutory powers of the Church Commissioners, and can it be published? Which grant-making power will be used to make any relevant grants?”
“Queen Anne’s Bounty acquired South Sea Company annuities, and later shares in its trading activities, at a point when it was not involved in the slave trade, although it subsequently became so in 1722. Those shares were all disposed of by 1730 and, overall, the result was a substantial loss. The Church as an institution did not endorse the slave trade—indeed, many Church of England ministers were at the forefront of the fight against this evil practice, and as far as anyone is able to tell, Queen Anne’s Bounty did not make money from it at all. It is therefore wrong of the Church Commissioners, with the apparent approval of Church leaders, to allocate millions of pounds that they hold on behalf of others to reparations, at a time when so many parishes desperately need support.”
“We went on, rightly and proudly, to do penance for slavery by spending resources, ships, money, political capital and the lives of Royal Navy sailors in fighting slavery across the globe for 150 years. It is certainly not feasible to demand financial reparations from every institution with a tangential relationship to that awful trade. In the Church of England’s case, its involvement is said to stem from its connection with Queen Anne’s Bounty—a charity created by statute to support poorer members of the clergy—which invested in wide variety of companies over its 243-year history, and in turn, that charity’s involvement in the South Sea Company.”
“According to the National Churches Trust, nearly 1,000 historic cathedrals, churches and chapels across England are at risk of falling into disrepair. However, rather than providing the funding needed for those crucial repairs, the Church Commissioners are choosing to allocate £100 million to an ill-conceived, opaque fund for reparations. That seems to be a dereliction of their primary duty, and directly undermines the Church Commissioners’ role as stewards of our national history. The horrors of slavery and slave trading are as old as organised human society. Shamefully, Britain was no exception from participation, but we were exceptional in being among the first people in the history of the world to abolish both.”
“A commitment to wide-ranging historical reparations clearly falls outside the scope of the commissioners’ charitable duties, yet little information about the funds’ structure or management has been made public. We simply do not know how the Church Commissioners are attempting to justify the use of these funds according to their charitable aims, nor do we know the details of conversations between the Church Commissioners and the Charity Commission about how the fund will be structured and administered lawfully—or whether it can be. We do not know whether the idea of a separate fund was considered, or perhaps is still being considered. As the figures relating to the chancel repair Measure show, the new fund could not come at a worse time.”
“The commissioners have committed £100 million to the fund, which is intended to be distributed through: “initiatives led by and for people of African descent, through a reparative and intersectional lens” These are thought to be impact investments, which by their nature are suboptimal commercially, and grants and research projects, which produce no financial return. Any money that is given in grants, used to pay for research, or forgone as the result of commercially suboptimal investments, is money that is not available for hard-pressed parishes. The project seems to be a departure by the Church Commissioners from their core duties. The funds are intended for the upkeep of parish churches, the management of historical records and the provision of salaries for members of the clergy.”
“It is for that reason that rule 2 paragraph (6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 stipulates that after the end of each year, the Archbishops’ Council “shall cause a certificate to be issued to the Church Commissioners to the effect that the application and distribution of the sums made available by them as aforesaid has been in accordance with subsection (3) above.” Could the Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners, please disclose the amount certified under the Measure for each year since the provision came into force, and place copies of the relevant certificates in the House of Commons Library? Last year, the Church Commissioners for England launched a programme, dubbed Project Spire, to provide reparations in relation to historical transatlantic slavery.”
“Given the Church’s continued significance in our national life, the financial decisions taken by and on behalf of the Church are a matter of significant public interest. I am therefore heartened that we have an opportunity to debate the Measures before us today, which provide some transparency for the public around the Church of England’s finances and the legal liability for chancel repair. It is right that there should be clear, accountable structures providing oversight of how and why the Church of England spends its money.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. The Church of England has been at the heart of our national life for centuries. It is our national Church and it plays an important role in many of the great ceremonies and occasions that bring our country together. Even in an age of increasing secularisation, parish churches are a central organising pillar of many of our communities. For many, especially for people who live in villages like those in my constituency, the Weald of Kent, the parish church is where we meet, celebrate, marry and grieve. The Church of England is also arguably Britain’s largest heritage organisation. It is responsible for the upkeep of more than 16,000 church buildings, more than 12,500 of which are listed by Historic England in recognition of their enormous historical and architectural value.”
“Finally, will a PCC now have to make two claims, one under the Chancel Repairs Act 1932, and one under this Measure, where the Church Commissioners do not hold 100% of the liability?”
