Katie Lam

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), the Petitions Committee and the 101,321 members of the public who have requested that we debate this topic. Those 100,000 people have asked us to discuss this policy because, as many hon. Members have movingly pointed out, it can be overwhelmingly important to those it affects. There are few things in life and in human nature more powerful than the desire to be with those you love. To be separated from your husband or wife by a national border is no small thing. Indeed, for those it is happening to it can feel like everything. The role of Government is to determine what is right for the country, not for any one person, couple or family, so we must place this discussion in its national context: managing overall migration to Britain. The public have consistently asked successive Governments to lower migration. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) has said, the last Government, like Governments before them, promised to do exactly that, but, again like the Governments before them, did not deliver. Migration has been far too high for the last two decades and remains so. The issue of migration is not just about quantity. It should be a fundamental principle of our system that people who come to this country do not cost more than they contribute; what they pay in tax should at least cover the costs of the public services that they use. The policy that we are debating was implemented by a Conservative Government as part of an attempt to cut migration and to ensure that those who come here do not represent a net fiscal cost. Clearly, it was not enough, but it was a step in the right direction. In delaying reform, the new Government seem to be making the same mistakes as previous Governments. To refer again to the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex, we in Westminster “cannot pretend that immigration comes only with benefits and no costs”. This is all too clear to the country. People can see it in their wages, which are stagnating because they are being undercut, and they can see it in their rent soaring, in how hard it is for their children to get on the housing ladder, in the cohesion of their communities and in the pressure on their GPs, dentists and infrastructure.