My Lords, yesterday I was privileged to attend the Gurkha pageant held at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where I was proud to be a commissioner for six years.

Throughout the pageant, my eyes welled up with childhood memories of being brought up among the Gurkhas—it all came flooding back. My late father, Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was commissioned into the 2/5th Royal Gurkha Rifles, Frontier Force, and commanded his battalion in the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. His battalion suffered heavy losses and casualties, including officers I had known and grown up with as a child. How ironic that a couple of decades later I would found a brand, Cobra beer, which we supply to thousands of Indian restaurants in the UK, the vast majority of them run and owned by Bangladeshis.

I am on the commemoration committee of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill and was chairman of the committee for six years. These gates exist because of the amazing tenacity of one individual, my noble friend Lady Flather. The Memorial Gates commemorate the contribution of the 5 million volunteers from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and the Caribbean. Inscribed on the ceiling of pavilion next to the gates are the names of the Victoria Cross and George Cross holders, three of whom were from my father’s battalion, the 2/5th Gurkhas—one posthumous.

Gaje Ghale VC and Agansing Rai VC were living legends, who I was fortunate to have grown up with and have been inspired by for the rest of my life. Agansing Rai VC was subedar-major when my father was commanding his battalion. Legend has it that when my father, as a young captain in a remote area in north-east India, received the telegram of my birth, Gage Ghale was next to him and jumped for joy. The ground shook, because he was such a large man.

What I learned about the Gurkhas really quickly is that they are the kindest, most caring and most gentle people. For example, when I took my South African possible future wife on her first visit to India, my father’s retired driver, Bombahadur, who continued to serve with my father at retirement, took me aside and said, “Baba, you should marry her!”. My father’s beloved Gurkha had given his approval, and of course then there was no question but that I was marrying Heather.

However, these kind gentle people in peacetime are the fiercest warriors mankind has known. Just reading the citations of the Gurkha VCs makes your jaw drop with feats that are, quite frankly, superhuman. Sir Ralph Turner, a former officer of the 3rd Gurkhas, had written:

“Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you”.

We are celebrating the Battle of Waterloo and the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas’ service in the same year. I visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo earlier this year. If the Duke of Wellington had had Gurkhas among his troops, the Battle of Waterloo would not have been won on the playing fields of Eton or because Blücher came to the rescue; it would have been won because Napoleon’s troops, including his beloved Imperial Guard, would have been running in fear back towards Paris, fleeing from the fierce Gurkhas, just as the Argentinians did in the Falklands.

It was disheartening when I first spoke about the Gurkhas in this House in 2008 to start the fight for the Gurkhas who had served in Britain for four years to have the right to stay on in the UK if they wished to do so. It seems so unfair that a person could work for a company for four years and have the right to stay indefinitely, and yet someone who was willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice was not, at that time, allowed to. After that debate—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lee, who initiated the Bill—Joanna Lumley, whose father had served in the 6th Gurkhas, came to the fore and spearheaded a public battle that generated an outcry among the British public, who were overwhelmingly appalled at this injustice and unfairness. I will never forget in one television interview how Joanna Lumley humiliated the then Home Office Minister, Phil Woolas. Of course, we won the day and justice was delivered.

We should never take for granted what these amazing men have done in the past 200 years for Britain and India. I have been very outspoken in my criticism of the SDSR in 2010, when cuts were made to the Army that I believe were negligent, cutting the number of Army troops to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. Today, there are barely 3,000 Gurkhas in the British Army, with the Gurkha regiments amalgamated into one, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, with just two battalions, and some in the Queen’s Gurkha Signals, the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment.

However, in India, the Gurkha regiments left with the Indian army after India’s independence have flourished, with six battalions per regiment, an additional regiment formed—the 11th Gurkhas—and Gurkhas serving in all other arms of the army as well. There are approaching 100,000 Gurkhas serving in the Indian army, recruited from Nepal and India, who, after they retire, settle in both India and Nepal. They are a vital backbone of the Indian army. Will the Minister agree that the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Gurkhas are for the British and for India? It was a privilege today to show General Dalbir Singh Suhag, Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian army, around Parliament—all the more for me because he is also from the 5th Gurkhas. When my father was commander-in-chief of the central Indian army, an army of 350,000 strong, I always felt it meant more to him to be president of the Brigade of Gurkhas and colonel of his regiment.

Could the Minister commit, where the Prime Minister is unwilling to in this dangerous world that we live in, to the NATO commitment of 2% of GDP spent on defence? Could the Minister also reassure us and confirm that there will be no further cuts to the Gurkhas? I look forward to the forthcoming SDSR report and hope that this time it is not about means before ends but about looking carefully at the needs first. It is our duty to look after the veterans, and I commend the work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and all that it does for Gurkhas to live out their lives with dignity. Can the Minister confirm the commitment for future support of the Gurkha Welfare Trust to continue the wonderful work that it does? Will the Government reassure us?

