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Mr. Clarke:
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's best wishes, and I congratulate him on abandoning "Fantasy Island" policies, including withdrawal from
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the United Nations refugee convention and the absolute ceiling on numbers, both of which were authored by his right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) in the Conservative manifesto at the last election. As for the points made by the hon. Gentleman, the cost will be subject to a tendering process, which is exactly the right way for any Government to proceed. As for whether the measure will increase or reduce the number of people, it is important to acknowledge—I think that the hon. Gentleman does so in his article in The Observer—that migration to work and migration to study are important to our economy and society, so we should welcome and encourage them. Illegal migration, however, is not acceptable, which is why the system is in place.
On the proposal that employers should be required to recruit from the domestic work force first, our straightforward position is that we encourage people to work, both from this country and from the European Union. If people come from outside that area to work, they should do so on the basis of this country's national priorities. It is therefore right to set skills as the top issue. It is because skills are absent in this country that we need to say that we should draw in people with the skills to fill the gaps. That is why the skills advisory board plays an important role. It does not decide what happens in tiers 2 and 3 but, none the less, it is an important advisory board.
Mr. Andrew Smith (Oxford, East) (Lab): Can my right hon. Friend say more about the basis and procedure for determining what counts as a skills shortage? In relation to his argument that we ought to be training people in the United Kingdom to fill vacancies, does not that argument apply equally to all areas of skills shortage? Can he therefore give me an assurance that south Asian catering workers—would-be chefs—will be treated no less favourably than anyone else?
Mr. Clarke: I can give my right hon. Friend that assurance, and I agree with him completely. We should look at skills in the round, and if there are particular sectors where there are skills shortages, for example, south Asian chefs—I cite that example because our hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) raised it—that is the area where we need to develop the skills capacity to deal with it. In his role in developing skills in the economy over recent years, my right hon. Friend made a major contribution in that regard. It is precisely because that work has been done that we can, in the document published today, talk about a skills advisory body based on that knowledge, which enables us to take it forward. That is the central issue that we must address, as we will do. It is important that we monitor it throughout because the way in which the skills advisory bodies will work is based on the sector skills councils, each of which has an analysis for its sector of the strengths and weaknesses of labour supply in its part of the economy. That will inform the judgments that are made about migration into the UK and points to be allocated on that basis.
Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD):
I, too, on behalf of Liberal Democrat colleagues give a cautious
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welcome to the announcement. Anything that takes the politics out of the immigration system and introduces a degree of objectivity to a system that has too long been plagued by subjectivity and arbitrary criteria is welcome. However, I have questions about two aspects. If I had been longer in my present position, I would probably have a longer list of question, but as I have not been, my questions are blissfully short. [hon. members: "Oh."] I thought that might elicit a positive response in all parts of the House.
First, the credibility of the system will necessarily hinge on the operation of the skills advisory board. Could the Home Secretary provide more detail on the composition of the board? An assumption has been made in the past that employers' organisations, trade unions, the public sector and the private sector would all be represented. The composition of the board is essential to ensure the right balance in an assessment of skills. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's expectation that the skills advisory board would try to pin down quotas—a specific quantification—for the skills in each sector? If so, that would have a great effect on the operation of the new system.
The second aspect on which I seek clarification is the effect that the system will have on the immigration of unskilled labour. If the purpose is to make the immigration of skilled labour more organised, we hope that that will not have an unduly restrictive and punitive effect on sectors that still need unskilled labour. In certain parts of the country fruit pickers are short of unskilled labour and, as we saw in Morecambe Bay last year, excessive amounts of unskilled labour going under the radar would lead to exploitative behaviour by employers.
Mr. Clarke: First, I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his role. The longer he is in the role, the shorter his questions will be, in contrast to the way some parties operate. I look forward to working with him.
On politics and subjectivity, we will never remove politics from this area of national life, but I agree that objectivity and transparency in the system are exceptionally important. The system is intended to raise the quality of decisions. I hope that we can work together to ensure that the national debate on these matters is conducted in constructive and positive terms, rather than in the terms in which it has sometimes been conducted in the past.
On the hon. Gentleman's particular questions, the skills advisory board will be directly related to the sector skills councils and therefore the Sector Skills Development Agency, which organises and develops those councils. It will also directly involve trade unions and business in a wide variety of sectors that will report directly to the board. I think that many hon. Members are still not fully aware of the developing role of the sector skills councils and the way in which they are drawing in employers, vocational trainers and employees in each area. As they develop their work, they will be able to give detailed assessments of the skills shortages in their sectors. That is unlikely to lead to quotas in the sense of specific numbers, but it is likely to lead to information that will help the system to decide how many points should be allocated to people with particular skills in certain areas.
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That, too, will be the principle on the unskilled labour side, which will particularly inform tier 3 of our five-tier system. It will address the lack of skills in those sectors just as in all the others. As a former Secretary of State for Education and Skills, I would say that the right response to unskilled labour is to develop the quality of our skills training across the whole range.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab): Will the Home Secretary, in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, take a hard look at employment agencies that are recruiting and importing large numbers of workers from eastern European states, exploiting them by charging them for every conceivable service, leaving them with very little of their own money, and suggesting that there is an enormous pool of unskilled jobs to be filled in the United Kingdom? That is not in anyone's interests and does this country's reputation enormous harm.
Mr. Clarke: I am rather shocked to say it, but I agree with every word of my hon. Friend's remarks.
Mrs. Dunwoody: I will not tell anyone.
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is notable for her reticence, so I am sure that we can be confident that nobody will discover this unaccustomed level of agreement.
It has been a scandal in many parts of our national life that people have been able to work illegally in a system where people are drawn in from across the world to work in the most appalling and exploitative circumstances. My hon. Friend is right to say that that needs to be addressed. It was a central theme of the five-year strategy that we published last year. The gangmaster legislation has also been important in this regard, and we have published proposals jointly with the Department of Trade and Industry, the TUC and the CBI. The system is working better now, and we have had a significant number of arrests and convictions in precisely the areas that my hon. Friend describes. However, she is entitled to press still harder to ensure that we enforce the existing law in the most rigorous way. As she suggests, there is still a long way to go.
Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): The Home Secretary will be aware of the importance attached by large areas of the agricultural and, in particular, horticultural industries to the role of unskilled seasonal workers in the harvesting of perishable crops. Can he assure me that those arrangements, which have worked successfully under the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, will not be materially affected by his proposals?
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