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Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates UK Borders Bill |
UK Borders Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Emily
Commander, Committee
Clerk
attended the
Committee
WitnessesGordon
McLardy, Director of Risk Management, National Car
Parks
Owen
Tudor, Head of EU and International Relations, Trades Union
Congress
Sean
Bamford, Policy Officer, Trades Union
Congress
Jack
Dromey, Deputy General Secretary, Transport and General Workers
Union
Omer
Ahmed, Head of Migrant Support Unit, Transport and General Workers
Union
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 1 March 2007
(Morning)
[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]UK Borders BillFurther written evidence to be reported to the HouseUKB 09
Universities UK
UKB 10
Foreign National Prisoners
Network
9.3
am
The
Chairman: Good morning. May I remind all Members and witnesses that
todays oral evidence sessions must stay within the scope of the
UK Borders Bill. I would ask that Members and witnesses keep questions
and answers concise and in order. Our first evidence session must
finish at 9.40 am, and I have to warn the Committee that, if necessary,
I will interrupt whoever is speaking to call a halt to proceedings
atthat time and will do the same when the knife
fallsat 10.25 am.
Welcome, Mr.
McLardy. Would you briefly introduce yourself to the Committee, and
then I shall ask my colleagues to begin their questions.
Gordon
McLardy:
I am Gordon McLardy, director of risk
management for National Car Parks. Our business is very diverse; we
cover more than car parking. We carry out on-street enforcement; we
have bus routes; we work for the DVLA; we cover insurance, clamping and
removal. My interest in todays proceedings is that we employ a
lot of migrant workers, so we have a bit of experience to
offer.
Q
143
The
Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality (Mr.
Liam Byrne):
Mr. McLardy, you do yourself a
slight injustice. I think that you are also heavily involved in the
Home Offices illegal working stakeholder
group.
Gordon
McLardy:
Yes, I am.
Q
144
Mr.
Byrne:
We benefit enormously not only from your own advice
and the good practice that you have put in place but from the
contribution of the group.
In the UK Borders Bill, the
Government propose a dramatic simplification of the complex way in
which migrants can identify themselves and prove their entitlement to
work. By way of introduction, could you say a little about the virtue
of these clauses or the arguments against them? The Committee would
benefit from understanding the practical difficulties that you
encounter in identifying migrants and proving their entitlement to
work.
Gordon
McLardy:
Currently, the section 8 defence is not
complicated, but can be perceived as complicated. It is very
time-consuming for employers to check through the relevant
documentation. At NCP we do
employ quite a lot of migrant workers, with quite high turnover in
certain areas of the business, and we find a varied amount of either
fraudulent documentation, which is absolutely spot-on and really good
quality, or very poor quality documentation, where someone may have cut
out the picture and stuck a different picture on. You do get a variety
of documentation, which makes it difficult for employers.
We do a number of TUPE
transfers for new employees. Of course, when you do that you are
relying on the previous employers to have done the thorough checks, and
in our experience that is not alwaysthe caseso much
so, that in the illegal migrant community that we come across now and
again, we sometimes find the sharing of identification, where some
unfortunate individuals might find that with that identity comes
previous convictions, which they were not aware of. We face a variety
of issues. Some are easy to overcome; some are not, so much so that on
occasion it can be easieralthough we do not do thatnot
to employ someone from another country. It is much less easy to check
on someone from outside the EEA. It can be quite fraught with a number
of
pitfalls.
Q
145
Mr.
Byrne:
Today there are something like60 different
documents that somebody could proffer in order to provide evidence of
entitlement and identity. Would it be easier if there were just
one?
Gordon
McLardy:
In principle we fully support that, on the
basis of the biometrics documents proposed, because it would be far
easier for any employer to do that very simple check. Obviously there
are issues around whether that can be enforced or not, but again that
is probably for the experts to iron out. But, in principle, that would
be a dream for any
employer.
Q
146
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): Your witness submission is
fascinating in getting to grips with the scale of the problem that the
Bill is meant to address. You say that you employ 6,000 staff, about
half of whom are foreign nationals. As a broad guess, how many of those
3,000 foreign nationals are illegals, who should not be working
here?
Gordon
McLardy:
As opposed to giving you a guess, I can tell
you what we did in 2005. We had a turnover of about 3,300 staff; of
those staff, just over 6 per cent. warranted further investigation; of
that 6 per cent., something like 3 per cent. were illegal workers. So
you are talking in the region of about 100 staff out of
6,000.
Q
147
Damian
Green:
And from your contacts around your industry and
others, is that broadly typical? As you say, you are presumably one of
the biggest
employers
Gordon
McLardy:
That is typical of the ones where you get to
the point of checking documentation. We also do pre-employment checks.
We do employment drives and we turn up and check documentation there.
Those figures do not take into account the fact thaton some
recruitment drives 60 per cent. of the staff disappeared once we
started looking at documentation carefully. Depending of course on the
sector and work you are in, there is a high proportion out there with
illegal documentation.