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who was present at the pageant, said:

“The Brigade of Gurkhas is more than just a fighting force, it is also—in every sense of the word—a family”.

Particularly at this time, with the devastating earthquakes by which so many Gurkhas have been affected so tragically, does the noble Earl feel that we are doing enough to support the Gurkhas in Nepal? Will the Minister confirm that? Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected in the two disastrous, tragic earthquakes. Major-General Ashok Mehta, my father’s second-in-command, said:

“Two hundred years of distinguished soldiering have put a halo around the Gorkha in the hall of fame. In this hour of national calamity it is the Gorkha-ness of the Nepalis that will be the greatest enabler to confront the monumental tragedy”.

In my own company, Cobra Beer, I sent out 200 hundred letters to our Nepalese restaurant customers straight after the first earthquake to offer our support to raise funds, and I am delighted to say the restaurants have raised almost £200,000. That is the wonderful spirit of giving in our country.

A fellow Zoroastrian Parsee, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw—popularly nicknamed by the Gurkhas as “Sam Bahadur”—said:

“If a man says he is not afraid of dying he is either lying or is a Gurkha”.

Prince Harry, who was also present at the pageant yesterday, said that,

“there was no safer place than by the side of a Gurkha”.

This is the Ayo Gorkhali, or “Here come the Gurkhas”, the cry of the Gurkhas—the finest fighting force the world has ever known. The Gurkha motto is:

“It is better to die than be a coward”.

On the 150th anniversary of the regiment of the 5th Gurkhas in 2008, which took place at Sandhurst—I am proud to be a member of the regimental association— I heard a prayer written by the Reverend Guy Cornwall-Jones, whose father served in the 5th Gurkhas. That prayer said:

“Oh God, who in the Gurkhas has given us a people exceptional in courage and devotion, resplendent in their cheerfulness, we who owe them so much ask your special blessing on them, their families and their land. Grant us thy grace to be faithful to them as they have been faithful to others”.

As a nation, we can never thank the Gurkhas enough. We will be eternally grateful to them.

As former international student himself, Lord Bilimoria remains a vocal support of the rights of people to study in at British universities, as well as being allowed to remain and work in the country after graduation.

The world’s brightest will shun the UK if isolationist rhetoric doesn’t stop now

We all have our own image of UK entrepreneurship. Sir Richard Branson is a common first choice, and Sir James Dyson is another. For me, it is the Indian Restaurateur.

When I first founded Cobra Beer 25 years ago, it was these tireless, unsung heroes of UK entrepreneurship who placed their trust and belief in my business. It is thanks to them that, today, I can see my Indian beer fill patrons’ glasses – both in the curry house and in that most British of all institutions, the pub.

That is what makes our economy one of the greatest in the world. It gives migrants the chance not only to build a business, but to see it become a part of the UK’s national identity – what, after all, could be more British than going out for a chicken tikka?

But as my own company has grown, so too has Britain’s antipathy towards migrants like myself. When I started Cobra in 1989, a little over 10 per cent of people considered immigration to be the most pressing issue facing the country; today it is nearly 40 per cent.

A report published this week by London First (and commissioned by Boris Johnson) highlights just how real the dangers of Britain taking the wrong path are. Calling openness to immigration one of the “critical underpinnings” of London’s success, it warns that turning away talented people could hamper Britain’s ability to remain competitive.

For a nation that still exports more to Switzerland than it does to India, this is sound advice. The long-term prospects of our economy depend upon Britain’s ability to successfully pivot its focus towards emerging Asian markets such as India and China.

Yet, in 2013, UK universities experienced a 25 per cent drop in the number of Indian-born students enrolling. Feeling spurned by Britain’s isolationist rhetoric, the world’s brightest and best are voting with their feet.

When politicians, like home secretary Theresa May, speak of moving towards “zero net student migration”, by sending foreign graduates home after they finish their studies – as she did last month, before having her proposals quashed by George Osborne – they are exhibiting a startling degree of economic illiteracy. While I’m glad that these specific plans look unlikely to happen, the broader shift in Britain’s immigration debate has not gone unnoticed abroad.

I recall being at a lecture in London where the Australian education minister Christopher Pyne thanked the UK government for its immigration policies because of the boost they provided to Australia’s higher education sector. Between May and Nigel Farage, we can hardly be surprised that Indian students are choosing to study in Brisbane and Canberra rather than Birmingham and Cambridge.

Today, 42 per cent of current international students profess an intention to set up their own business following graduation, but only 14 per cent wish to do this in the UK. If the government, and May in particular, persist with their vendetta, it will only be a matter of time before we turn away the next Steve Jobs or Sir James Dyson.

