The
Chairman: I call Ms McDonagh, who is in the middle of
signing her Christmas
cards.
Siobhain
McDonagh: I do not wish to embarrass anybody, but my Dad
recently died. These are his sympathy cards, and I am preparing a list
of them while I listen intently to the
debate. Will the hon.
Gentleman explain the Liberal Democrat policy on Romanians and
Bulgarians entering the UK? Is it correct that he supports unfettered
entry into the job market straight away, in January, when those
countries become part of the
EU?
Bob
Russell: My condolences to the hon.
Lady. My view is
simple: all citizens of the EU are equals. That answers the question,
just like that. The Government have decided that the citizens of two
countries out of 27 will be treated differently. If the hon. Lady does
not want to take my word for that, I invite her to read the transcript
of the proceedingsthis morning, particularly a letter that was
quoted by one of her hon. Friends. It mentioned a former
ambassador—I cannot remember whether he was from Romania or
Bulgaria—[Interruption.] I am sorry that the hon. Member
for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) says that they are all the
same. Romania and Bulgaria are two sovereign nation states, and when a
former ambassador places on record disapproval of the way in which the
Government are behaving, Labour Members should take it seriously rather
than make light of
it. Will the Minister
attempt to do better than he did this morning in explaining how the
Government will deal with Romanian and Bulgarian citizens who come here
and obtain unofficial employment, finding themselves in the shadow
economy? On third
countries for safe removal, we must assume, as Bulgaria and Romania are
to become members of the EU on 1 January, that they are regarded as
safe countries. When the UK returns foreign nationalsto a
third country, is that the end of it, or do the Government feel that
they have any moral—not legal—responsibility for the
welfare and well-being of those people? I ask specifically in relation
to citizens of
Chechnya, who are technically and legally Russian but do not necessarily
consider themselves Russian. Will the Minister give an assurance that
if any Chechens are deported from the UK to either Romania or Bulgaria,
arrangements will be made for them to be moved not through Moscow or
St. Petersburg, or any other main Russian city, but back to Chechnya by
a route that does not take them through mainland
Russia? 2.50
pm
Rob
Marris: With regard to my sotto voce comment to the hon.
Member for Colchester, when he could not remember the difference
between the ambassadors to Bulgaria and to Romania, I actually said,
“They are all the same to you”. I am well aware of the
differences between those two ambassadors because my uncle, Desmond
Crawley, was in fact ambassador to
Bulgaria. On the
accession regulations, I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister about
the wording of regulation 5, which seems to mix two things that I was
not aware were mixed within the European Union: the right of someone
from an EU member state to reside in another member state because he or
she has a job or is self-employed there, and the right of a citizen of
one member state who wishes simply to move to another member state. For
example, a number of British pensioners retire to Spain, but do not
work there—they are pensioners and retired. I understood the EU
free-movement provisions to refer to movement of labour, not
residence. Regulation
5 refers to Council directive 2004/38/EC and
“the right of citizens of the
Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the
territory of the Member
States”. That is
pertinent to the Government’s policy on Bulgaria and Romania
because some of our constituents fear that citizens of an accession
country, whether or not there is a lead-in period, as the Government
are suggesting in the draft regulations, can simply move to another
member state without a job and claim benefits. For example, the thought
is that somebody could move from Germany to the United Kingdom, never
apply for a job or make any contribution, but simply live here and
claim benefits from day one. That was never my understanding of the
European Union and I hope that my hon. Friend can clarify whether I, as
well as some constituents, have misunderstood the nature of the
free-movement provisions within the European
Union. 2.52
pm Mr.
Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con): I wantto deal
almost exclusively with the second set of regulations and,
particularly, with the employment of seasonal agricultural workers
under the sector-based scheme, which is a matter on which the Minister
and I have corresponded. In my constituency there is a very competitive
mushroom producer that uses seasonal agricultural workers under the
sector-based scheme.
The mushroom producer supplies
a number of leading supermarkets, such as Tesco, in what is a very
competitive market. I have taken up its case with regard to the
sector-based scheme and the regulations, which will apply exclusively
to Bulgaria and Romania from
1 January next year. That is the nature of the regulations. The producer
is in touch with several other companies in the sector and has told me
that three mushroom producers in this country have decided already to
go out of business because they cannot compete due to a fellow member
state—Poland—implementing a sector-based arrangement from
the1 January that will allow companies producing mushrooms in
Poland to employ workers from Ukraine. That
company already employs a small number of workers from
Ukraine—some 500, I think—who come into this country
annually. They are not here for settlement; they are here in the short
term. As the order clearly says, they can be here for only six months.
They tend to be students in higher education in Ukraine who use such
work as a means of paying for their academic studies. They are not
being exploited; they are being paid the minimum wage and accommodation
is provided for them. In Poland, they would be paid a fifth of the UK
minimum wage, which means that the Polish mushroom industry will be
able to compete very effectively with the UK mushroom industry. As a
result of this order, I suspect that, by the middle of next year, we
shall have no mushroom industry in the
UK. 2.55
pm
Mr.
Byrne: May I first concur with the hon. Member for
Ashford, who recommends that we maintain a watchful eye on the progress
of criminal justice system reform in Bulgaria and Romania? We were
pleased that, following our lobbying earlier this summer, the
Commission was successful in ensuring that certain benchmarks were put
in place that had to be met by the reform programmes in Bulgaria and
Romania. We will be working closely with the Commission to ensure that
those reforms remain on
track. I am sad that I
was not able to convince the hon. Member for Colchester this morning of
the logic of our decision. However, over the past few years a large
number of people have come into this country. While there is evidence
that there are transitional impacts on our public services it is
responsible not to fling the door of our labour market wide open to
potential workers from Bulgaria and Romania. We should take a much more
measured approach until we are satisfied that we have fully understood
the implications for public services more generally and have the right
remedial measures in place. That is responsible Government. The
inference that I draw from Liberal Democrat policy—we did not
get a clear answer to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for
Mitcham and Morden—is that they think that thedoor
should be flung wide open. That would notbe a responsible step
to take in the absence of understanding in full the transitional
impacts that we have
identified.
