Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
TUESDAY 10 JANUARY 2006
SIR ANDREW
GREEN KCMG AND
DR DHANANJAYAN
SRISKANDARAJAH
Q160 Gwyn Prosser: Perhaps it is
not so much what the organisation says, but the way they say it.
Can I ask IPPR what sort of priority they think the Government
should give on that particular aspect of immigration and asylum
policy in connection with all the other changes they propose?
Dr Sriskandarajah: As far as I
understand it, the policy to drop embarkation controls was taken
when the resource requirements to manage and count and process
embarkation cards was getting too much and the clear government
priority at the time was to manage immigration and the arrival
of people in a better, more effective way, so perhaps in a tight
resource condition, that was the wise thing to do. Given though
how poor or relatively poor our evidence base is on migration
of flows into and out of this country, I think any effort to get
a better understanding of the circularity and the flows that are
involved in migration to and from the UK would be welcome. Embarkation
controls, I think, would have two advantages: one, that it would
build that evidence base; and, two, it would perhaps reassure
a sceptical public that not all of those people who arrive in
the UK stay permanently. All the evidence suggests that there
is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and highlighting some of that might
assure people that the long-term impact might not be so high.
It need not be a bureaucratic burden and it need not slow down
people too much in our ports of entry and exit. Again best practice
overseas suggests that if you do institute a system of e-borders
effectively, then the actual burden on the individual traveller
can be minimised, if not become negligible.
Q161 Gwyn Prosser: To both of you,
the Government is close to publishing its major review of immigration
statistics and the way it collects and publishes these figures.
How confident are you that this review will result in an accurate
picture of the current situation and form the basis for future
policy because there has been a lot of criticism about the way
figures are collected and collated, et cetera?
Sir Andrew Green: We do not complain
particularly about that. We recognise it is a very complex task
and very difficult to be precise. I think that if we have a complaint,
it is about the way in which the Government have presented these
statistics in a manner which we believe to be misleading.
Dr Sriskandarajah: I think that
any effort to review holistically the collection and publication
of migration data would be welcome. I think there should be a
recognition that there can never be a perfect count of the number
of immigrants given some of the complexities that we have heard
about this morning. I think it is important to recognise that
perhaps some of the concern out amongst the general public about
immigration statistics is a lack of trust in the source of those
statistics or a sense that somehow the figures are being muddled,
so perhaps what also would be welcome in conjunction with the
review of the way that statistics are produced and collected would
be to institute some form of independent monitoring, perhaps going
as far as some form of independent publication, whether it be
through the NAO or the Audit Commission or through a newly established,
independent body to restore faith and public trust in migration
statistics.
Sir Andrew Green: If I may just
add to that, the problem is not so much the statistics, but successive
polls have shown that 76 to 80% of the public disagree that the
Government is open and honest about the scale of immigration,
so I think the problem is the Government's credibility as much
as it is the actual numbers.
Q162 Chairman: You might say they
would probably say the same about crime figures, despite all the
effort that has been put into getting those on an independent
basis.
Sir Andrew Green: It is very similar,
yes.
Q163 Mr Benyon: Over the last eight
months, there have been a lot of claims about the actual figure
for irregular migrants. Do you think that it is a worthwhile use
of resources to try and count the numbers of irregular migrants
or make an accurate assessment of them, given the inherent difficulty
of the task?
Sir Andrew Green: I think we certainly
need to have a rough idea. Our view is that the Home Office paper
was an honest attempt to do it. They came up with, I think, a
central figure of about 430,000. What they did not do, because
they were not asked to, was to add the number of failed asylum-seekers
in the subsequent three years. If you add those in, taking away
of course those we know to have gone, you get something near to
670,000 as a central figure, so I think it is important to know
broadly what the scale is and it is of the order of 700,000 give
or take, and that, I think, is common ground, because that then
brings you to the question of an amnesty that was touched on earlier
and that, in our view, would be extremely foolish. First of all,
it is wrong in principle that you should reward people for illegal
behaviour and, do not forget, in giving somebody permission to
stay here, you are giving them a meal ticket for life. Secondly,
it has absolutely been proved that it does not work. There have
been five such amnesties in Italy and six in Spain. The last time
the Spanish gave an amnesty for 700,000 people, what happened?