This year, Britain faces a fork in the road. On the one path lies openness and prosperity – on the other, isolation and decline. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose the former.

The full piece is available online on City AM’s website.

My Lords, in his first Budget in 2010, the Chancellor said that the Government would,

“have debt falling and a balanced structural budget deficit by the end of this Parliament”.

—[ Official Report , Commons, 22/6/10; col. 168.]

Despite the Chancellor’s tough talk about austerity and cutting public expenditure, the reality is that public expenditure as a percentage of GDP has continued to increase. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, for leading this debate.

Yesterday, it was announced that the Government will spend £746 billion in 2015-16, rising to £765 billion in 2018-19, compared with £692 billion in 2010. Government spending is increasing and, as a percentage of GDP, our national debt is rising. According to the OBR, it will now peak at 81% of GDP in 2015-16. This means that the Chancellor will completely miss his target to ensure that net debt is falling relative to GDP by 2015-16.

We have a perception of austerity that has simply not been matched by reality. Yesterday, the Chancellor acknowledged that we are at least another four years away from that target. To build on what the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said, if we are borrowing £300 billion more than the Chancellor said he would in 2010, why should anyone believe him this time around? The OBR has predicted that public expenditure is going to have to fall to 35.2% of GDP by 2019-20—the lowest level since the 1930s. Let us remember that the 1930s were pre-welfare state days. Can the Minister confirm that that is really achievable?

In order to achieve those cuts, it is predicted by the OBR that the defence budget, which is already negligently too low, will have to be cut by 60%. Can the Minister confirm that that might have to happen, although it is hoped that it never will. However, I was delighted to hear that the Government will be giving money to veterans, including £2 million for the Gurkhas. I was privileged to have been brought up with the Gurkhas. My late father, Lieutenant-General Bilimoria, was commissioned to the 2nd Battalion, Fifth Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force), and was president of the Gurkha Brigade when he was commander-in-chief of the Central Indian Army. I was privileged to have been brought up with two Victoria Cross holders from birth—they were living legends. Therefore, I thank the Government for doing that.

However, it is the low level of interest rates for a prolonged period, at the level of 5% that led to the financial crisis from which we suffered. Yet today we are being propped up by interest rates that are 10 times lower—at 0.5%. Government borrowing has been increasing year on year and expenditure on debt interest has contributed to it. It is more than £1.27 trillion and is costing us £1 billion a week—more than the entire defence budget.

Does the Minister agree that interest rates might have to rise? The Governor of the Bank of England made a ridiculous statement that he would start increasing interest rates when unemployment fell below 7%. Unemployment is at 6% now and interest rates have not gone up, but they will go up at some stage, and if they do the debt interest levels will go up. The SNP made the mistake in its budgets with the oil price and its budgets are shot to tatters at the moment. Will the Minister give his views on future interest rates?

Wearing my hat as chancellor of the University of Birmingham I have seen that our higher education sector is one of the jewels in our crown. I am delighted that the Government are about to announce loans for postgraduate studies. On the other hand, we highly underinvest in higher education as a proportion of GDP compared with the OECD, the EU and America. On R&D and innovation, the patent box is all very well—it is stored—but if we invested the same proportion of GDP as countries such as America, the OECD and the EU, we would help our productivity hugely. Our current account deficit has reached 5.2% of GDP, which is worse than Italy and France. Our fiscal deficit of 5% is almost double that of the United States, let alone Germany which has just 0.2%.

As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, skills are so essential. I am proud to be an ambassador for Studio Schools. Last month I opened the Vision Studio School in Mansfield. That is the sort of initiative that I am glad the Government are backing. Tax breaks to apprentices are excellent but, on the other hand, the word “entrepreneurship” was completely missing from the SME Bill. Entrepreneurship should be the cornerstone of our future growth. I launched the 10th anniversary of the Cambridge University Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning this week. That is what we should be backing. The Sirius campaign, backed by UKTI, bringing young entrepreneurs to Britain to develop their businesses, is a great initiative that the Government should be doing.

The Government are doing a lot, but are they doing enough on the big things? We have a tax system that is so complicated that the tax code is now 17,000 pages long. The Office of Tax Simplification is an oxymoron. Our corporation tax rate is low but our income tax rate is too high. Capital gains tax is too high. The Indian restaurant industry which we supply and the Bangladesh Caterers Association UK are constantly complaining about VAT and asking for it to be reduced. Our hospitality and tourism industries say that VAT is far too high. We do not have a competitive tax system.

The noble Lord, Lord Rose, in his excellent speech, spoke about confidence. We need confidence, productivity, and a better educated and more entrepreneurial workforce who think globally. Government expenditure should be at a believable rate: 35% is unachievable; 40% would be a realistic rate. We could then balance our books and have an educated, productive, confident and enterprise-based economy so that, even as 1% of the world’s population—that is all we are—we can continue to punch above our weight.

