Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it has been an interesting debate for me because other noble Lords have argued from points of view that I have not considered. I support the amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, simply on the basis of unfairness and injustice I want to take issue with some of the things said by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. It seems to me that we do not take into account the value of immigrants in Britain, and again and again that creates a hostile environment. I shall quote a government press release: "We welcome long-term migrants using the NHS, but the NHS is a national, not international health service and we believe it is right that they make a fair contribution to its long-term sustainability" That is true, but the NHS is paid for by everyone who pays tax in Britain. This includes immigrants, who overwhelmingly pay more in tax than they receive—and perhaps make the wider contributions that the Minister was thinking about when she mentioned that. They already make more than their fair contribution to the running costs of the NHS, but the Government do not seem to appreciate that, and I ask why. All the figures suggest that immigrants give more than they take, so why are the Government not recognising that This dog whistle rhetoric of calling it, "a national, not international health service", is a particularly harsh insult to the 144,000 NHS staff whose nationality is non-British. The truth is that we do have an international health service, which runs on the hard-working dedication of so many people who move here from all over the world to look after the people who live here in the UK. It is hard at the moment to see why anybody would want to come here in view of the sorry, xenophobic state we are in, but they still do Not only is our immigrant workforce being blamed, yet again, for the failures of government policy, but now they are being charged £400 a year for the privilege. The same people who came here to work so hard to deliver our National Health Service are now being told that they do not deserve to have their own health needs looked after properly. If this kind of policy had been introduced in 2010, people would have been rightly disgusted. It is the kind of thing that only UKIP would have got away eight years ago, and everyone would have thought it wrong. But somehow, in our society today, we have become so hostile, so fast, that now such policies just seem normal. This change is a continuation of the Government’s obsession with blaming all the country’s problems on immigration. As a Green, I strongly resist any measure of hostility based on where in the world a person was born. In particular, I ask the Government to consider whether it is particularly unfair to charge an NHS surcharge to people who work in the NHS. I am dubious about the amount that the Government claim they will raise. I would like the Minister to confirm that amount, because it would be interesting to see later whether it is realised Finally, do the Government agree that the best way to fund the NHS is to invest in it properly? Only the Government can do that.