Bob
Russell: Will the Minister confirm that the observations
that I have made this afternoon are fully consistent with the views put
to him this morning by hon. Members in the joint Select Committee
meeting?
Mr.
Byrne: I disagree with that analysis. There may have been
a difference of views in that Committee, but plenty of hon. Members in
both Select Committees
absolutely echo the logic of our decision. Indeed, some of them, not
least my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen
(Mr. Denham), have been calling for such a decision for some
time. A new importance
is attached to enforcement. If restrictions are to be put in place, it
is incumbent on the Home Office to ensure that measures are in place to
enforce them. A fixed penalty notice of around £1,000 would not
be regarded as a mere tax; it would be a significant sting in the
pocket, particularly for workers in lower paid jobs. We know that the
vast majority of workers who are registered on the worker registration
scheme are earning less than £6 per hour, so a significant fine
is a good
deterrent. We have to
strengthen the immigration and nationality directorate’s ability
to enforce the rules, which is why we propose to double the budget for
enforcement and removal over the next few years. There has been a
long-standing concern about self-employed workers. That is not new; it
is embedded in the logic of the treaty of Rome and its incorporation by
the Heath Government in the early 1970s. I am working very closely on
that matter with the Paymaster General, to ensure that we have
corporate policing strategy in
place. I shall just
spend two seconds leaping to the defence of my right hon. Friend the
Secretary of State for Defence, who spoke in a Committee like this one
in 2004. I am talking about the issue of the numbers. My right hon.
Friend said clearly that, as a Home Office Minister, he was merely
publishing the estimates that University college London had made about
the future of migration. He went on to say that it would be unwise to
speculate about the number of people who would come, and I echo
that. I underline the
fact that the debate is not about whether there should be restrictions
on free movement between European nations. The principle of free
movement was enshrined in regulations considered by the House last
year. They were passed under the negative resolution procedure and not
prayed against, so I can only surmise that they were supported across
the
House.
Damian
Green: Before the Minister moves off the numbers involved
I want to say that I am grateful for his clarification that the
previous numbers were simply published by the Government, rather than
produced by them. I find it hard to believe that there are not figures
relevant to the regulations somewhere in the machine. If the Minister
were prepared to publish them and distance himself from them, as he
says his right hon. Friend did in the previous case, that would be a
step forward. Will he publish them with whatever disclaimers he wishes
to
attach?
Mr.
Byrne: No, because given the number of variables involved
in any estimate, it would be highly speculative, unproductive and
unwise to put it into the public
domain. The hon.
Member for Ashford mentioned quotas, which are important. There will be
about 3,500 quota places on the food processing scheme, and the workers
on it will have the right to work for 12 months. The bulk, 16,500, will
be on the seasonal agricultural
workers scheme and have the right to work for six months. It will be
theoretically possible for such workers to take back-to-back places in
the quota and build up a 12-month right. From our conversations with
the industry, we believe that that is unlikely, because the people in
question will be employed to do such things as bring in harvests, which
depend on the
seasons. On whether
the restrictions will be lifted, we have suggested that the new
migration advisory committee could advise us on the matter. That would
bring into the open some of the questions and analysis that are germane
to the debate. We are open to consultation on whether such a committee
should be set up and how it could take into account the wider impact of
immigration, which I know the hon. Member for Ashford has called for in
the past. Hon. Members
raised the issue of negative consequences on domestic industries of
phasing out low-skilled migration. Its phasing out for countries
outside the EU is not an ambition held exclusively by the
Government—it was called for by the Conservative party in a
document that it published earlier this year. In introducing
restrictions on A2 nationals, we have tried to work closely with
industry so that we do not automatically phase out the employment of
low-skilled workers from outside the EU but rather introduce the
transition between seasons in 2007. To be compatible with the doctrine
of Community preference, access for low-skilled workers from outside
the EU must be ended if restrictions are imposed on EU
countries.
Mr.
Walter: I hear what the Minister says, but can he assure
me that Poland will not employ workers from outside the EU under a
similar sector-based scheme?
Mr.
Byrne: As I understand it, the Polish Government have
decided not to impose any restrictions on workers from A2 countries.
They are therefore not discriminating against EU nationals, so the
possibility of employing people from outsidethe EU is still
open to them. We are, as it were, discriminating against A2 nationals
by imposing restrictions on them and, while those restrictions remain
in place, it is not possible for us to allow low-skilled migration from
outside the EU. I know that the Government do not advocate that
position on our own; the hon. Gentleman’s own Front Benchers
share our
view. Finally, in
response to the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for
Wolverhampton, South-West, anybody in the European Union may exercise
treaty rights to move freely throughout the EU. The issue here is that
people are able to access in-work benefits only if they exercise a
treaty right to work within the existing rules. Therefore, their
ability to access benefits that are in-work benefits will depend on
their ability to get a job, and it is restrictions on that ability to
get a job that we are proposing in these regulations.
With those comments, I should
like to conclude. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed
to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has
considered the draft Asylum (First List of Safe Countries) (Amendment)
Order 2006.
Resolved, That
the Committee has considered the draft Accession (Immigration and
Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006.—[Mr.
Byrne.] Committee
rose at six minutes past Three
o’clock.
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