On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could you use this opportunity to reiterate your ruling on the reading of questions by hon. Members on the Back Benches, whereas you allow questions to be read at the Dispatch Box?

I object to notes when an hon. Member reads from the top of the page to the bottom, and in effect reads the notes into the record. Hon. Members on the Back Benches can glance at a note if they are dealing with figures or any other matters that must be precise. As for the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, I let them have their way for half an hour. That is the best thing that I can say.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the education and training of children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome; and for connected purposes.

I recognise and welcome the fact that more money is being spent on special educational needs provision in our schools. Even so, local education authorities are compelled to make tough decisions about what they will prioritise and where they will spend the money. We can all appreciate the very great pressures on school budgets, but money allocated for SEN in our country must not be used for other purposes. We will not be able to deliver on our educational promises to such children and their families if we allow that misdirection of money to continue. The funding must be ring-fenced, and that is one element of the Bill. We also need to ensure that it is being spent as efficiently as it should be.

The early diagnosis of children with autistic spectrum disorders is absolutely vital. It is difficult, if not impossible, to plan an effective educational strategy for a pupil with ASD until there has been a full assessment of the child’s condition. We in this country are frequently slow in making that assessment, and local councils and health authorities must both be encouraged to speed up the process. Internationally, there are a number of countries where the process takes place far earlier and far more effectively than it does here in the UK. We should examine and adopt best practice from overseas, and that means looking at what goes on in countries such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Israel. Early diagnosis of an ASD not only helps children and their families but saves money over years of schooling.

There is a real, pressing need for improved teacher training on ASDs. A survey by the National Union of Teachers found that 44 per cent. of teachers are not confident about teaching children with an autistic spectrum disorder, 39 per cent. are not confident about identifying children with an ASD and 76 per cent. said that a lack of professional development on the subject was a barrier to teaching children with an ASD. We must ensure that all teachers can do so. As about one in 100 children have some form of ASD, every teacher in every school can expect to teach children who are autistic.

Recent developments with regard to teacher training have been welcome. There are now pilot projects in which special educational needs are made part of initial teacher training; however, it is essential that the issue should become part of all teacher training at all levels. We must also ensure that teachers have access to high quality in-service training. Such measures would go a long way to increase teachers’ confidence when working with pupils with an ASD. We also need to ensure that all special educational needs co-ordinators have in-depth training on autism. We must recognise that with the right teaching regime, many children with an ASD are capable of moving on to further and higher education, which means that our colleges and universities must take on board lessons about how to teach young adults with Asperger’s or autism.

For the parents of an autistic child, exclusion from school is a very real concern. Some 27 per cent. of children with autism have been excluded, and 23 per cent. have been excluded more than once. We must acknowledge the special nature of such cases and place a requirement on schools under which, if any child with special educational needs is at risk of being excluded, there must be a review of provision before exclusion takes place.

A range of special educational needs provision is needed, as one size simply does not fit all. Research by the National Autistic Society found that more than half of such children attend a type of school that their parents believe does not provide the best support for them. Parents of autistic children need to be given a choice in education provision and assistance in making that choice an informed one. The National Autistic Society and local organisations such as Supporting Together those with Autism and Asperger’s in Redbridge, or STAAR, do a first-class job advising parents, but more support is needed from within the education system. Parents have every right to expect that the school will keep them informed regularly about how the school is supporting the child’s special needs, as well as about the child’s educational progress.

The Warnock report of 1978 made the case for including children with special needs in mainstream schools, a view that has influenced education policy ever since. However, more recently, Baroness Warnock urged the Government to review that policy. Including pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools is understandable, but not always desirable for such children or for the children with whom they are taught. For some children, a more specialised environment is required if their schooling is to progress. In my constituency, two schools—Little Heath school and Hatton school—provide first-class educational facilities for children with special educational needs. For that, I congratulate the London borough of Redbridge, which should be commended.

We must put in place sensible measures that encourage and reward local authorities that work together to provide a wide range of high quality special educational needs provision. In areas where such provision is not available, parents and children may be forced to make unacceptably long journeys to get to a suitable school. I have heard reports of children travelling for up to two hours to get to a school that provides the education that they need. That is not acceptable.

The Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 and the special educational needs code of practice already require that young people with a statement should have an assessment of their needs as a disabled adult when they leave school. However, that is not always enough to ensure a smooth transition from school to adulthood. A recent National Autistic Society report noted that only half of those with statements were issued with transition plans, and that 45 per cent. of them were dissatisfied with the process. In this day and age, that is not good enough.

