The Government’s new points system is now being introduced. It replaces some 80 different routes into the United Kingdom with just four. The final stage is the student route, and during the summer I will publish a statement of intent explaining in detail how it and other routes will work.
The Minister will know that he and I have an honest disagreement on the role of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme in respect of agricultural students coming here to work, which I believe is essential for the future of British growing, but which he does not. May I have the meeting with him or one of his colleagues in the Home Office that I asked for in a letter to the Home Secretary more than a month ago to explore this important question, which I think threatens British food security apart from anything else?
I would be happy to have that meeting. As the hon. Gentleman says, we have an honest disagreement about whether, in my words, we should relax immigration control in eastern Europe and make it easier for people from east Europe to enter and work in the UK. I think we should toughen the system so that it is impossible for low-skilled migration to come in from outside the EU, but I recognise that there will be labour market issues that we will need to confront, which is why I would be happy to have that meeting. I do not anticipate restrictions in the student route being so draconian that overseas students cease to be a source of labour for the agricultural industry or others, but perhaps we should schedule that meeting on the back of that statement of intent, when it is published.