MPs back Bill to impose levy on migrants

MPs overwhelmingly agreed by 303 votes to 18 last night to give the Government’s Immigration Bill a second reading.

The legislation will now go in to committee for further scrutiny. MPs will also have the chance to amend the Bill.

Under the proposals, foreign workers and overseas students will be forced to pay a levy to use the NHS.

Landlords will also be required to check their tenants are not in the UK illegally, and it will be easier for the authorities to deport foreign criminals.

Detailing the measures in the Bill, Home Secretary Theresa May said: “It is ridiculous that the odds are stacked in favour of illegal migrants. It is unacceptable that hard-working taxpayers have to compete with people who have no right to be here. This Bill will begin to address these absurdities and restore the balance.”

The Home Secretary Theresa May also confirmed the Government was scrapping ad vans telling illegal immigrants to “go home or face arrest” as they were “too much of a blunt instrument”.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour supported the Bill but a number of Liberal Democrat MPs and Labour backbenchers said the plans attacked immigrants unfairly.

Ministers hope the levy on students or foreign workers who come to the UK to access the NHS will generate £200m a year. The total recouped could be pushed to £500m if the NHS can successfully recover more of the costs incurred with treating foreign patients.

The Bill will also include other measures to force banks to check against a database of known immigration offenders before allowing them to open accounts.

Private landlords will be required to check the immigration status of their tenants, to prevent those with no right to live in the UK from accessing private rented housing. And there will be new powers to check driving licence applicants’ immigration status.

The legislation will slash the grounds on which migrants can lodge appeals, from the current 17 to just four – a move drawn up in response to the 12 years it took to deport radical cleric Abu Qatada.

Foreign criminals will be deported before their appeals against leaving the country are heard, while migrants will no longer be able to use Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a private or family life, to avoid deportation.

The Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said he supported the proposals, telling MPs they sent out a “very powerful message” that illegal immigration needed to be tackled.

But Liberal Democrat former Children’s Minister Sarah Teather, who voted against the Bill, said all the main political parties tried to appear tough on immigration in order to boost their ratings in the opinion polls.

“I can see very little in this Bill that is worth a second reading,” she said. “In fact, I found it extremely difficult to find anything in the Bill that I supported, or thought was well thought-through.”

Labour’s former Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott said she “deplored” the rhetoric and the political direction. The Bill, she said, was aimed at demonstrating to Ukip supporters that the Government is cracking down on immigrants.

The Home Office recently came under fire for using ads, displayed on billboards carried by vans in six London boroughs, reading ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest’.

Mrs May said: “Politicians should be willing to step up to the plate and say when they think something actually hasn’t been as good an idea, and I think they were too blunt an instrument.”

The campaign was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) earlier this month for using misleading arrest statistics, but cleared over complaints it was offensive and irresponsible.

The ASA received 224 complaints including some from groups representing migrants in the UK, legal academics and the Labour peer Lord Lipsey.

Liberal Democrat party president Tim Farron said it was down to the outrage of the British public the “cheap political stunt” was scrapped.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper branded the “go home” vans a divisive gimmick and a complete failure that was beneath Mrs May and “ought to be beneath this Government”.