There is a real need to make available high quality training for young adults with ASD so that they can be assisted into work. Many, with the right support and the right environment, can successfully make the transition into employment. Some companies and organisations are providing suitable and rewarding employment for those with ASD, but not enough to meet the demand. We must do more to encourage employers to consider making more posts available for adults with ASD, and we must give them more support in providing long-term employment. I have had personal experience of a young adult who was taken on board by one of our blue chip companies and is now not only holding down a responsible job, but living alone and leading a productive life. We must make sure that that happens more frequently.

It must be a concern for us all that individuals pass through both the education and the health systems with autistic spectrum disorders that go unrecognised. As adults, some of those are misdiagnosed as having a mental health problem, such as schizophrenia. I know of many cases where such people have languished in prison for several years, and some are still languishing in prison. They can find themselves being prescribed drugs that are completely inappropriate for their true condition.

Existing legislation, guidance and codes of conduct are far from silent on what services and assistance should be made available to autistic children and their families. There is no lack of good will, but often we fail to follow through existing laws and good intentions, and in these circumstances many children are being left behind. It is the concerns of the parents of autistic children that form the basis of this Bill. Naturally, they want the best for their children, as any of us would, and they have identified a number of ways in which that can be achieved.

I thank parliamentary colleagues from both sides of the House who have been most generous with their support and their advice. This is not a party political matter and we can achieve real progress if we work together. I also thank Lord Adonis for meeting me last week and discussing the various issues that I raised. My Bill is a simple measure addressing a narrow range of matters, but it would move things in the right direction. For that reason, I urge the House to support it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lee Scott, John Bercow, Stephen Hammond, Bob Russell, Mr. Charles Walker, Mr. John Leech, Mr. Brian Binley, Mr. Iain Duncan Smith, Harry Cohen, Mr. Peter Bone, Mike Gapes and Philip Davies.

Education (Children with Autism)

Mr. Lee Scott accordingly presented a Bill to make provision about the education and training of children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 9 May, and to be printed [Bill 56].

We now come to the first debate on the Opposition motions. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House expresses its very great concern that National Insurance numbers appear to have been issued to illegal immigrants.

Britain today has nearly 5 million people claiming out-of-work benefits. Despite £3 billion spent on the Government’s new deal, we have higher youth unemployment than 10 years ago. We have half a million people under the age of 35 claiming incapacity benefit. According to Ministers, a million IB claimants in all want to work. We have parts of Britain where as few as one in four adults of working age are working. We have a greater proportion of children being brought up in workless households than any other country in Europe.

What are the Government doing? They are handing national insurance numbers to tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Some people might call that incompetence. Just when the Secretary of State thought that things could not get any worse, the chaos spreads to another part of his job. What we know for certain is that 6,000 illegal immigrants have been issued with national insurance numbers by his Department, giving them an official stamp of approval to go and get a job. We have figures that strongly suggest that the real number is much higher. That is Britain today under this Government. All that happened while the Secretary of State was too busy getting on with his two jobs in government to sort out the confusion with his campaign finances. What utter chaos.

To be frank, in the past few months we have seen a whole series of calamities for the Secretary of State on this important issue. We first had a sense that something was wrong last September, during the fiasco over the statistics on migrant workers; you will remember that, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State told us then that only 700,000 of the jobs created in Britain since 1997 had gone to migrant workers. We disputed his figure and suggested that the number was much higher. “No,” said the Secretary of State, “It’s 700,000.” A month later he said, “We’ve got the figure wrong—it’s not 700,000, but 1.1 million.” We know that the Secretary of State is not much good at adding up, but losing 400,000 people is almost as improbable as losing £100,000 of campaign contributions. Even the 1.1 million figure may not be right; the Office for National Statistics has since told us that it thinks that as many as 80 per cent. of the new jobs created since 1997 may have gone to people moving to the UK from overseas. No wonder the Secretary of State wanted to keep things private. Can he really tell the House today exactly how many people from overseas have come to Britain to work in the past 10 years?

Keeping things private is becoming a bit of a habit with the Secretary of State. We have been trying to get answers about national insurance numbers and this issue ever since it became clear, two months ago, that thousands of illegal workers were being cleared to work in the security industry. The written questions remain unanswered to this day. On 13 November last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) asked the Home Secretary about the issue during questions on the Security Industry Authority. She waffled and said almost nothing, telling us that sharing intelligence would be important in the future. It seems that the Secretary of State is not alone in wanting to keep us guessing about what is really going on.

I believe that yesterday’s admission represents the tip of the iceberg of what is really going on with the Department for Work and Pensions’ management of the system for migrant workers coming to Britain. We now know with cast-iron certainty that at least 6,000 people, illegally in the UK, have been given national insurance numbers by the Government. Yet nearly two years ago, the Government promised us that in future no national insurance numbers would be issued to anyone who did not have a right to work in the United Kingdom.