Q
148
Damian
Green:
May I ask you to expand on one of the things that
you said, when you noted that there is no provision in the Bill for the
Government to require businesses to make identity checks on foreign
nationals who are using a biometric document? Do you see that as a big
weakness?
Gordon
McLardy:
I think so. If you are going toput
biometric documentation in place, it should be mandatory. Currently,
all our staff at NCP have internal ID cards. The documentation checks,
whether they are for a migrant worker or someone indigenous to the UK,
are exactly the same. People hold the documentation; they expect to
hold the ID card; they expect to have the checks. For us, unless you
make it mandatory, we would be failing in our duties to reduce the
documentation. You then have different levels of check
again.
Q
149
Damian
Green:
Another point you made was that you have concerns
about the fraudulent provision of falsified
documents.
Gordon
McLardy:
Again, in principle the BID documentation
seems sound, but it is about whether we have the technology and the
ability to take away and mitigate the risk of the fraudulent production
of biometric
documentation.
Q
150
Damian
Green:
So you think that somebody will produce what looks
like a good document but is not, so you have then made
permanent
Gordon
McLardy:
Absolutely. Everything is possible, of
course, but I am sure that within the designingof the
biometrics these things will be looked at and designed out. Even if
they are not, you are still reducing the opportunities for illegal
workers. Even if you cannot completely eradicate forgeries, you are
still reducing the opportunities for them to come to the
country.
Q
151
Chris
Mole (Ipswich) (Lab): Are there particular issues for your
industry on the different entitlements to work for people in the
immigration system, for example those who have indefinite leave to
remain? There is sometimes a lack of clarity about who has an
entitlement to work and who does not. Do you think that some of the
changes will help with
that?
Gordon
McLardy:
I think some of the changes will. Again, it
goes back to the biometric documentation. From that you will get a
right to work or not, or a limited right to work and so on. The easier
it is, theless documentation to checkat the moment
thereare additional checks that we have to do, and any
reasonable employer would do them. Some unscrupulous
ones may
not.
Q
152
Mrs.
Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West)
(Lab): Do you feel that the onus should be on employers to
carry out these checks, and what would you say to employers who feel
that it is not up to them? Whose fault should it be for hiring illegal
workers? Is it the worker who has done wrong or the company for hiring
them and not
checking?
Gordon
McLardy:
I think it is a partnership. There is a
partnership between Government and employers. If we can get the borders
and the checks right and limit
and streamline migrants coming into the country, and
if everything possible has been done to do that, it is down to the
employers to play their part. We all have a part to play and my advice
to any employer is, You have that part to play. Forget
illegal workersit could be someone who has joined to steal or
whatever. The onus is still on the business to reduce the
opportunities. It must sit squarely with
businesses.
Q
153
Mrs.
Hodgson:
I note that in your submission you said that you
are concerned that the identity checking service that comes in in 2007
could be overloaded by employers who just cannot be bothered to carry
out any checks at
all.
Gordon
McLardy:
When I wrote that documentation I had not
actually sat down with the chaps and looked at where they are moving
the trial to. The check in Sheffield will be used initially, I
understand, just to check someone who has submitted documentation and
is in the system somewhere. It is just to clarify whether that person
is legit. These are legal workers, or tendto be legal,
otherwise they would not be doing the checksillegal workers
would not even bother to go through that way. Of course, it is
initially about ensuring that you expand the opportunities for
employers to use that service and expand the service provided.
Initially it should not be a big problem but, if we move to increase
the checks available, there could be quite an overload. That could open
up opportunities, perhaps for private bureaux around the country to
offer that service to employers, which would be
welcome.
Q
154
Mrs.
Hodgson:
I know that in the document you mention pro rata
penalties for small and large employers. What do you think the levels
should
be?
Gordon
McLardy:
Provided that we have the front end right
and the Government have done everything that they can to get the
documentation and checks right; provided that all those things are
right andthe tools are there for employers, a £2,000
fine for a multi-billion-turnover business is nothing. It is not
effective. You have to pro rata it against the size of the business for
a fine to mean something. A fine of £2,000 would mean something
to me, but to other employers it might not. The fine has to fit the
size of the business; otherwise, the larger operations can turn a blind
eye to it. The odd £20,000 fine would be neither here nor there.
It is important that the fine fits the
crime.
Q
155
Mr.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): May I clarify my
understanding of the scale of the problem? You gave two statistics:
first, that 6 per cent. of your work force are going to warrant further
investigation.
Gordon
McLardy:
Yes.
Q
156
Mr.
Blunt:
And then you said that when checks started to be
made, 60 per cent. of staff
disappeared.
Gordon
McLardy:
This was pre those checks; I am sorry. The
statistics that I gave you initially were from when the documentation
on the staff was coming through the system. The other statistic was
fromwhen we go to recruitment drives. These are chaps coming
along to be interviewed and considered for employment within the NCP. A
large proportion of the migrant workers turn out to be
illegal.
Q
157
Mr.
Blunt:
So 60 per cent. of the people who approach you
clear off when they discover they are subject to the checking
process?
