27. Memorandum submitted by the Mayor
of London
SUMMARY
The Mayor points out that net immigration to
London (asylum and voluntary) is central both to the city's development,
and to the process of immigration to the UK. After setting out
core objectives for this policy field, the Mayor raises concerns
from London's point of view about the Government's approach to
immigration control, in four areas:
— Labour migration: The Mayor sees
a risk of mismatch between Home Office proposals for a stratified
points-based system, and London's needs. The Mayor proposes a
simplified scheme including action to promote equality of rights
for migrant workers; a flexible employer-led migration route with
minimum two-year stay; and a "green card" or worker-led
route.
— Appeals: The Mayor calls for reconsideration
of provisions of the current Immigration Asylum and Nationality
(IAN) Bill that would remove rights of appeal, against refusal
of:
— worker and student visas;
— extension of stay for those legally
in the UK.
— Illegal residence: Noting that some
"control" measures may have the perverse effect of driving
growth in London's irregular migrant population, the Mayor asks
that—before introducing such measures in future—the
Home Office should rigorously assess how far they may encourage
illegal residence.
— Immigration enforcement: The current
approach risks alienating migrant communities from public authorities,
in particular from the police, with potentially grave consequences
for race relations and community safety in London. The Mayor suggests
guidelines for enforcement action that would ensure priority for
social and community safety objectives, and for voluntary return;
monitoring and accountability for Immigration Service arrest operations;
and a review of enforcement measures to check that they do not
impede police action against serious crime.
INTRODUCTION
1. Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is responsible
under the GLA Act 1999 for promoting the city's social, economic
and cultural development in ways that are sustainable and help
secure equality of opportunity, health and community safety for
Londoners. The Mayor has made clear that in London, a city built
on immigration, these duties can be properly discharged only if
the Mayor can contribute to the formation of UK policy on immigration.
2. The Mayor therefore appreciates the opportunity
to submit this statement to the Select Committee's inquiry. Immigration
control is taken here to mean measures constraining UK entry
or residence of any category of migrant—that is, anyone
born outside the UK who lives or seeks to live in it (other than
designated visitors). The way immigration rules are applied to
asylum seekers thus forms part of the brief for the present statement.
3. Many of the points about immigration
control which it summarises have been elaborated in other policy
statements by the Mayor, cited here in footnotes.
IMMIGRATION AND
LONDON'S
DEVELOPMENT
4. Arrival of migrants from abroad is, today
more than ever, a major determinant of London's social and economic
development. Over the six years 1998-2003, London received around
two-thirds of the UK's net inflow of migrants. This has brought
a rise of roughly 100,000 per annum in its population.
5. Building on immigration to London in
earlier decades, the net inflow of recent years means that by
2002-03 Londoners born outside the UK totalled two million people
or 29% of its total resident population—and 35% of working-age
population. [118]Seven
out of 10 were born in poorer countries of the world. Of all migrants
then in the UK who had arrived in the previous 25 years, 51% were
Londoners.
6. Immigration is expected to play this
key role in London's demographic growth through the period to
2016 projected by the Mayor's statutory London Plan. Migration
policy including the control regime will thus help to shape many
aspects of its development such as:
— growth in output and productivity
of the regional economy;
— extent of social exclusion and poverty;
— equalities and race relations;
— health inequalities and health care;
— patterns of housing need;
— public services—both demand
and capacity.
OBJECTIVES
7. Immigration policy, including its control
element, must in the Mayor's view be designed to help London and
the UK achieve three basic sets of objectives:
— economic: enhance growth in
output and productivity;
— social: help to promote equality
of opportunity; tackle poverty and social exclusion; enhance access
to public services; challenge racism, promote good race relations;
and build community cohesion;
— international: make UK migration
policy a more effective instrument of development for countries
of origin.
8. This statement now points out aspects
of the immigration control regime which must be addressed if these
goals are to be fulfilled. It is taken here to include the policy
package put forward by the Government as its Five Year Strategy
on immigration and asylum.
LABOUR MIGRATION
9. The Mayor shares the Home Secretary's
aim of finding an immigration regime that can realise the full
economic potential of migration to the UK. But the proposed points-based
system for admission to the UK for work, as set out in Selective
Admission, is in the Mayor's opinion ill-adapted to achieving
this aim. [119]
10. Firstly, the proposals could exacerbate
the segmentation of London's labour market. Available information
suggests this market, especially for lower-paid occupations, is
split by barriers making it harder for many migrants to respond
freely to vacancies city-wide according to ability and wages offered.
Widespread underemployment among London's migrant workers is a
key indicator of this segmentation.