If the Government had done their job, those latest revelations should not have been possible. On 5 June 2006, Ministers told both Houses of Parliament:

“Any individual applying for a NINO”—

that is, a national insurance number—

“…who does not have the right to work here legally will be refused one.”

They passed regulations that were supposed to enforce that. The guidance notes state clearly that an individual applying for a national insurance number because they are in employment or self-employment must provide a specific document proving that they have the right to work in the United Kingdom. That was nearly two years ago, but we now know that every single one of the illegal immigrants in the security industry who caused such controversy before Christmas had been issued with national insurance numbers. Even when the regulations were passed, the Government strongly implied that the problem was small in scale. They had managed to find only about 3,000 cases in which something was amiss. It is now clear that that was a hopeless underestimate; the figure is much higher.

The hon. Gentleman asked about an outstanding answer to a written question. May I give him the information? The answer has remained outstanding because it has taken time to understand the extent of the national insurance number-related element captured as part of the Security Industry Authority review. As the review is nearing its completion, we now have a better understanding of the issue and we will be making the necessary checks against the SIA data. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question; we wanted to give an accurate one.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. However, given that the Security Industry Authority said yesterday that every single one of those people had national insurance numbers, I am at a loss to see what review needed to take place, as all those people were affected.

The original figure cited by the Government 18 months ago referred to 3,000 cases, but that is a hopeless underestimate of the level of the problem. Over the past three years, the Government have issued work permits to 270,000 people from outside the European economic area.

My hon. Friend is making an extremely impressive case. Is he aware that the Department that is to reply to this debate estimated in May 2004 that there would probably be 15,000 workers from the EU accession countries working in this country, yet in fact the figure is nearly 700,000? Is it not deplorable that a Government Department got its figures so catastrophically wrong?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments, which amplify the point that the Department is in a state of chaos as regards dealing with the whole system of migrant workers coming to the UK to work.

That is highlighted by the comparison between the number of work permits issued and the number of national insurance numbers issued. Over the past three years, 270,000 people from outside the European economic area have been given work permits by this Government—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will in a moment; let me just repeat this figure to the hon. Gentleman, because he may be particularly struck by it. The Government have issued 270,000 work permits to people from outside the EEA, but at the same time they have issued nearly 900,000 national insurance numbers—that is a difference of more than 600,000. Before I give my thoughts on what the meaning of that may be, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to give us his.

I am one of the many Members who wished to come here today to draw attention to the Government’s very creditable record on dealing with pensioners. Is it not clear from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks that he is denying us that opportunity in order to pursue a nasty, vindictive witch hunt against the Minister?

I look forward to debating pensioner poverty with the hon. Gentleman at the earliest opportunity, as we have every intention of holding that debate. However, I think he will agree that these issues have a direct correlation with levels of worklessness and child poverty, and when we, as the House of Commons, discover that the Government are failing as they now clearly are, it is right and proper that we should bring Ministers to this House to hold them to account as quickly as we possibly can.

My hon. Friend may share my concern that the Government’s sheer incompetence in their handling of immigration means that in housing, for instance, we have a situation whereby the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), wrote to tell me:

“Information is not available centrally on the local impact of migration on household growth.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2007; Vol. 465, c. 516W.]

He informed me, however, that one third of projected new housing would be allocated for new immigration. Is that not a disastrous situation that leads to further problems of community cohesion and delivery of public services?

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The reason for holding this debate is that the fact that the system is out of control has direct, human consequences as regards levels of deprivation and the serious challenges faced by many British families in many communities around the country.

Surely this shows the Government’s complete incompetence in trying to pursue their stated policy objective of British jobs for British workers. If they do not even know how many people are coming here from outside the EU and how they will control their access to work, that makes it impossible for them to pursue one of the central aims that the Prime Minister has repeated in this House on many occasions.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will set out in more detail why this completely undermines many aspects of the Government’s current strategy.

Let me return to the gap of 600,000 between the number of work permits issued and the number of national insurance numbers issued—

Could the hon. Gentleman give the House his precise understanding of the difference between a work permit and a national insurance number?

The Government explained that at the time of the publication of their regulations. If we are to believe them, given that it is clearly not the case, a national insurance number can be obtained only by someone who has the right to work in the UK. Is the Secretary of State saying that that is no longer correct? The Government told us that that was their policy, although it is clearly not what is happening on the ground. My understanding of the difference, and I think the understanding of any employer, is that if somebody turns up for employment with a national insurance number, that is taken as a stamp of approval from the Government—the right to work in the United Kingdom. If the Secretary of State wants to tell us otherwise, I should like to hear from him.

