Examination of Witnesses (Questions 94
- 99)
TUESDAY 10 JANUARY 2006
PROFESSOR NIGEL
HARRIS AND
DR KHALID
KOSER
Q94 Chairman: Good morning, gentlemen,
and thank you very much indeed for joining us for this evidence
session on the Committee's inquiry into immigration control. We
are very grateful to you for your time. I wonder if each of you
could introduce yourself for the record, please.
Professor Harris: Nigel Harris,
Professor Emeritus of University College London and Chairman of
the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures
and Commerce Migration Commission.
Dr Koser: I am Khalid Koser, Lecturer
in Human Geography at University College London and currently
on secondment with the Global Commission on International Migration.
Q95 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. This first session is very much trying to get a broad
overview of the issues that lie behind migration policy. I wonder,
Dr Koser, if we could start with you. The United Nations projections,
if we have understood them right, say that in each of the next
45 years there will be about 2.2 million migrants a year moving
around in the world economy, moving particularly to the more developed
regions from the less developed ones. Is that something which
is to all intents and purposes uninfluenceable by public policy?
Dr Koser: I suppose the first
thing to say is that we have to be very careful with data. The
UN, as you point out, is probably the most accurate source we
have for data but I think migration experts would agree that the
data are rather inaccurate and difficult to be accurate about.
So let's be careful with the data first and foremost. Yes, I think
there is a feeling amongst many people that the root causes of
migration are so powerful—it is about under-development,
disparities in demographic processes, in development, and in democracy—that
to an extent these root causes cannot be influenced, at least
in the short term. I am not sure whether Nigel would agree but
I think there is an extent to which immigration control is treating
the symptom rather than the cause. That is certainly the feeling
amongst certain colleagues at the UN. So yes, there is a feeling
that the momentum is fairly unstoppable certainly in the short
term.
Q96 Chairman: Given the size of the
world's population that figure of 2.2 million people looks small
rather than large. Is it so small because developed countries
have immigration policies that affect the flow to some extent?
If there were unconstrained migration would it be much larger
than that and if so how much? What is the suppressed demand? Do
you have any sense of that?
Dr Koser: That is a very difficult
question to answer. There is research and I think fairly good
research to suggest migration policies have a short-term influence.
They can stop migration, particularly irregular migration, certainly
in the short term, but in the medium to long term via agents and
networks and smugglers and traffickers and various other intermediaries
those controls can be overcome, so it is rather a race to keep
up with controls which takes place to an extent.
Q97 Chairman: Within those overall
figures are there any significant regional patterns or trends
of which we ought to be aware? Obviously we are looking at the
application particularly of British immigration policy and visa
control, which of course does vary significantly from region to
region and country to country.
Dr Koser: Let me say a couple
of things. The data that I am aware of which comes from the United
Nations Department on Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) suggest
that there are about 200 million migrants in the world today,
and that is a doubling of the world's population of migrants in
about the last 25 years, so we have a very significant increase.
All of the data that I am aware of suggest that increasing proportions
of those migrants are now coming to the developed world, so it
is not in the developing world. Having said that, we should be
aware that this is not exclusively a south-north movement. There
is a great deal of movement between poor countries of the south.
So I do not think we should become too obsessed with the idea
that people are moving from the south to the richer north because
there is also a great deal of regional variation as well in migration.
Q98 Chairman: Within that can you
highlight any particular trends that are important? Are there
well-established patterns from certain parts of the less developed
world to certain parts of the more developed world or is it a
fairly generalised trend? Are those changing over time?
Dr Koser: Speaking about the British
example, certainly in the past geographical patterns of migration
have been determined by colonial links, so we have attracted migrants
from the countries with which we have had a colonial past which
speak the same language, which are aware of the British culture,
and also where there are trade links, historical links and to
an extent geographical links as well in that we tend to attract
people who come from countries that are close by. There is an
extent (although I think it is a small extent) to which those
traditional geographical patterns of migration are changing in
the UK because for example of the influence of smugglers and traffickers
who seem to be bringing people into the UK and other European
countries from countries of origin that are rather new. So I think
there is a trend towards a new diversity of migrants coming to
the UK from non-traditional sending countries.
Q99 Chairman: Where would this be
would you say? Just to pursue that, where would be the main generators
of the non-traditional forms of migration?
Dr Koser: Looking at the data
for the last few years we have had increasing numbers of people,
for example, from Somalia, from Sri Lanka, from Afghanistan, so
generally from war and conflict affected areas.
Professor Harris: I just wanted
to add something which I am sure Dr Koser knows very well, better
than that I do, about the emergence of Asia as a region of high
growth. In one sense migration from regions of relatively low
to relatively high growth so South East Asia is becoming very
important. Historically there has been the movement of Indonesians
to Malaysia. There are a million and a half Indonesians working
in Malaysia. Then there are Filipinos to Taiwan and Filipinos
to Japan, people into Korea, et cetera, et cetera, and then in
Latin America, there are Colombians into Venezuela, Bolivians
into Argentina, et cetera, so there is an enormous diversity of
movement depending on where economic growth is taking place, to
put it very crudely.
| 