They got invaded in their small enclaves in North Africa, so amnesties
are wrong in principle and do not work, but we should know at
least what the scale of the problem is.
Dr Sriskandarajah: I think it
is sensible to spend money working out what methodologies might
be most effective in counting the number of irregular people in
any country, whether it is the UK or elsewhere. I think the attempts
by independent experts done for the Home Office have been admirable,
but, as they themselves acknowledge, it is very difficult, if
near impossible, to count accurately the number of people here
without permission or even the number of people working in the
UK without permission. Perhaps the next challenge, now that we
have a rough idea of the numbers of people involved, is to work
out what to do.
Q164 Steve McCabe: Sir Andrew, I
just want to turn very briefly to this issue of embarkation controls.
If I set the general premise of your organisation that you are
worried about overcrowding, lack of integration and the impact
of low-skilled migrants on social cohesion, and I think you say
in essence that you are concerned about the effect on balance
and that is a problem if there is too large a flow, that it disturbs
the balance, is there an equally valid and rational argument for
saying that the Government should not only look at embarkation
controls, but we should severely restrict the rights of highly
educated, highly skilled, integrated white Britons from leaving
this country because that presumably disturbs the balance as well?
I just wondered if your organisation would actually entertain
that kind of approach as well or if you thought that would not
be acceptable for some reason.
Sir Andrew Green: I do not think
it would be acceptable at all. I think that would be a quite unacceptable
restriction on British citizens.
Q165 Steve McCabe: On their human
rights or civil liberties?
Sir Andrew Green: The whole thing.
There is no basis on which to refuse someone permission to go
overseas, but you touch on the point of infrastructure and someone
else mentioned Birmingham every five years, so let's not skate
over this. The present flow of immigration, or not the present
flow actually, but the present immigration assumption of the Government,
which is well below the present flow, points to the population
being increased by six million over 30 years which is a million
every five years, which is the population of Birmingham. Now,
if you were going to say, "Right, this is what we want to
see. We want to see the housing, schools, hospitals, roads and
railways built for the population of Birmingham every five years",
I think you have got to turn round to the British people and give
them a good reason for it and I do not see that reason. I will
argue, if you will let me now or later, Mr Chairman, that the
economic arguments for this need to be looked at very closely.
We have heard a lot about labour shortages and so on and I would
like to tackle those because fundamentally there is not a serious
economic argument for large-scale immigration and when you address
this whole issue, I think you have to look at that. Now, the Government
have put forward seven different arguments for immigration and
five of them have gone. One they have dropped, two have been ruled
out by the Statistics Commission, one has been dismissed by the
Turner Report and a fifth one is actually destroyed by the facts,
so you are left with only two arguments and they need to be examined.
Q166 Mr Winnick: Sir Andrew, your
organisation really has a simple answer, does it not, to the problems?
You do not really believe, as I understand it, that there is anything
complex about trying to resolve the issue. You say, in effect,
"Let's have a cap on all immigration and the numbers allowed
in, if any, should not exceed those who leave the United Kingdom".
That is the position of your organisation?
Sir Andrew Green: Not quite, but
nearly. What we say is that, first of all, we should have a policy.
In our view, the Government at present does not have a policy
in terms of the scale of immigration.
Q167 Mr Winnick: We understand that,
but the policy of your organisation, and you say that was nearly
right, but in what way have I put it incorrectly that you want
a cap on all immigration?
Sir Andrew Green: There must be
a policy and the policy we recommend is that the levels of immigration
should be managed downwards towards the level of the number of
people who are leaving the country. The purpose of that is to
bring it into balance and not to have our population increase
still further by reason of immigration. At the moment 83% of our
population growth is due to immigration on an island that is already
the second most crowded country in Europe. Now, all the examples
you have been hearing about Canada, Australia, the United States,
they just happen to be continents. We are a small island and we
are nearly twice as crowded in England as Germany and four times
as France.
Q168 Mr Winnick: So if you do not
want this cap at the moment, when is this cap actually going to
be applied if you had your way?