I warn the hon. Gentleman gently, and in a friendly way, that he is digging himself into an even deeper hole. I asked him about his understanding of the difference between a work permit and a national insurance number, because he seems to think that they are the same thing.

I have never said that they are the same thing, but the Government’s statements show that they regard the issuing of a national insurance number as linked directly to the right to work in the United Kingdom. They have clearly not managed the system properly given that, as we know as a matter of record from yesterday’s revelations, national insurance numbers are being handed out to a large number of people who do not have a right to work in the UK. That is the point. Nearly 1 million people have received national insurance numbers: the question is how many of them really have a right to be working in the UK. We know that some of them do—for example, overseas students or dependants of people who have permits to work here.

Lest Members should have any doubts about this issue, let me give a couple of examples of why I sincerely believe that the 600,000 figure masks a significant number of people who should not be here. Over the past three years, the Government have issued 755 work permits to people from Ghana, for example, but over the same period they have issued more than 21,000 national insurance numbers to people from Ghana. Take Albania, with 110 work permits issued and more than 4,000 national insurance numbers issued. Try persuading me that all those numbers were issued under the normal—[Interruption.] The Minister for Borders and Immigration asks how many are students. Let me answer that question for him, because I have taken a look at the website of the Higher Education Statistics Agency, whose most recent figures show that a grand total of 235 Albanians are studying in the UK—hardly equivalent to 4,000.

What do we know about the rest of those people? We have sought to do the right thing by probing the Government to find out who they really are. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere asked Ministers whether they could provide us with a breakdown of the gap between the number of work permits that they issue and the number of national insurance numbers that they hand out, their response—surprise, surprise—was that they did not have that information. So how do we take them seriously when they tell us that they know what is going on?

Let me say what I think. I do not believe for a moment that all those national insurance numbers were issued to people who are legitimately in the United Kingdom. I have suspected for a while that the current system is simply out of control—that the Government are handing out national insurance numbers to people who have no right to be here, and that Ministers have told employers that the national insurance number system is something they can rely on when the opposite is the case.

What chance does my hon. Friend think that the average employer has of knowing whether a national insurance number is legitimate, given the sophistication of the scams that illegal immigrants employ to obtain them and the apparent ease with which it is possible to do so? Are they not liable unwittingly to employ somebody who is not entitled to be here?

My hon. Friend is right. If the Government themselves cannot work out who is or is not entitled to a national insurance number, why should we expect the small business down the road to be able to do it?

We now know for certain that this is precisely what is happening, not from the Government, who did not want to answer the questions—we have heard the Secretary of State’s explanation, and I will leave hon. Members to reach a view on that—but from the Security Industry Authority, which had no problem in doing so. Yesterday, it confirmed publicly and openly, and Ministers finally accepted grudgingly, that every single one of the 6,000-plus illegal immigrants appointed to security posts had a national insurance number. After two months of not answering questions, in the end the truth had to be dragged out of them. Even as late as yesterday morning, the Department for Work and Pensions was still claiming that it did not know the answer, which, I have to say, stretches credibility. It was another attempt to hide bad news, this time for as long as possible. This comes at a time not just when the leadership of the Department is in a state of chaos but when the Government want more bad news like a hole in the head, and not surprisingly, on a serious issue we cannot get the information from them.

With supreme irony, this revelation comes a week after the Government launched a campaign to warn employers that they face prosecution if they hire someone who does not have a right to work in the UK. The slogans are direct:

“If you hire illegal migrant workers you're as illegal as they are”—

an interesting message for the Secretary of State to contemplate. The campaign even points out that offenders can be sent to jail. The Government could not have been more direct about it.

“Illegal working attracts illegal immigrants and undercuts British wages”—

I quote the Minister for Borders and Immigration, who launched the campaign last week. He also said:

“That’s why the Government is determined to shut it down. The message is clear for employers—we will not tolerate illegal working.”

A week later, it turns out that the Secretary of State’s Department is handing out national insurance numbers to illegal immigrants. How on earth are businesses and employers supposed to take the system seriously when it is quite clear that the Department has lost control of it? That is what has been so worrying about the revelations from the DWP in the past few months. Almost every month at Question Time, the Secretary of State parrots the Prime Minister’s favourite slogan, “British jobs for British workers”, even though it was pinched from the BNP, and even though it is illegal under European law. But how does he get British people into British jobs if he has lost control of the system for managing the flow of people into the UK coming from overseas to work?

Let us be clear. The Secretary of State may only have been in his job since last summer, but the buck stops with him, and his grasp of the situation has been sketchy to say the least. In September, when he claimed that only 700,000 of the new jobs created since 1997 had gone to people from overseas, he was obviously wrong. It did not take rocket science to work that one out; one just has to go out for a walk in any of our cities to see the change that has happened. However, when I challenged him over that and told him that I thought he had got the numbers wrong, he was having absolutely none of it. Let me read to the House the letter I had from him. He emphatically stated:

“The net increase in the number of migrant workers is therefore 700,000.”