My Lords, last month, I accompanied my university contemporary, Greg Clark, the Universities Minister, on a delegation to India. I spoke at an Indian higher education conference. Sitting next to me, sharing the platform, was the first ever permanent secretary-equivalent of a department newly created in India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi: the department for skills and entrepreneurship.

I declare my various interests to do with this debate and the Bill. Last Monday, I spoke at the opening of Global Entrepreneurship Week alongside Vince Cable, where it was revealed that London is one of the top two cities for entrepreneurship in Europe. Last week, I became a founding member of the Guild of Entrepreneurs, which will soon become a livery company in the City of London. We are currently on the 687th Lord Mayor of London, so it has taken us a long time to establish a Guild of Entrepreneurs.

Yesterday, I was at my old university, Cambridge, speaking at the 10th anniversary of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the Judge Business School. I have been proud to have been appointed one of the first two visiting entrepreneurs at Cambridge, and have been involved with the CfEL since its inception, spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship throughout the university—not just the business school but the whole Cambridge University community. More than 300 students from around the university attend projects such as Enterprise Tuesday. Look at the culture shift that has taken place. When I was at Cambridge in the 1980s, there was no business school. Today, there is not only a flourishing business school but a centre for entrepreneurial learning.

However, there is not one mention of the word “entrepreneurship” in the entire text of the Bill. Can the Minister explain that omission? I am of course delighted, as the Federation of Small Businesses noted, that the Bill even exists in the first place. There is a lot that is music to my ears. There is so much of what the Minister said that is fantastic, such as helping businesses start from home, and childcare help for businesses. She herself noted that small businesses make a huge contribution to the UK economy. Between them, SMEs comprise 96% of all UK businesses, accounting for about half of UK jobs and one-third of private sector turnover—the engine of our economy.

Speaking as someone who started a business with just two people that has grown over the years, I have seen first-hand entrepreneurial businesses. My business has dealt a lot with the curry restaurant industry. More than 10,000 of them are represented by the Bangladesh Caterers Association: pioneering entrepreneurs who have made curry the favourite cuisine of this country. I know the sacrifices that those individuals have made; I know how difficult it is to start, to grow and to survive in business. One of the first cases I ever sold of my product was to a local corner shop. Of course, those corner shops have survived and grown thanks to the Asian community. So I have been a micro-business, an “s”, an “m” and now I have a joint venture with a global giant.

There is a problem with the terminology used in the Bill. Grant Thornton—I declare an interest as I have dealt with the firm for many years as a client—has noticed that there is an unnecessarily restrictive definition of SMEs in the Bill. The current definition of SMEs used by the Government largely excludes mid-sized businesses from many of the provisions of the legislation, such as on access to finance, late payment and credit information. However, these same businesses will still have to abide by a number of additional burdens, such as the duty to publish a report on payment practices.

Grant Thornton estimates that approximately 34,000 mid-sized businesses will be left behind by the Bill, as they lack the resources of the large corporates that are needed to cope with additional regulatory reporting but are not granted the same exemptions granted to SMES within the Bill. Will the Minister acknowledge and, I hope, deal with this omission by widening the positive provisions to a larger section of the business population and altering the definition of an SME used in the Bill, which is based on the Companies Act and restricts an SME to a turnover of just £25 million.

On access to finance, the United Kingdom lags way behind our major competitors. Just look at Germany, where SMEs can draw upon close personal and financial links with a multitude of local lenders, many of which are state owned or operated as mutual firms. Germany’s small and medium-sized businesses, the Mittelstand, are exemplary and have been the centre of the economic success of that economy. The United States has always been brilliant in the way that it has helped to fund its small businesses, but I believe that we could go even further. In fact, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, of which I am proud to be a fellow, recommends that in order to help businesses with the wider issue of finance and cash flow the Government should foster new business growth by introducing critical growth loans, where a percentage of the loan is guaranteed for SMEs trading for between two and five years.

I have benefited personally from the Government’s small firms loan guarantee scheme, which is brilliant at enabling businesses that do not have the collateral to get the Government to back the security with the bank that lends to the business. We could and should increase that lending far more than we are. Does the Minister agree that we should be doing this? Business is going global. The Bill talks about export finance and there is so much good work going on. UK Trade & Investment has sponsored a programme called Sirius, where we attract the brightest young graduates from around the world to come and open their businesses here in the UK. This is the sort of initiative that we should be encouraging and growing.