Sir Andrew Green: Well, as I say,
the first thing is to have a policy aim and that would be our
aim. Now, it would be—
Q169 Mr Winnick: But an aim over
how many years? If you say you do not want an immediate cap and,
as I understood the position, you more or less would like that
to be applied as quickly as possible, how soon are we going to
have this cap where no one will be allowed into this country?
Sir Andrew Green: Well, you have
not understood my proposal. The proposal is that the numbers who
are allowed into the country to settle should balance those who
leave. Now, there is an area of agreement between ourselves and—
Q170 Mr Winnick: But when is that
going to apply?
Sir Andrew Green: Over a period
of years. First of all, you are going to have to get your border
controls back into shape. This is an administrative problem as
to how long it takes and it is a policy problem as to whether
you have actually got a policy. Now, there is one area where we
tend to some agreement with what has been said earlier, and it
is an important point. This is the advantage of separating out
temporary workers from those who are going to settle. At the moment
the position is that anyone who gets a work permit comes here,
works for up to five years and can then apply for settlement and
95% of those who apply are granted settlement. Now, what we would
suggest is that you have an entirely different system for people
who are just coming to work. You issue them with a work permit
for three to four years and at the end of that, the understanding
is that they go. For those who have work permit settlements, you
would have a limit, yes. In the 1990s, the number of people granted
work permits was of the order of 40,000. It is now 160,000 and
of course they all have dependants. There is no reason for that;
it is just administrative laxness. What would help very considerably,
and it would help people in the City, it would help people who
need particular skills, if you said, "Right, we'll separate
out these two", then those who come temporarily, if they
then want to stay because they marry or whatever it might be,
they go into the quota of permanent settlement, so you could put
a cap which would not seriously affect the economy, but would
reassure the public that these are the numbers in that category
that are going to arrive.
Q171 Mr Winnick: So, if I understand
you correctly, and obviously you will be the first to tell me
if I do not, you are not suggesting a cap immediately on immigration,
but over a period of years.
Sir Andrew Green: Correct.
Q172 Mr Winnick: You have not told
us how many years, but you have explained what you have in mind,
but you also accept that even within the framework of such a policy,
if it came about, people would come into this country to work
and be given permission, but they would have no security at the
end of three or four years. They would come in simply on the basis
that they would work and then leave, and there would be no question
of their families joining them during that period?
Sir Andrew Green: What they do
about the families is their business. The question is whether
they leave. There is nothing unusual about this. Very large numbers
of people come to Britain working for banks or whatever it be,
insurance companies, oil companies, and all the international
business which is so heavily centred in London has substantial
numbers of people who come on a posting and then go on somewhere
else. There is no rocket science in this. They bring their families,
fine, because they go with their families, so no issue. If you
can separate out that lot, as it were, from those who come with
a view to settling, then you can get towards a system in which
the public could have some confidence. Secondly, may I go on to
mention asylum-seekers who are obviously going to be a part of
this problem. The first thing to say is that the general policy
issue is not about asylum because other forms of immigration are
now 12 times asylum. The Government, as Mr Prosser mentioned,
has succeeded in reducing the number of asylum-seekers and the
net flow, if you like, of asylum-seekers last year was only one-twelfth
of total foreign immigration, so the numbers are right down and
we certainly would not suggest that there should be a cap on asylum-seekers
as a matter of principle. If they are refugees and deserve refuge,
they should be given it, end of story. All I am saying here is
that the numbers are now negligible compared to the overall picture
we are looking at. That then leaves you with the third major category
which is family reunion and that is a very difficult one and we
have made some proposals on that. My general point is that all
these avenues need to be, first of all, identified and then managed
downwards so that people know that we are not building Birmingham
every five years if they do not want it built every five years.
If you go out to the public, as I am sure you do every day, you
will know that that is exactly the case and 70 to 80% want to
see lower levels of immigration, including a considerable majority
of the ethnic communities.
Q173 Mr Winnick: If you were giving
evidence if we were around 100 years ago, and there was undoubtedly
a great amount of immigration at that period of time, the ending
of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, which
led the Government of the day introducing just before the 1906
election immigration control, you would be saying the same, would
you not, Sir Andrew? You would be telling us, if we go back 100
years, "We've had the Irish and now we have a large number
of people from eastern Europe, flooding into the East End of London,
with all the problems which are being created", and your
response now would be very similar to any predecessor of yours
giving the same sort of opinion.