He added:

“In future, I am more than happy to provide you with such clarifications in private, to avoid the need to expose such confusion to public scrutiny.”

About three weeks after that, he had to make public appearances apologising for getting it wrong, so who is confused now?

Is not the irony of this Government’s appalling mismanagement of immigration the fact that the impact is felt most on low-skilled, low-wage people in a small number of communities in this constituency, including my own constituency of Peterborough? They are priced out of jobs by unfettered immigration, which causes enormous resentment and gives succour to the extremist parties on the right. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that the Government are responsible for that. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), might think it is an amusing thing to comment on, but it is not. It has ramifications for community relations throughout this country.

My hon. Friend is right because underlying the debate is a real human cost. Getting the system wrong has real consequences for people in communities up and down the country.

If we could all see there was something wrong, why did the Secretary of State not see it? Let me ask him this question. When the security staff story first broke back in December, it was clear that there could be an issue with national insurance numbers. I have a copy of the application form here. It is quite clear, and it says that applicants are required to fill in all their details with a national insurance number. That is why we asked the questions, so why did he not answer? When did he first realise that something was amiss? Why was his Department still claiming that it did not know the answer as late as yesterday morning, when the Security Industry Authority was able to say what it knew? Why did it say that the answer was 100 per cent. when the Department was still trying to find out? Did he actually talk to it to find out what had happened, and what changes has he ordered to the national insurance number system since the matter occurred? Why has no statement been made to the House about what is clearly a problem in the Department?

This is a matter of extreme importance, not for technical reasons related to our immigration system, but because of those nearly 5 million people stranded on out-of-work benefits. Not all of them can or will work again—those who cannot will rightly need the help of the state to support them—but very many of them can and should be working again. It makes no sense to have millions of people coming to work here from overseas, or to be so lax with people coming to Britain illegally, while so many people are sitting at home doing nothing.

I am not sure the Secretary of State has fully grasped the seriousness of that issue either. When we met at the Dispatch Box last week, I pressed him about the level of child poverty in Britain. The academic evidence is clear-cut. Children brought up in workless households are more likely to fail at school, more likely to be workless themselves and more likely to end up in trouble in later life. Britain today has a higher proportion of children living in workless households than any other country in Europe, including the poorest new entrants to the EU such as Romania and Latvia. The Secretary of State does not seem to know that, because when I pressed him on the issue he said he thought we were “above the average” in Europe. I suggest that he goes back and looks at the figures again. He should cut through the Government’s rhetoric, and take a look at the real picture in Britain today, where child poverty is rising again, where young people cycle on and off the new deal without finding sustainable jobs, and where, in some parts of our community, as many as one in three children are being brought up in workless households.

Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that what is before us is a very narrow motion, which he created. Therefore, he must keep to the terms of the motion. He is talking about the problems of families in this country, when the motion clearly expresses great concern about national insurance numbers being issued to illegal immigrants. According to his own distinction, the debate is very narrow indeed.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, but the whole point is that this is the human cost of what the Government are doing. The more national insurance numbers we issue to people who are in this country not by right, the more we cause a knock-on problem for people in communities around the country who suffer from deprivation. Those people are looking for work and those jobs are not always there. There are many people in this country who we need to get back into work, and if the Government are sanctioning, through the inefficiency of the way they operate, a flow of people into this country who should not be here by giving national insurance numbers to them, they are effectively giving a stamp of authority to employers, saying, “Actually, it is okay to hire this guy because the Government’s ticked his box. It must be okay for him to be here.” That takes opportunities away from people in this country, and it has a huge human cost as a knock-on effect.

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly in order to say that, but not in depth. He can touch on that point, but not in the detail he was going into previously.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. The fact is that the Secretary of State is presiding over a Department that is focused on dealing with those issues, while at the same time it is giving national insurance numbers to illegal immigrants. That is not a record of which any Secretary of State of any Government should be proud.

The truth is that the Government’s record in managing the flow of people coming to work in Britain is lamentable. They do not know how many people are here. They do not know who is working. They do not know whether or not people have a right to work here, and they seem to be handing out national insurance numbers without question. Yet the Department overseeing all of this is run by a Secretary of State who, by his own admission, cannot add up. He said that he could not manage his own finances because of the pressures of work, but he still thought it was okay to take on the Labour deputy leader’s job. He had lost control of the numbers not just in his campaign, but in his Department and all while he was trying to run not one, but two Departments of State. It all appears to be getting a bit much for him.