With regard to the moral aspects of the Bill, the fact that we are addressing the minimum wage is excellent. If the Bill is clamping down on those rogue businesses which exploit their workforce, that is great news. I cannot think of any ethical business that would pay less than the minimum wage, let alone the living wage. However, the Guardian reported last week that despite the Business Secretary’s rhetoric last year that the coalition Government would crack down on firms that underpay their employees, there have been no successful prosecutions of such illegality since February 2013. Can the Minister confirm that? The annual survey of hours and earnings for the Office for National Statistics recently reported that around 287,000 workers were paid at less than the minimum wage in 2012. Are the Government aware of that and why are they not doing more about it? I hope that the Bill will be able to address this. Can the Government assure us about it?

With regard to the pub industry, I said that I declared my interest and I cannot spend the whole of my time declaring my interest in this area. The sad thing is that more than 10,000 pubs have closed down in the United Kingdom in just the last decade. We need to do everything we can to save the British pub, which is at the heart of British communities. The beer tie itself is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Of course, it allows big brewing or pub groups to invest in the pubs. To actually start a pub, you have to put down perhaps £250,000. However, if you are with a big pubco you do not have to do that and can actually run a pub. That is the advantage of being part of a big pub group.

However, if by doing that you also have to pay 70% to 80% above the market price for your beer, and pay higher rents, that does not feel fair at all. Given the recent defeat on this issue in the other place, I am delighted to hear the Minister say that the Government have listened and are going to try to achieve what I hope will be a middle way, where we can have the benefits that the big pub groups bring while enabling our pubs to be competitive and flexible, and to flourish, thrive and grow.

With regard to insolvency, Britain’s insolvency environment ranks pretty highly. In fact, we rank seventh in the world. The Bill talks about reforming insolvency in this country. I do not believe it is doing it in bold enough terms. For example, we are not going as far as having the famous American Chapter 11 or the Canadian Division 1 principles—and, surprise, surprise, countries number 1 and 2 in the insolvency environment are Canada and the United States of America. Those two measures, Chapter 11 in particular, provide a company trying to restructure with protection from creditors to give it time to do so. I have gone through this. I tried to institute a company voluntary arrangement. We got 90% of our creditors to agree, but we could not go through because there was no protection and one of the creditors scuppered the whole arrangement.

The Bill talks about pre-pack administrations. This is meant to be the least worst alternative. I have had to go through this procedure. It is awfully painful, but it is there to save brands and businesses if companies go through the procedure above board, as we did. I am proud to say that today we have a brand and a company that are flourishing. The worst thing about it is that when I went through that procedure I realised how badly misused it is in this country. It is misused to the extent that shareholders, creditors and, worst of all, employees suffer. That is not on. I do not think that the measures in the Bill go anywhere near far enough to improve the pre-pack administration regime. Bringing in Chapter 11 would be the best way of taking things forward. Do the Government agree?

Most importantly, this Bill is not just about businesses remaining as they are. As the Minister said, around one-fifth of small businesses say that they want to grow significantly and are determined to do so. The overall thrust of this legislation is aimed at making it easier for SMEs to operate and grow within the economy, which is something we should celebrate. Why are the Government not going further? One of the things that SMEs need is education. I attended the business growth programme at Cranfield. Cambridge has the diploma in entrepreneurship. These are fantastic courses, but they cost up to £10,000 a year. The Government should have a competition for 100 businesses a year to attend these courses to improve their competitiveness and help them to grow. Will the Government accept this suggestion?

I do not want to look a gift horse in the mouth. The fact that the Bill exists in the first place is wonderful, but I despair that it does not emphasise entrepreneurship. I worry that Britain today is number 2 in the world in inward investment. That is something we should be proud of because we are an open economy. However, I hear stories of Indian businesses having huge problems opening bank accounts and setting up companies over here. We are trying to address money laundering, but we are hampering our competitiveness and inward investment capabilities. We are one of the top 10 economies in the world. We have to encourage entrepreneurship, growth and employment.

He was joined by the Bulgarian Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Konstantin Dimitrov, and Labour MP Barbara Roche, the former Immigration Minister.

The following transcript was kindly provided by Sky News.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well immigration is one of the most divisive issues in politics at the moment but does our opinion of immigrants change depending on what country people come from to the UK?  Well a poll for this programme suggests that of course it does.  In the exclusive YouGov poll carried out for this programme people were asked ‘Do you think that immigrants from each of the following countries make a positive or negative contribution to life in Britain today?’  Well Australia, the United States and Germany came out top, at least 50% of people think they do make a positive contribution, immigrants from India and Poland also did pretty well coming out at 44% but the figure was much lower for immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania, just 18% of people think they make a positive contribution to life in Britain and in fact more people think they actually have a negative impact.  So why is that?  Well I am joined now by Bulgaria’s Ambassador to the UK, Konstatin Dimitrov, by the Labour MP Barbara Roche who is a former immigration minister and chair of the campaign group, the Migration Matters Trust and by Lord Bilimoria, an Indian born British businessman of course who is chairman amongst other things of Cobra Beer, a very good morning to you all.  Well Ambassador I want to start with you, first of all your reaction to that poll in that your countrymen and women when they come to the UK, they aren’t really rated very highly?