Sir Andrew Green: What is different
is the facts. You were referring to the late 19th Century. That
is the Jewish immigration you are referring to, I think, are you
not? The total Jewish population in Britain now, and that is including
the people who came in the 20th Century, is of the order of 300,000.
That is roughly the number arriving every year, so it is another
example of how the scale of this matter is completely different.
Secondly, we publicised government figures only last week which
showed that one child in five is the child of an immigrant in
the UK as a whole and 50% in greater London, not central London,
are the children of immigrants. Now, that may be good or bad,
but the fact is that the public, if I may quote the Professor,
feel that this is happening without their being consulted and
I think that is very dangerous in principle and it is also dangerous
if you want to achieve integration.
Q174 Mr Winnick: Why should we be
pessimistic that the post-war immigration will not lead to the
same successful integration as all previous immigration into Britain
over centuries has done? You do accept that? The numbers may be
different and I am not disagreeing with you on that, but the amount
of immigration which has come into Britain over centuries has
in the main been quite successfully dealt with.
Sir Andrew Green: Yes.
Q175 Mr Winnick: Do I take it, Sir
Andrew, that you are so pessimistic that the more recent immigrants
with their children, grandchildren and so on will not settle in
quite the same way?
Sir Andrew Green: That is a very
important question. I think I would say that the basis of my concern
is the scale of it, as I have said several times. It is just completely
different. It is East Africans times 12. These people have to
be helped, they have to be taught English if they need it, they
have to be given skills, they have to be found jobs, they have
to be found houses. The sheer scale of it is extremely difficult
and it is made—
Q176 Mr Winnick: But, Sir Andrew,
sitting next to you, if I may be a bit personal and if the witness
will not mind my saying this, is a person presumably whose ancestors,
any more than mine, were not around in 1066, though yours may
have been.
Sir Andrew Green: I think they
were! It was a year or two before I was born!
Q177 Mr Winnick: If, as I assume,
he is the son or grandson of immigrants, it does not seem to me
to be a failure of immigration.
Sir Andrew Green: Absolutely not,
no, and I welcome the contribution that he makes of course and
many others. I thought I had made the point clear that the sheer
scale of this renders it very difficult and, if it were to continue,
it would get the more difficult and the more difficult still because
the public are not prepared to accept it. If you want to achieve
integration, you will not achieve it when the public feel threatened,
and 60% of the population feel, rightly or wrongly, that their
culture is under threat. Now, you cannot go on like that, particularly
when the Government gives every impression that it has not got
the issue under control.
Q178 Mr Winnick: Of course the question
will arise as to how far your organisation reassures the public
one way or another, but let's leave that aside. What do you say
as the representative of the IPPR, Dr Sriskandarajah, and, if
I may say so, without wishing to give any ammunition to Sir Andrew,
I would be totally incapable, and that would be my fault and my
fault alone, of pronouncing your name, whereas one of the virtues
of mine is that it is really easy to pronounce, but what would
be your view towards there being a total cap on immigration if
it is delayed along the lines that Sir Andrew has suggested?
Sir Andrew Green: It was not a
total cap.
Dr Sriskandarajah: Any cap on
the numbers of immigrants coming to the UK, any sort of quota,
any sort of numerical limit could be economically counter-productive,
could undermine humanitarian principles and in the long term harm
the UK. I think that the discussion you have been having highlights,
in my mind, some of the tensions between a public discourse that
is so often concerned about numbers of people, the scale of immigrants,
the city of Birmingham, and a policy discussion which needs increasingly
to be about nuanced approaches to a complex phenomenon. If we
unpack what we are talking about when we are talking about a city
the size of Birmingham arriving at our borders, we need to differentiate
at the very least between certain types of flows. There are some
types of flows which we want to promote and the Government and
others in the UK are committed to promoting. International fee-paying
students whose numbers have risen incredibly in the last few years
account for a significant proportion of the increase in that immigration
into the UK and that is a flow we want actively to promote. If
we talk about asylum-seekers, notwithstanding the fact that asylum
numbers have fallen in recent months, asylum, by its virtue, is
an area where we do not want to be imposing a numerical quota.