11. Secondly the regime proposed by the
Selective Admission package could seriously misjudge demand
for migrant labour and its potential contribution. This is because
it assumes they can be assessed centrally by a valuation method
relying on simple proxies for value-added or productivity per
worker, in particular wage levels. The Mayor believes this assessment
can best be made where most information about it is available—that
is, by the organisation with a job to be filled, in making its
recruitment decision.
12. An admissions regime which responds
poorly to the needs of London's economy poses a twofold problem.
Not only would it erode economic gains from migration, but it
is likely—by creating a mismatch between legal admissions
and labour market demand—to encourage illegal entry to UK,
with grave social consequences. Social effects may be compounded
by tougher sanctions on employers who hire workers illegally resident
in the UK. The Mayor urges the Government to focus instead on
tackling abuse of migrant employees' rights, and on possible causes
of illegal employment within the control regime itself.
13. The third basic weakness in the Selective
Admission package lies in its treatment of time horizons for
migrants. Most of the long-run benefit of labour migration will
be generated by a dynamic process of interaction between newcomers
and the host economy. By curtailing migrants' period of residence
or denying them permanent residence, current proposals could put
this key economic gain at risk.
14. The aim of maximising the economic potential
of migration can best be pursued, the Mayor believes, by revising
the proposed Selective Admission regime as follows:
— establish equality of rights for
migrant workers, with pathways to integration;
— keep under review the wider impact
of "high-skilled" Tier 1;
— merge Tier 2 ("skilled individuals
with a job offer") with "low skill" Tier 3, to
create a flexible employer-led migration route with minimum two-year
stay;
— create a worker-led or "green
card" migration route; and
— delete proposals for bonds and compulsory
remittances.
15. The Mayor hopes the Select Committee
will support this more balanced and flexible approach to labour
immigration, reflecting key lessons from London's experience.
APPEALS
16. Appeals in general serve a dual purpose:
firstly to guarantee justice, and secondly to raise the quality
of decision-making. In the case of immigration, better and fairer
decision-making in turn offers a third benefit which is crucial
for London. It maintains on an orderly, legal basis the international
movement of workers, students, asylum seekers and family members
which (para 4-6 above) is vital to the city's long-run development.
17. The Mayor is therefore concerned about the
IAN Bill proposal (Clauses 4, 6) to end the right to appeal against
refusal of permission to enter the UK for all non-asylum migrants
except some dependants. Given the high rate at which UK visa decisions
are overturned on appeal under current rules, [120]the
withdrawal of appeal rights is likely to entail a rising rate
of visa refusals for workers and students.
18. Besides injustice to people who may
have close links with communities in the city, the Mayor believes
an increased rate of exclusions would have disturbing economic
implications for London:
— Particularly if combined with a centralised
points-based system for labour migration as now proposed by the
Home Office (above), more visa refusals for economic migrants
could seriously disrupt the city's labour market.
— London's higher education sector,
a significant part of the regional economy, may suffer not just
though declining demand for student places but also from damage
to the UK's image as world leader in university education.
19. Equally serious for London is the proposal
(IAN Bill Clauses 1, 11) to end the right to appeal for migrants
legally in the UK who are refused an extension of stay—unless
they appeal from abroad. The Mayor would object to any measure
imposing illegality on migrant Londoners who seek legitimately
to extend their stay. Social and community implications could
in the Mayor's view be extensive and damaging. Whilst acknowledging
recent moves by the Government to soften these provisions, the
Mayor would urge that migrants retain rights to appeal in-country
against refusal by the Home Office to vary the terms of their
residence permission.
IMMIGRATION CONTROLS
AND ILLEGAL
RESIDENCE
20. The number of London's migrants who
have no permission to live in the UK is unknown, but must be large.
Total irregular migrant population in the UK for 2001 is tentatively
put by the Home Office between 310,000 and 570,000. It is reasonable
to assume London's share of this rough UK total for irregular
migration was at least equal to its share of all recent UK migrants—that
is, perhaps half to two-thirds. [121]
21. Growth in the city's irregular migrant
population may, on available anecdotal information, have been
substantial. Of course it is explained partly by factors underlying
migration in general, from repressive foreign regimes to London's
need for office cleaners. But it is probably driven also, the
Mayor believes, by the UK immigration control regime itself.
22. Successive measures to limit migration
flows or "tackle abuse" have made it more likely that
migrants will end up in breach of immigration rules. The following
are examples, the first two from discussion above:
— severe restriction on legal entry
routes to the UK for "low skill" workers;
— removal of right to appeal when extension
of leave to remain is refused (proposed in the IAN Bill);
— curbs on access to funding for legal
advice to asylum seekers, leading to failure of well-founded claims;
and
— attempts to enforce return on rejected
asylum seekers who genuinely fear it (such as treatment of "hard
cases", and Section 9 compulsion for families).