We know that the system he is overseeing is in a state of chaos. We know that handing national insurance numbers to illegal immigrants will undermine efforts to tackle deprivation and get people back into work. Will the Secretary of State tell the House why he believes that he is still the right man to do the job?

I beg to move, To leave out from ‘House’ to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

“welcomes the new checks and controls the Government has introduced to reduce illegal working by foreign nationals, which include measures to prevent illegal immigrants being issued with national insurance numbers.”

I am very pleased indeed to be responding in this Opposition debate, and I am even more pleased having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). Up to five minutes to 4 yesterday, the Opposition wanted to debate pensioner poverty today. Now they do not, and I can understand why. They treated pensioners appallingly when they were in power and now they have nothing to say to them. For our part, we will continue to work, speak and act for justice for pensioners.

I welcome this debate, not least because it gives me the opportunity to explain to the hon. Gentleman—and he clearly needs a proper education on this—what national insurance numbers are for and what they are not for, because he does not appear to understand. In fact, when he reads Hansard tomorrow, or online later today, I think he will be embarrassed by what he has just said. The hon. Gentleman makes accusations about national insurance numbers and compares them with work permits, but they are not the same. Total national insurance numbers issued to non-EU nationals and the number of work permits issued cannot be compared, which he tries to do.

National insurance numbers cover categories of people who are not required to have work permits but are eligible for national insurance numbers, such as overseas students, whom we welcome into our universities and who bring the fees that help to finance those universities, and the dependants of work permit holders—relatives who are given permission to come to the UK to join a family who already live here legally. There will always be more national insurance numbers than population, as, for example, national insurance numbers for deceased persons remain on the system to ensure that their surviving dependants can get benefits based on the deceased’s national insurance contributions, including the widow’s pension. That would also have been the case before 1997, when our Government came to power.

rose—

Let me explain the facts that the hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand.

European Union workers are entitled to count on national insurance contributions paid here for their pension in their country so their national insurance numbers and contribution records have to remain on UK systems after they have come and gone. That is part of the reason for the figures for national insurance numbers being greater than the hon. Gentleman might suppose.

I was making a point about national insurance numbers that were issued in the past three years. I assume that the Secretary of State has not been issuing national insurance numbers to dead people.

I think the hon. Gentleman will be even more embarrassed about those comments. Of course we do not do that. The national insurance numbers of people who die remain on the system so that their dependants, including widows, can claim the benefits that flow from their contributions.

As Secretary of State for work, will the right hon. Gentleman explain whether it is in order under employment law for a boss to call a member of his work force “incompetent”? How does it feel?

That question does not merit an answer.

Under Labour today, a national insurance number can never be proof of anyone’s right to work, as the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell appears to believe and as he implied this afternoon. The previous Conservative Government believed that it should be and legislated to that effect. That is a crucial point. The Tories thought that a national insurance number should be a passport to work and legislated to that effect. I repeat that, under Labour today, the national insurance number on its own cannot be an automatic passport to a job. It is an administrative mechanism whereby we can track people’s contributions to the national insurance system and record their entitlement to pensions and other benefits.

Of course, when the Conservatives were in power, illegal immigration and working were not the global phenomena they are now. That was not because they had well thought out policies to keep them under control. The main reason was that, under their stewardship, the economy was going to hell in a handcart. No one, especially not the 3 million unemployed, associated Britain with work.

I am listening to the Secretary of State with interest. It is clear from the quality of his speech that it was written by one of his phoney think tanks; we are not sure whether it exists or whether it is a hologram.

The motion deals with immigration. If the Government are worried about immigration, why, two years ago, did they specifically opt out of sharing criminal records data with European Union countries? There are many cases throughout the country of national insurance numbers being given to people who have a criminal record in other EU countries. The Government do not seem to know about that and, what is more, do not seem to care.

Again, I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman’s comments have to do with the debate, but I am happy to answer his question. We are putting together systems and procedures to share information with Interpol and I shall tackle directly the subject of illegal immigration, its flow into illegal work and the question of national insurance. I give way.

I call Douglas Carswell.

John Penrose, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Penrose, I apologise.

I keep saying that I am a lot prettier than my hon. Friend.

If someone approaches an employer saying that they are a British citizen, that they have no proof of it but they have a national insurance number, how is that employer to be sure that the person has a right to work in the UK?

Employers must make the requisite checks. I shall deal with the matter shortly because it is another false premise on which the Opposition motion has been framed.

Unemployment was dire under the Conservatives, but it is no longer the case. This morning’s figures again show that employment is at an all-time high, with nearly 3 million more people in work. Inactivity is historically low and a million people are off benefits. That is our Labour Government’s record. It is a record of genuine achievement and competence, not Tory abject failure and incompetence.