“Thank you, Sir Jeremy. I would add, though, that the very funds that the Church Commissioners might supply, for example, for chancel repairs, may be the same funds that have been allocated to Project Spire. The underlying money that we are talking about for these Measures is all the same, and therefore I do believe that these questions are relevant. I would like to ask two final questions specifically regarding the chancel repair Measure. What is the position of third-party landowners against whom a claim for 100% of the liability has been made by a parochial church council under the Chancel Repairs Act 1932, for which the Church Commissioners would formerly have been regarded as jointly liable under that Act?”
“The public have a right to know about the way our tribunal system works, to know about the rules judges use to make fundamental decisions about immigration and asylum—about who can be in this country and why—and to see how those rules are applied in practice so they can decide for themselves whether that is right or wrong and whether it serves Britain’s interests. That is why we tabled this new clause, and we sincerely hope that the Government will consider making it part of the Bill.”
“All immigration and asylum cases are first heard by a lower-tier tribunal, the judgments of which are not made available to the public. Unless the initial decision of the lower-tier tribunal is appealed, the public do not ever get access to the details of any given case. Given the absurdity of the cases that we do hear about, many members of the public will rightly be wondering what is happening in the cases that we do not see. If we want to restore public trust in the immigration system, we must restore transparency. Publishing the decisions of lower-tier tribunals is not the biggest or most consequential change in the grand scheme of our broken immigration system, but it is a meaningful one.”
“The news reports that we read are possible only because upper tribunal judgments on asylum and immigration are published at regular intervals. The publication of those judgments allows everyone in the country to see what tribunal judges have decided in asylum, immigration and deportation cases. Crucially, it allows us to scrutinise both their decisions and their reasoning. We can see why the judgments were made and what that says about our laws, and decide for ourselves whether we think that is right. Judges are not accountable to the public, but transparency allows everyone to see our laws in action and to form a view about whether they are the right ones. However, upper tribunal judgments do not tell the full story.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. After years of broken promises, it should come as no surprise that the public do not trust politicians in Westminster on immigration. The distrust is compounded by regular reports of individual cases in the immigration system, the most shocking and nonsensical of which are often those of foreign criminals allowed to remain in this country due to human rights laws. The system is broken. It has been broken for many decades, and that is now plain to see. Our basic decency—our desire to do the right thing—is exploited by paedophiles, rapists, terrorists and hardened criminals, who threaten not just individual members of the public, which is terrifying enough, but the broader social fabric of our country.”
“Because of that failure to deliver, the British public may face a bill of more than £200 billion in the years ahead, unless we change the rules on settlement. Under current rules, after just five years in the UK, migrants on work or family visas will become eligible for indefinite leave to remain. If they are successful, and 95% of ILR applicants are, they are entitled to welfare, social housing, surcharge-free access to the NHS and more. According to the Centre for Policy Studies, some 800,000 migrants could claim ILR over the course of this Parliament. Given the profile of those who are likely to qualify, that could come at a lifetime cost of £234 billion.”
“How can I begin my remarks without repaying the Minister’s kind words about my clothing? This is one of my favourite jackets and I am delighted to see that it might also be one of hers. It is no secret, as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has just set out, that previous Governments of different parties have failed the British public on immigration. The level of immigration 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. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) has said, the last Government, like the Governments before them, promised to do exactly that, but again like the Governments before them, they did not deliver.”
“To me, that clearly says that nobody in Government is thinking about the impact the issue will have and how much it will cost. When they do, I will happily use those numbers. Until and unless that happens, the modelling from the CPS is the best we have—in fact, it is all that we have.”
“As Professor Brian Bell said in evidence to this Committee—in a session to which the hon. Member for Bournemouth East has referred a couple of times— “It is actually extremely difficult to work out the fiscal impact of migration.” –– [ Official Report, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 27 February 2025; c. 59, Q92.] That is clearly true: forecasting the lives of millions of people over decades will obviously have a substantial margin for error. The only way to avoid that error would be not to try to forecast in the first place. I have repeatedly asked the Home Office, over several months, whether anyone in that Department or any other—indeed, anyone in Government—is attempting to forecast the cost to the public purse of the ILR grants that will come in this Parliament. I am yet to receive an answer.”
“The five-year route that we here propose to change is exclusively for those on eligible visas. I therefore cannot see why, within the existing rules, there would be any requirement for LLR applications. I hope that reassures the hon. Member.”