We do not, as a civilised society, want to be on 1 August telling
the next asylum-seeker, "I am sorry, we've filled our quota
for this year, so you're going to have to go back to your dictator-led,
oppressive society", so there are some categories of immigrants
on whom one should not impose a quota. So there are some categories
of immigrants on whom one should not impose a quota. Family reunion
is another example in which any numerical quota may not be effective
and, indeed, may be counter-productive. We do not want to undermine
the fundamental right to family life; we want to allow British
people of all colours, of all creeds, of all races, access to
the benefits of enjoying family life, where possible. So when
it comes to settlement we need to be careful about imposing numerical
caps. That leaves the economic category of numbers of people who
come here to work and, perhaps, in the long term, settle. This,
again, is an area that should not be about pandering to public
concerns by imposing crude, simplistic limits; it should rather
be about responding to economic criteria, responding to economic
needs. It just so happens, as I have said before, in the last
five to ten years we have had economic conditions that have required
an increase in the numbers of economic migrants; it may well be
the case that in the next five to ten years we might have a reversal
of those flows, so again, in all of those categories of immigrants,
talking about numerical caps is simplistic, unhelpful, counter-productive
and may actually undermine what immigration control should be
about.
Q179 Mr Winnick: Sir Andrew, I am
not going to ask you to respond to that because you have given
us your views. Would it be unfair to say that your organisation
always tends to give a rather negative view of immigration, not
the contribution they undoubtedly make up and down the country
in the public services and the private sector? Can I ask whether
you accept the findings of the IPPR, which was touched upon at
least by the House of Lords European Union Committee's recent
report? The IPPR study has said that the relative net contribution
of immigrants to public finances in the UK increased between 1999
and 2004, and that immigrants may make a relative greater net
fiscal contribution than people born in the UK. What would be
your comment on that one?
Sir Andrew Green: First of all,
I am delighted you have raised it because that is one of the last
two remaining arguments the Government have. On that particular
one, the Home Office produced a paper to that general effect which
the IPPR described as—I think they called it—meaningless
because it did not take account of the economic cycle. So the
IPPR had another shot, which looks better. We are looking at that;
we think that it contains a serious flaw and when we know we will
let you know. The other key argument is this: that the fiscal
benefit is relatively small; it is, even at its best, a few billion
in 600 billion. The question is this: what is the effect on the
economy as a whole? We are not the first country to ask this question.
If you go to the National Research Council study in the United
States in 1997, the major study on this, it came out and said
that the benefit was about one-tenth of 1% of GDP per head per
year. In another study by the Economic Council of Canada in 1991
they said a historical perspective gives little or no support
for the view that immigration is needed for economic prosperity.
They went on to say that with respect to per capita disposable
incomes an increase in immigration has a positive effect but it
is very small. In Holland, another official study by the Economic
Policy Analysis, which is part of their Treasury, said that the
overall net gain in income of residents is likely to be small
and may even be negative. So you come back to the UK and you have
the Prime Minister's statement, which is that immigration, as
a correct figure, adds 0.4% to annual growth. If you look at that
and do the arithmetic it works out at £2 a week for the average
family per year. So the economic benefit in terms of the whole
GDP is, frankly, pretty trivial. That leaves you with the kind
of labour market arguments that we have been hearing all morning,
and you need to look at those very carefully as well because the
Government told us that there were 600,000 vacancies and, therefore,
we needed immigration. That was three years ago. Since then we
have had net immigration of about 700,000 and how many vacancies
do you think there are? Still 600,000. The reason is very clear:
the reason is that immigration satisfies demand but creates other
demand. If you argue from the need for labour, from labour shortages,
then as Martin Wolfe, the senior economic commentator of The
Financial Times said, that argument is an argument for an
endless cycle of immigration. Not only that but you are going
in the wrong direction. By bringing in substantial numbers of
people who will work for less you are lowering wages and you are
making it more difficult to get people from welfare to work, which
is an important government policy, and you are going down the
road of a low-wage and low-productivity economy when you ought
to be going the other way. So we challenge all the economic arguments
for this. We do not think they have been properly heard; they
have never been dealt with on the BBC, for example, and they need
to be looked at. I hope your Committee will, in looking at this
whole question of immigration, consider whether there really is
a serious basis for it in the economy.
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