KONSTANTIN DIMITROV: Yes, I’m not surprised, it’s a combination of the brutal anti-Bulgarian propaganda for years now by certain politicians and media whose name I will not mention for obvious reason and the second point, a simple lack of personal knowledge of Bulgarians by many Brits.  Why?  Because there are only about 60,000 Bulgarians working in the UK in a population of 64 million so there is a very low chance for anyone to have met a Bulgarian or worked with a Bulgarian person and moreover, one other thing, it is exactly in places where there are no Bulgarians that people are very much prejudiced against Bulgarians unlike centres of mixed communities where Bulgarians are seen as very …

DM: You just tell us, I know you’ve told me before, that the majority of Bulgarians who come to the UK come here to get jobs and when the jobs disappear or when they have worked long enough, they go back to Bulgaria.

KONSTANTIN DIMITROV: Exactly, just 1080 people have been registered to receive substantial work benefits in the UK last year, imagine, 1080 people, that’s absolutely negligible.  Our compatriots are primarily between 18 and 35 years of age, single and they come here to work primarily as a result of an a priori agreed upon contract.

DM: Barbara, you come in to this, clearly there are different perceptions of different nationalities here, do you think we need some cool heads when it comes to discussing this issue, in particularly migration from within the European Union?

BARBARA ROCHE: Oh absolutely, I absolutely agree with what the Ambassador has had to say and indeed when I was a Member of Parliament and now in my role as Chair of Migration Matters, that’s what we actually try and argue.  We just need to look at the facts and I also think it’s time that all political parties know and say what’s in their heart of hearts, that actually legal migration can be a very positive good for this country both in our public services and for our economy so the more we know the facts, the better.

DM: Do you think there is any point trying or should we not even try at all to limit migration from within the European Union and in particular underlying these figures, these findings we’ve got in particular to restrict Bulgarians, Romanians and a lot of East Europeans?

BARBARA ROCHE: I think the difficulty is that when we talk about this, and I am somebody who actually does believe in freedom of movement within the European Union, I think it is one of the fundamental tenets.  I remember one of my very first votes as a young woman was to vote for Britain to actually stay in the Union and not only is freedom of movement a good thing but we actually don’t often discuss the fact that there are very many British people who are working elsewhere in the European Union, particularly young people, and they value their freedom of movement and we would lose that.

DM: Lord Bilimoria, you come in, are you heartened by the fact – and this then begs the question, is it just a matter of time of the indigenous population so to speak getting to know the immigrant population – India is pretty popular, it features up there along with the Poles coming in at 44% approval?

 LORD BILIMORIA: Well that doesn’t surprise me at all and I am relieved to hear that the Indian community is being appreciated for the contribution that it has made for decades to this economy and I would think this immigration debate has become so dangerous now particularly driven by UKIP, where everyone is being tarred with the same brush and you don’t look at the good immigration that has helped this country become great.  I mean look at Bulgaria, I know a very, very impressive young Bulgarian banker who works for the Queen’s bank who is highly impressive, you’d want somebody like that in this country.  We look at countries on this league table that you have just put up, you’ve missed out Bangladesh.  This evening I am going to be speaking at the Bangladesh Caterers Association annual awards dinner, over 1000 Bangladeshi restaurateurs from around the country, they are the ones – over two-thirds of restaurants are owned by Bangladeshis – they are the ones who actually brought curry to our homes, we love that food and yet they can’t bring in the skilled chefs that they need.  Look at Tata who own Jaguar Land Rover, a company six years ago nobody wanted to buy, now it is so successful.  Who is the Chief Executive of Tata Jaguar Land Rover in this country?  A German, Ralf Speth.

 DM: Just to stay with this, Lord Bilimoria, do you think it is some of the perceptions and misperceptions if I can coin that phrase, that go around especially this idea that the vast majority of immigrants some people think come here to claim benefits, to sponge off society.  When people get to know for instance the South Asian community, let’s lump them all together, they are very hard working, there is a lot of productivity going on there.

LORD BILIMORIA: Hard work, family values, education.  Look at foreign students, we still include international students in our immigration figures and the government has got this ridiculous target and one of the biggest mistakes that David Cameron has made is to put up this target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands.  They are more than double that figure, they are never going to hit that figure.  I think that was a huge mistake to make and they are paying the price for that right now.

DM: Ambassador, what do Bulgarians, your nationals who come along to you, what do they tell you about the way they are treated by the UK population because there is that classic case where you might answer a survey like ours and say I am not very keen on Bulgarians and Romanians and others but when you actually have met someone or worked alongside one of them as you mentioned, you think they are okay.