“By refusing to extend the eligibility period for indefinite leave to remain, the Government are actively choosing to saddle the British taxpayer with a likely bill of hundreds of billions of pounds. We must make difficult decisions on this reform and the many others required in our migration system. Those decisions may be painful, especially in the short term, for individual people, families or businesses but they are the only way for any Government’s actions to match their words. The public have had enough and rightly so. The hon. Member for Bournemouth East talked about LLR, which must be applied for every two and a half years on the existing 10-year route. That is the case only because, as it stands, the 10-year route, by design, is for those not on eligible visas.”
“That is why the Conservatives propose to extend the qualifying period for ILR and reform settlement rules to ensure that only those genuinely likely to contribute will be eligible for long-term settlement. That would give us an opportunity to review visas issued over the last few years. Those who have come to this country legally on time-limited visas and have subsequently not contributed enough, or have damaged our society by committing crime, should be expected to leave. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that the levels of immigration under the last Government were wrong and that it was a mistake to allow so many people to come to the UK. This amendment would allow the Government to limit the long-term consequences of that mistake, so why would they oppose it? It is not too late to change our rules around settlement.”
“I have already acknowledged that the margin for error is massive—that is clearly true. If everything that the hon. Member is saying is correct, I would like to see Government figures to replace the CPS figures. I think that is a reasonable request. The £234 billion cost is equivalent to £8,200 per household, or around six times our annual defence budget, and this about not just money but capacity. Our public services are clearly already overstretched and this could push them to breaking point. If we accept, as we should, that previous Governments have failed on migration, then we should do everything in our power to limit the long-term impacts of that failure.”
“I think the hon. Gentleman is eliding two different routes. At the moment there is a five-year route, which is for people on eligible visas, and a 10-year route. The 10-year route has LLR requirements that have to be applied for every two and a half years, and is the route that generates the fees that he is talking about. Under the amendment, that would not change; we are proposing changes only to the five-year route. The five-year route at the moment does not have LLR requirements because it is for people on eligible visas. The income for the Home Office from the same people should be no different under the amendment that we are proposing. I hope that that is clear.”
“I will come back briefly. If I have properly understood the hon. Member’s question, he is asking what we think the impact will be on the number of people who would still apply for ILR after 10 years.”
“He is nodding. Part of what we are trying to say by extending the time is that we feel that a person’s commitment to the UK before they apply for settlement should be longer than five years. If application numbers go down because people feel that they do not want to commit for 10 years before getting settlement, that is something that we are happy to accept as part of the amendment. It seems from the numbers that we have at the moment that the number of people who would apply over an extended period would go down because fewer people would qualify under the rules that we are stipulating. The reason why they would not qualify is that they would not be making a sufficiently significant contribution to the public purse over that period. Our calculations are that all of those lost applications would be net fiscally positive.”
“I totally take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think he is answering a slightly different point. What we are saying is that the combination of the extension of time and the change in criteria would lead to lower applications. It is not so much about a choice on the part of the individual migrant, but a structural change within the system.”
“Assessing a person’s age is surprisingly difficult, but we have a range of tools to do so—the Home Office is just not using them. If we had acted sooner, using the full suite of tools at our disposal to assess Abdulrahimzai’s age, Thomas Roberts might still be alive today. The case of Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai is particularly shocking, but it is unfortunately far from unique.”
“On 23 January 2023, Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai was sentenced to life imprisonment at Salisbury Crown court. Nearly a year earlier, Abdulrahimzai had murdered 21-year-old Thomas Roberts in Bournemouth town centre by stabbing him to death in the street following a dispute over an e-scooter. Abdulrahimzai was an Afghan asylum seeker who came to this country in December 2019. He entered the UK illegally, claiming to be an unaccompanied 14-year-old. He was placed in school and in foster care, but he was in fact already an adult when he came here. Not only was he an adult, but he was also a murderer, having killed two men in Serbia before coming to the UK. He should never have been allowed to come to this country and he should certainly not have been allowed to masquerade as a child.”
“We can see no reason why the Government would not want to have the widest possible set of tools available to them to stop such things happening, including the option in future to bring in scientific methods that are currently at a nascent stage.”
“In 2022, the interim Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee stated that the “teeth, clavicle, and hand/wrist or knee… have been shown to have a significant research and publication credibility and provide a consistent age range over which changes occur.” Later, the same report states: “The committee has relied on areas and methods that have been repeatedly tried and tested and shown to have consistency.” As the report makes clear, and as Government Members have said, scientific age assessment is not perfectly precise and is not magic, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West also correctly says, our proposal is that scientific age assessments should be used not to replace other methods and judgments, but to supplement them. The situations that my hon. Friend and I have set out are horrifying.”