23. This process poses a complex threat
to London's long-term development. Widespread irregular employment
may damage the regional economy through exploitation and abuse,
market distortions, and likely deadening effect on productivity.
Denying health or housing services to irregular migrants could
undermine standards for the capital as a whole. Isolating them
from all state agencies poses risks to community safety (see below).
24. More generally, migrants struggling
to get by without recourse to formal institutions will inevitably
create "parallel" societies and economies outside mainstream
London life. These could prove attractive to other Londoners,
including UK-born young people suffering social exclusion (for
example) because of race or low school attainment. In areas as
diverse as under-25 employment, integrity of Census data, civic
engagement, public health and gun crime, the city may pay a high
price for "control" measures that turn migrants into
clandestine Londoners.
25. The Mayor urges that before introducing
such measures in future, the Home Office should rigorously assess
how far they may encourage illegal residence.
IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT:
DETECTION AND
REMOVAL
26. Where Parliament has laid down immigration
rules, it is of course expected that they will be enforced. But
the Mayor has serious concerns about the way the Home Office approaches
the task of detecting and removing alleged immigration offenders.
27. Enforcement can be humane and workable
only if preceded by fair, objective processes for determining
applications to live in the UK—which is one reason why appeal
rights are so important. But even if the Home Office can make
further progress on the quality of decision-making, the enforcement
regime itself remains problematic. Information reaching the Mayor
indicates that at two levels this regime risks undermining social
inclusion, race relations and community safety in London.
28. Firstly many aspects of removals operations
by the UK Immigration Service (UKIS) continue to cause distress
and often anger, not just to individual "offenders"
but also in communities from which they are removed. The scale
of London's irregular migrant population (above) means these effects
are felt widely across ethnic minorities. UKIS targeting raises
a particular danger that its arrests and removals may be seen
as racially discriminatory. In communities where—understandably—no
distinction is drawn between UKIS and the police, removals may
thus swiftly jeopardise Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) work
to win their trust.
29. The second, more general risk arises
from the increasingly far-reaching process by which Home Office
agencies seek intelligence on alleged abuse of immigration rules.
This in practice draws in the police; a wide range of employers;
and major parts of the public sector including local authorities,
NHS and Inland Revenue. Together with anxiety about the final
process of removals (above), it gives migrants good grounds for
shunning contact with state agencies—notably the police—even
while they have valid permission to be in the UK.
30. This alienation from official agencies
has grave implications for many aspects of social inclusion work
in London, but especially for MPS efforts to tackle major crime
including terrorism. It is exacerbated by growing insecurity amongst
migrant communities as Government action weakens the stability
of their immigration status—for example:
— time-limited leave to remain for
refugees, facing them with sustained uncertainty as to their future
in the UK; and
— "counter-terror" power
(new IAN Bill clause, October 2005) to strip dual nationals of
UK citizenship on wide grounds of "public good".
31. The Mayor urges the Home Office to
adopt these groundrules to bring immigration enforcement into
line with London's long-term needs:
— strategic objectives of social inclusion,
good race relations and community safety must come before enforcement
targets;
— priority must be given to voluntary
over forced return; [122]
— where UKIS arrest operations are
required, they must be subject to monitoring by bodies accountable
to communities, local and regional government; and
— enforcement measures, including intelligence-gathering,
should be reviewed by the Home Office in liaison with MPS and
the GLA to ensure that they do not impede police action to deal
with serious crime.
Richard Stanton
Senior Policy Officer
2 December 2005
118 118 Estimates in this paragraph from: GLA, Country
of Birth and Labour Market Outcomes in London (2005) at http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/DMAG-Briefing-2005-1.pdf.
This study distinguished between poorer or "developing"
countries of origin-including the pre-2004 EU accession states-and
"high-income" countries, mainly comprising the pre-2004
EU, North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan and a few
more developed states of South East Asia. Back
119
119 For fuller analysis see Selective Admission: Making Migration
Work for Britain-Response from the Mayor of London (November
2005). Back
120
120 National Audit Office, Visa Entry to the United Kingdom:
the Entry Clearance Operation HC367, 2003-04. Back
121
121 In 2002-03, for example, London was home to 47% of all UK
migrants who had arrived after 1995 (GLA op cit 2005).
Since 1998 it has received two-thirds of UK net international
migration (para 4 of this statement). Back
122
122 On voluntary returns and the case for community and local
monitoring, see also Mayor of London, Illegal immigration,
returns and the needs of a world city: European Community Return
Policy-a London perspective, Statement in evidence to European
Commission Public Hearing (Brussels, 16 July 2002). Back
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