The Secretary of State says that 3 million more people are in work. He has plenty of figures at his fingertips; can he tell us how many of those 3 million people are British citizens?

As I have been explaining, employment has gone up, including for British citizens. Wages have risen and prosperity has increased. There are more house owners and the economic picture is completely different from the one that we inherited from the Conservatives.

The amendment announces measures to prevent illegal immigrants from being issued with national insurance numbers—a clear admission that it has been happening. [Interruption.] Does the Secretary of State believe that he is introducing the measures unnecessarily? Their introduction implies that illegal immigrants have been issued with national insurance numbers. What additional measures will he introduce to retrieve or withdraw the national insurance numbers that have been issued to people who are not entitled to them?

I am sorry to say to the hon. Lady that the level of ignorance and misunderstanding among Conservative Members on the matter is astonishing. Given that they chose to switch at the last moment from another topic to this one, I am amazed that they have not checked their facts. I shall describe shortly exactly what happens. I shall also describe the way in which, under the Government whom the hon. Lady supported and who were in power until 1997, the relevant procedures were inadequate and incompetent and could not nearly have dealt with the problems that we have faced with the global flows of millions of people on a scale never previously experienced in advanced European countries such as ours.

The Secretary of State accuses us of not checking our figures. However, his Department’s figures show that both the proportion and the absolute number of British adults of working age in employment have fallen in the past two years.

It is important to note when considering proportion that the population has been increased—[Interruption.] The facts are stark: 3 million unemployed under the Conservatives, but record employment under Labour, including record numbers of British citizens.

I agree with Conservative Members that illegal working is an issue and I shall explain what we are doing about it. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell should know that the Conservative Government in 1996 established a clear and unequivocal statutory duty on employers to check that new employees had the right to work. However, it is worth pausing and considering the key issue that, in doing so, they said that the possession of a national insurance number was sufficient proof of a right to work. The Tories said so and legislated to that effect. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that that was a stupid thing for the Tories to do—it was both administratively impractical and left the door wide open to abuse. Yet as we all know, despite the requirements on employers, illegal working has remained a problem. Employers cannot abrogate their responsibilities for that, which is a point to which I shall return later in my speech.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I want to make some progress, because I have been asked specific questions about changes and I want to answer them. Then I will give way.

The situation has evolved over the years. It became apparent to us that some employers, either wilfully or inadvertently, were employing illegal workers, in part because those people had been issued with national insurance numbers. Some of those NINOs will have been issued to students who then overstayed, for example. In other cases, employers will have created their own reference numbers, to record tax and national insurance deductions, which are not recognised by either the Department for Work and Pensions or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

We have therefore taken action, and I have been asked what we have done. In 2004, we changed the legislation inherited from the Conservatives to provide that a national insurance number alone is not enough to prove an entitlement to work, as it had been under the Conservatives. Since July 2006, all employment-related national insurance number applicants have to prove that they have the right to work in the United Kingdom, which is something that no previous Government—and certainly not the previous Tory Government—ever required. That has made a real impact.

Since July 2006, more than 8,000 national insurance number applications have been turned down because they did not satisfy the right to work. Before someone can be given a national insurance number, they have to undergo an intensive face-to-face interview by a specialist member of Jobcentre Plus staff—I was asked about that by, I think, the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson), although it may have been one of her colleagues. Did that system exist when the Conservative party was in power? We all know the answer to that: no.

The fact that we have tightened up the national insurance number system does not mean, however, that we have changed the fundamental responsibility of employers to check that their employees have the right to work. It is positively irresponsible for the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell to go on the airwaves and try to mislead employers and the public into thinking that national insurance numbers prove the right to work. That positively encourages rogue or ignorant employers to flout the law. What the Opposition are saying demonstrates not only that they do not understand the first thing about the system, but that they are far more interested in making political points than in doing anything about illegal working.

The fact that some employers continue to ignore the law is the reason we are tightening up enforcement still further, by introducing increased fines from next month and, in extreme circumstances, prison for rogue employers, and why we are telling employers what their responsibilities are, through a major public awareness campaign. Will the hon. Gentleman put his and his party’s weight behind those proposals? I give him the opportunity to answer that question.

We would be delighted to see any proposals that tightened up the system. The point that the Secretary of State appears to be missing, however, is that Ministers told the House in 2006:

“Any individual applying for a NINO in connection with employment who does not have the right to work here legally will be refused one.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 June 2006; Vol. 682, c. WS68.]

That is clearly not happening. Why not?