“We are acting in the interests of public safety and to protect the security of our children. Labour Members have asked for exact details of the scientific methods. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West set out, there are many methods and several different ways of doing it. The ones that can be implemented in short order are the dental and skeletal tests. Other methods are currently at an earlier stage of development, such as facial age estimation and DNA methylation, which is a process by which people much cleverer than me can assess how a person’s genes are read by their body, which changes with age.”
“Under-18s who come here have a greater entitlement to care and support, do not have to live in accommodation with adults, and are not subject to the same rules as adults—or the rules are applied less strictly. Of course, there are people who cross the channel without their parents who are under 18; most, though not all, are male 17 and 16-year-olds, and some are younger children. No one disputes that, and children should be treated as children, but we must be realistic about the scandalous degree to which our system is exploited by the cynical and the sinister. We have to protect actual children, and we should use every tool in the box to do so, including scientific testing. Where people refuse such tests, the Government should be able to override that refusal.”
“That puts British children at risk, puts genuine child asylum seekers at risk and takes valuable school and care places away from the young people who genuinely need them. I feel this particularly keenly as a Member of Parliament for Kent, the county into which all small boats arrive. Our laws mandate that the people who come to this country illegally and claim to be under 18 must be prioritised for care equally with Kentish children. That puts enormous pressure on the system and makes it harder for our children to be cared for. That is madness when we know that half of those arrivals are in fact adults, and we must put a stop to it. It is completely rational, albeit morally wrong, for adult migrants to claim to be children.”
“I will come on to precision and the ways of determining age slightly later in my remarks. Ahmed Hassan, an Iraqi asylum seeker, claimed to be a 16-year-old when he arrived in the UK. In 2017, he set off a bomb at Parsons Green tube station, injuring 23 people. His real age is still not a matter of public record. In 2018, a Home Office probe found that Siavash Shah, an Iranian asylum seeker, spent six weeks as a year 11 pupil in Ipswich despite being 25—the list goes on. In fact, between 2020 and 2023, the Home Office identified almost 4,000 cases of adult migrants claiming to be children—45% of those who originally claimed to be children when they arrived here—and every other person of that cohort was in fact an adult. Some were at least 30 years old.”
“It was a privilege to hear about Thomas Roberts’s life. The hon. Member for Bournemouth East did himself great credit in telling us about him so movingly. Thomas’s mother, Dolores, whose pain is impossible for us to imagine, has also done his memory great credit by finding a way in her grief to talk about her son to her Member of Parliament and to the Minister. Securing the border is a genuinely difficult job, and the Opposition are genuine in our desire to support the Government in doing that. We really believe that the new clause would help the Government to expand their ability to do that job. We deeply hope that they will consider it. I also thank the hon. Member for Clwyd East for her generous words.”
“We believe that the new clause will go some way to addressing the problems that we have set out of very high volumes of people coming to this country in recent years who are not set to be net fiscal contributors to the public purse over the course of their lifetimes. We hope that the Government will consider adding it to the Bill. We also welcome the comments from the Minister on the fact that she is looking at this issue. Could she tell us specifically whether she is looking at any of these conditions, and, if so, which? How are her discussions coming along, and when does she hope to report back to the House on her plans?”
“That is the opposite of the situation that we have now; only a small proportion of those who have come to this country over the past few years are likely to be net lifetime contributors. That is unaffordable. That reality also underpins our final condition of income falling below £38,700 for six months or more in aggregate. That figure of £38,700 was chosen to sit alongside the general skilled worker threshold, the minimum earnings threshold for skilled worker visas, and the minimum income requirement for a family visa sponsor proposed by the last Government. It was chosen as it represents the 50th percentile, or the median, of earnings for jobs at the skill level of RQF3—level 3 of the regulated qualifications framework—which is perhaps more easily recognisable as the equivalent of A-levels and BTECs.”
“Thirdly, the new clause applies to those who have been in receipt of social protection, as defined by the Treasury’s “Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses”, which includes personal social services in various different categories, as well as incapacity, disability and injury benefits, pensions, family benefits, income support and tax credits, unemployment benefits, universal credit and social housing. Social protection is a fundamental part of modern British society, but we should be honest that it is also incredibly expensive. Such generous provision should be available only to citizens. It must be a fundamental principle of our system that those who come to this country contribute fiscally more than they cost. What they pay in tax should more than cover the cost of the public services that they use.”