Immigration and asylum: Ten Minute Rule Motion

Proposed by Bob Seely

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the annual approval by the House of Commons of maximum numbers in respect of immigration and asylum; to provide that asylum may only be granted to individuals identified as refugees by the UN Refugee Agency, other than in sp… I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the annual approval by the House of Commons of maximum numbers in respect of immigration and asylum; to provide that asylum may only be granted to individuals identified as refugees by the UN Refugee Agency, other than in specified circumstances; and for connected purposes. I am delighted to be bringing in this Bill. The British people want Parliament and their representatives to get to grips with immigration, both illegal and legal. That is a widespread conviction held by constituents across parties and across regions. According to YouGov, 64% of voters think immigration has been too high over the last 10 years, and only 6% believe it has been too low. On the Island, according to my most recent survey of 2,000 constituents, it is the second most important issue after the NHS. My Bill helps to reinforce parliamentary sovereignty, encourages transparency in decision making and focuses responsibility on Members of Parliament, and in doing so helps to restore faith in Government and in Parliament. We have made a considerable success of immigration in the past 50 years, in the post-war period, and there is an accepted case that moderate migration is a good thing for our country. I am hugely proud to be English and British, but I am half-immigrant myself; I do not necessarily think of myself often in those terms, but my mum ended up in Dresden in a displaced persons camp after world war two. For two centuries, her ancestors came from the Russian empire. They were a mix of German and, as I understand it, Polish and Ukrainian ancestry and farmed near Zhitomir, 60 miles west of Kyiv. The other half of me is solidly English. Wherever we come from, however, there is a shared sense that migration should be moderate and controlled. This Government are doing more than any other in recent years; we hear today that the removals of illegal people are up 25%. The Rwanda scheme is due to start later this year, whatever people think of it, and we have growing numbers of return agreements with other nations, but I think we need something more permanent, because all of that requires political will. For me, the only way that ultimately we will solve this issue and give our voters and our constituents confidence in it is for Parliament to take responsibility on itself to set annual legal limits for legal migration, including for asylum. The only way MPs will be serious about this issue is if we have to look our constituents in the eye and explain our actions. There will be no hiding behind quangos or behind agencies. My Bill would require the Government to present a figure or range of figures to Parliament. MPs would have access to the same data, so that we and the British people could see what each figure would deliver in terms of costs and benefits and what the effect would be on housing, on public services, on the economy and on social cohesion. It is extraordinary that the debate has happened thus far without reference to many of those important issues, as if somehow immigration can be debated without talking about housing, education or healthcare provision. Either way, at the end of the day, MPs will own that figure and they will have to explain it to their constituents. That is called democracy, and in my mind it is a good thing. If there are emergencies, such as Hong Kong or Ukraine, Ministers can come back and ask for a waiver for specific numbers, in line with our international obligations. The critical point here is that I am not stipulating a figure or plucking one out of thin air. This is the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, which I would have thought we should all as parliamentarians want to support. In theory, the Labour party could say, “We want 1 million-plus a year on migration.” The Lib Dems—they are meant to be here to oppose this Bill, but they are so concerned about it that I cannot see a single one of them here to speak in opposition—or the SNP,

Read full debate in Hansard →

Click a row to filter votes below by that party.

"Party position" is how the majority of each party's voting members voted in this division. Parliament does not publish official whipping instructions, so this is derived from the recorded votes. "Rebels" are members who voted against their party's majority; Independent and Speaker roles have no party whip.

Constituencies coloured by how the local MP voted.

No matching MPs found.