But it is happening. The hon. Gentleman is sticking to his pre-rehearsed script. He came to the House brandishing a speech that he thought would demolish everything before him, but it is based on a total misunderstanding of the facts and the realities.

The hon. Gentleman asked about this, so let me remind the House what the Opposition’s position was when the Security Industry Authority was established. Also, the motion that we are debating was inspired by problems that the SIA has been seeking to address and which are being addressed by the Home Secretary—

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I need to answer this point, and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me remind the House what position the Opposition took when the Security Industry Authority was established. Their spokesman said:

“The Opposition’s approach to the Bill is that it should not place unnecessary, overly complex, bureaucratic or burdensome regulations on the legitimate sector of the industry…A large company can afford to employ people in compliance and administrative departments to ensure that regulations are satisfied. However, for people legitimately trying to run a small company…extra bureaucratic regulation is a huge problem.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2001; Vol. 365, c. 980.]

The Conservatives will certainly get the gangmasters’ vote with that attitude. Here they are, complaining about a lack of due attention and proper regulation, but when we were putting the necessary legislative changes in place, they spoke out against the tight controls that we introduced.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. If the Security Industry Authority and the Home Office, which has been found to be employing illegal cleaners, cannot determine who can and cannot legitimately work in this country, how on earth does he expect a small shopkeeper, a restaurant keeper or a small business man to do so?

That is exactly why we need compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals, but the hon. Gentleman is opposed to that policy. As I will explain in a moment—clearly he does not understand the situation either—compulsory identity cards will be a crucial weapon in stamping out the illegal working that, in supporting his party’s motion, he professes to be concerned about.

I want to return to the Secretary of State’s reference to gangmasters. The Government introduced the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, yet there has been absolutely no diminution in the number of unlawfully operating gangmasters, who completely exploit usually illegal immigrants, who are housed disgracefully and paid a fraction of what they should be paid. That is because the Government have completely failed to provide the Gangmasters Licensing Authority with the powers and the resources to do the job that everybody in the House believes it should be doing.

I just do not recognise that description of the situation at all.

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way a second time. He is talking about the importance of employers making the necessary checks. However, if an employer is faced with a legitimate British citizen who does not have a passport, how is that British citizen supposed to prove that he or she has a right to work in this country, and how does that affect the Secretary of State’s point about national insurance numbers not necessarily being a guarantee of a right to work?

There are all sorts of documents, including a passport, that employers will be able to inspect. Employers are advised by the Home Office on the correct documentary evidence that can establish the right-to-work status. A British national starting work can establish his or her right to work through a UK passport or a UK birth certificate. The Home Office guidance to employers is to be amended from 29 February. That will help to clarify any uncertainty. It is clear that the Government are taking action in every respect to tighten up the loose and unregulated system that we inherited.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way—he is being most generous. He said that employers still have a duty in law to check their employees’ right to work. What would he expect prosecuting authorities to do in the event of an employer claiming that he was just too busy to make those checks?

Again, I am not going to dignify that question with a response.

rose—

I need to make some progress and then I will give way. The level of ignorance on the Opposition’s far Back Benches, let alone on their Front Bench, is enormous. [Interruption.] Indeed, they are back to front.

Ensuring that someone whom one employs has a right to be in this country and has a right to work is not, in my view, asking too much. Neither is it “burdensome” or “unnecessary”, as the Conservative party said it was when commenting on the legislation.

To help to deal with illegal workers in future, we will further tighten the system by introducing identity cards for foreign nationals from the end of this year. I can confirm that, as the ID card system for foreign nationals comes in, anyone who applies for a national insurance number must produce their identity card, so we are introducing an extra clamp-down on illegal working. Will the Conservatives support this absolutely vital tool for achieving that objective?

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he will tell us whether he will support compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He will know that confidence in a Government, of whatever political colour, is very important indeed. In that regard, will he give the House a guarantee that there are no illegal workers at the Wales Office or the Department for Work and Pensions, so that people listening to the debate, or reading about it tomorrow, can have confidence in his Government?

We have extremely strict procedures in the DWP on these matters. Many Conservatives are intervening on me, and I am happy to take all their interventions, but it is interesting that they are asking me questions on virtually anything except the issue that they have put down on the Order Paper. That is because they are embarrassed now that they have realised that it was based on an entirely false premise. When I—

rose—

I am happy to take all and sundry—[Interruption.] Most of it is sundry. I am more than happy to take interventions, however.

What is really embarrassing for the Conservatives about this debate is not just that they do not understand the issues, or the fact that the proposition on which they have sought to censure the Government is based on an entirely false premise, but that they will not support the proposals for the single weapon that would stem this problem at the outset—the introduction of compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals. That would enable regulations to be introduced that would be of enormous benefit to employers and everyone else.

rose—