KONSTANTIN DIMITROV: I would revert back to the last point I made, those who have worked with Bulgarians are very open and many Brits, 400,000 Brits a year go to Bulgaria to spend their time there, to have their holidays there, to even buy properties there.  If there is some inborn antipathy no one would do that.  The problem is those who are objects of propaganda and indeed those who haven’t met any Bulgarians at all, statistically these are quite convincing parameters as only 60,000 people in your country out of a country of 64 million, how could you possibly have an idea as to the contribution of such a small batch of people to your economy or to the texture of your society?

LORD BILIMORIA: And if you look at it, the other point is if you ask Theresa May, tell me the number of illegal immigrants in this country she wouldn’t have a clue, her department wouldn’t have a clue.  They don’t know whether it’s half a million, a million, a million and a half because we have lost control of immigration in that sense.  We still don’t have exit checks at our borders.  We would have a queue of Indian IT companies ready to do that job so that we can scan everyone’s passport when they come from wherever in the world, scan everyone’s passport when they have gone and then we would know who shouldn’t be here who are still here.  We should be attracting the best and the brightest people to this country.

DM: Barbara Roche, there is an absolute numbers argument going on here as well.  If you get net migration of 250,000, just do the maths, over 20 years you end up with millions more people here and whatever nation they come from it just means that particularly public services are put under enormous strain.

BARBARA ROCHE: You have to look at it two ways, first of all it is absolutely right that countries, and we need to control our borders and certainly when I was the Immigration Minister that was a tenet.

DM: But how would you stop it?

BARBARA ROCHE: Well what you have to do first of all is also to acknowledge that people come and people go, we live in a global world and …

DM: But you just said that you don’t support stopping Europeans coming in and they are the vast majority of migrants so how do you control your borders?

BARBARA ROCHE: I actually think, I want to go back to the question that you asked about public services, you were talking about the strain on public services.  What the figures show and what the OECD says is that actually migrants contribute more to public services than they take out.  I think it is estimated that nearly 40% of our doctors, nearly 40% are migrants so the question is, are we asking the right questions about the effects on our public services?  If we stopped migration tomorrow our public services would be worse and our debt would be worse and I also would say if you stopped migration here, what is going to happen to all those people who want their holidays [inaudible] … the European Union?

DM: Okay, quick thoughts on that Ambassador, I know you want to come in on that.

KONSTANTIN DIMITROV: That is right and also let us face a truth, outsiders, foreigners, come to work here because there are niches that the Brits wouldn’t like to take up, they wouldn’t like to go to the agricultural sector because there is no interest in such positions so of course legally our working citizens of the European Union will continue to come here to fill in the niches which are not wanted for other reasons by the Brits.  If the Brits started filling those niches in, there would be no need for such immigration as we talk about.

DM: So market forces can deal with it.  Last point to you Lord Bilimoria.

LORD BILIMORIA: Well I think it’s across the board. It’s what the Ambassador has just spoken about but also I mentioned the Chief Executive of Jaguar Land Rover, my joint venture partners at Cobra Molson Coors, we had a worldwide search for our UK chief executive, who is he?  A Belgian.  We want the brightest and the best across the board, from the Commonwealth, from the European Union and the biggest advantage of this country is that we are an open economy and that’s why we are still number two, number two inward investment country in the world today is this tiny country.

DM: Oh well pointed out, I didn’t know that.  Listen, I must end it there, thank you very much to you Lord Bilimoria, good to see you, Konstantin Dimitrov, Ambassador and Barbara Roche, thank you very much indeed.

In his speech, Lord Bilimoria noted the slow pace at which the government proposed the military intervention, as well as critiquing the present state of the UK Armed Forces.

The debate ran co-currently with a debate in the House of Commons, which endorsed the principle of military intervention via airstrikes by 524 votes to 43.

My Lords, a year ago we were recalled and virtually every one of us who spoke in the debate said that we should not intervene in Syria. Today it is exactly the opposite way around, in that just about everybody is saying that we should intervene this time, and we have had the legal justification.

The question that I ask is: why are we doing this so late? Why are we doing this half-cocked? Sixty nations are already there, including 10 Arab nations. Five Arab nations have already taken part in the air attacks, and we are late to the party. We have had one of our citizens—as have the Americans—brutally murdered by ISIL. The whole world has watched while the innocent Yazidis were terrorised and fleeing for their lives. Why have we taken so long? As we have heard time and again, why are we restricting this to Iraq? The polls from the public have overwhelmingly supported intervention in Iraq, but they also show that the public would support us if we intervened in Syria right now, as the Americans are doing. After all, ISIL has completely erased the Sykes-Picot line. Will the Minister assure us that as soon as is required—not, as one noble Lord said, in three years’ time; I fear that it will be in a few months’ time, or even a few weeks’ time—we will consider intervening in Syria? We will probably need to.

Will the Government clarify that action will involve not just six Tornados from Cyprus but also the use of drones, ship-launched attacks, submarine-launched attacks and our best-of-the-best Special Forces? On the other hand, as I said last year, we have a Government who, in the 2010 SDSR, cut our defence capabilities. We still do not have aircraft carriers. We have a British Army that will not even fill Wembley Stadium. We are relying on reserves. Here we are, as we have been so many times since 2010, once again in a situation in which we need our brilliant Armed Forces—and we have been cutting them. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will stick to their commitment of a 2% of GDP spend on defence and nothing less, because we desperately need it?

The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, and others spoke of the necessity to win this battle on the ground. Is it not sad that at the Battle of Mosul in June an Iraqi army of 20,000 was forced to flee by an ISIL force of 3,000? It was left to the Kurdish Peshmerga to hold the line. But we were there for so many years, supposedly training the Iraqi army. What went wrong? Did we not train it properly? My father was in the Indian army. I remember that when he was serving, the Indian army had a training team in Iraq for years, headed by a lieutenant-general. If we want to train, let us put our might behind training the Iraqis and the Peshmerga as well.

We need to invest in that capability because the ideology is dangerous. As the most reverend Primate said, it is deep. As His Holiness Pope Francis has said, we might be in the midst of a World War III. This is not going to go away. This is very serious. If we are going to do this, we need to be with our allies. We need to be completely effective; we need to push forward, because we cannot rely on the UN. Once again, the UN has shown itself to be completely ineffective. Will the Government use this as another reason for a desperately needed reform of the UN?

In conclusion, we may have been late to the party but after today we will be at the table and we must go out there with full force, with a mission and very clear strategy to liberate the ISIL-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria from the evil of ISIL. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, that ISIL is not Islamic; it is not a state. It is a group of medieval, barbaric monsters.

The following article was published on the New Statesman’s “The Staggers’ blog on Monday 1st September.

Founded in 1913, the New Statesman is one of the most well-respected current affairs magazines in the United Kingdom.

The government must stop treating international students with hostility

This year, the number of foreign students undertaking higher education in Britain fell for the first time since 1983. The government must stop treating them with contempt.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi. Each one of them has shaped the world in which we live and, as it happens, every one of them was educated here in Britain.

Along with the United States, the UK’s universities are the finest on the planet. The ability that this gives us to attract the world’s talent to these shores represents not only an enormous economic opportunity but also a crucial component of our nation’s cultural strength. It is something I have been proud to observe in recent months as the newly appointed chancellor of the University of Birmingham.

I came to the UK from my birthplace of India because of the outstanding quality of its higher education institutions, but it was Britain’s internationalism – its unique role as a point of congregation for ideas and creativity from around the globe – that allowed me to start Cobra Beer here.

And yet despite the mutually beneficial historic relationship between the UK and international students, this government continues to badge them as immigrants, a group it treats with a contempt bordering on outright hostility.

That’s despite new research from Universities UK, which found that only 22 per cent of the British public considers overseas students to be immigrants. Political leaders from the Deputy Prime Minister to Lord Heseltine have added their voices to the call for international students to be removed from the immigration figures. And yet the Home Office still refuses to take action, despite the evident failure of its crude policies towards controlling net migration, shown recently to have risen by 68,000 in the last year.

Net migration may be rising but one vital statistic is going the other way, with potentially severe consequences. This year the number of foreign students undertaking higher education here in Britain fell by 1 per cent – the first time a decline has been recorded since 1983. With government-sponsored poster campaigns barking “go home or face arrest” and the disastrous, failed proposal for “high risk” visa applicants from nations like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan to pay a £3,000 “security bond” deposit upon entering the UK, it’s little wonder that the world’s brightest and best are starting to look elsewhere.

Indeed, an NUS poll carried out earlier this year recorded that 51 per cent of international students found the British government “unwelcoming”. That damage is being done to Britain’s reputation on the world stage as a home for the future talent on which our economy increasingly depends couldn’t be more clear.

And while the government is helping promote a climate of hostility against overseas students, the Universities UK research clearly demonstrates that this does not reflect the public mood. 59 per cent of respondents to the survey said that the government should not reduce numbers of international students, even if such action made reducing overall immigration numbers harder.

Our universities are competing in a zero-sum game of global proportions and every engineer, programmer and aspiring entrepreneur that we turn away will be welcomed with open arms by the likes of Canada, Germany and Australia. Given that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills estimates overseas students contribute more than £13 billion to the UK economy, that is a prospect we should all be extremely worried about.

For years the government has been ignoring the well-founded requests of colleagues within the House of Lords and many more besides, to remove international students from the immigration statistics. Now the public has spoken too; and it is time the government started listening.

Lord Bilimoria CBE is founder and chairman of Cobra Beer, a crossbench peer and chancellor of the University of Birmingham