Gordon
McLardy:
Of the migrant population that approaches
us,
yes.
Q
158
Mr.
Blunt:
Of the migrant population, which is half of your
work force. Is that the part of the work force with the largest
turnover?
Gordon
McLardy:
It is the on-street enforcement side where
you get a large turnoverwith traffic wardens, if you
like.
Q
159
Mr.
Blunt:
And then, of the people who get into the
recruitment process, 6 per cent. warrant further
investigation?
Gordon
McLardy:
Yes.
Q
160
Mr.
Byrne:
Mr. McLardy, you presented the argument
for a much simpler way of checking with admirable clarity. How
widespread do you think support is among the business community for a
much simpler way of checking peoples eligibility to work
here?
Gordon
McLardy:
I cannot speak for everybody,but I
believe from my own experience that there is widespread support within
the business community. Anything that makes the checks easier and
simpler for the business, so that it can get on with its day-to-day
operations, will be
supported.
Q
161
Mr.
Byrne:
A little bit later on this year, the Government
will consult on whether to introduce fines for employers that do not
enforce checks, and if so, at what level. Is that a good opportunity to
test the business communitys sentiment on whether to make these
checks
mandatory?
Gordon
McLardy:
Before we get to enforcement, I think you
need to do a trial. You could take money off them or you could make an
example of them and counsel them, as opposed to fining them, because
there is always an argument that they do not have the support or the
tools to do the job. But I do still believe that the checks should be
mandatory.
Q
162
Mr.
Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): We heard from the Immigration
Advisory Service about what it believes to be the adequate level and
type of biometric data that would help in its work. It believes that
fingerprinting would be sufficient. Do you believethat
fingerprinting represents adequate biometric documentation? You talked
in your evidence about your business being able to pick up on trends in
the emerging risk of documentation fraud. Will you tell us what some of
those emerging risks might
be?
Gordon
McLardy:
You tend to see patterns when looking at
documentationyou might have a time when passports from France
are coming overso you tend to see patterns when you analyse the
database. Another issue is the sharing of IDs. With businesses of our
size, when you look at the payroll system, you see that people are
sharing the same bank account and the same address. People with the
same name and date of birth have appeared in different places. From our
own
system, we can see if the picture fits. If it is the same date of birth,
you tend to find that these are different people. Fingerprints are
certainly a huge step forward, but will only be adequate provided that
there are facilities to use the cards to identify whether the
fingerprint and the card belong to the same person. It can only
help.
Q
163
Mr.
Reed:
What is the cost to the business of the staff
turnover, and the number of people who you find working illegally in
your
employ?
Gordon
McLardy:
There are massive business costs for us. It
costs £1,200 to put an enforcement officer on the street. There
is more chance that an illegal immigrant will leave earlyif we
catch them later on, or for whatever reason. There might also be other
reasons that they are in your employ. The turnover rate, therefore,
tends to be higher. There is a huge business case for getting it right
up front and getting the right people in the right job, so that the
turnover reduces3,000 people times £1,200 is a lot of
money.
Gordon
McLardy:
The system is clearly inadequate, whether or
not we are subsidising it. There is a lotof white noise about
whether that is to do with immigration or employment itself, so it is
difficult to
say.
Q
165
Kerry
McCarthy (Bristol, East) (Lab): In your wider role as a
spokesperson for others in theindustry, do you have
discussions with your European counterparts, or with people in other
countries with biometric systems and ID cards? Can lessons be learned
from their
experiences?
Gordon
McLardy:
No, I have had no experienceof
that.
Q
166
Kerry
McCarthy:
In your written submission, you mentioned the
difficulties of working with the police and immigration officers and of
getting them to take your concerns seriously. How do you suggest that
that relationship could be
improved?
Gordon
McLardy:
First, there is clearly a resource issue
with enforcement officers. There are not enough of them. That is quite
clear. They have a huge task to do. The frustrating thing for an
employer is that a large group of illegal workers remains. We would
like to take them off the street because otherwise they either go to
another employer or try to get another one of our contracts. That just
perpetuates the
problem.
The issue
with the police is again largely down to education. I am not sure that
they have a great understanding of immigration issues. They might be
busy, depending on the force at the time and so on. So there is a need
for greater awareness in the police and certainly for greater resources
among enforcement officers. I believe that there is also a need for
account managers, or whatever you call them, within the enforcement
service in order to get closer to the industry, and different aspects
of it, so that you have someone who understands the industry and can
support it in cutting through some of the red tape. That would
certainly benefit all industries.
Lord
Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr. Alan
Campbell):
I should like to follow on
froman answer that you gave to my colleague, Mr.
Reed. IfI have understood correctly, your company has a
relatively high staff turnoverhigher than most
companies.
Gordon
McLardy:
I would not say that it is higher than most
companies.
Gordon
McLardy:
Yes,
possibly.
Q
168
Mr.
Campbell:
And you made it clear that having a single
secure document would be simpler for your company and, you think, for
other companies too. What about the cost? Surely, you must have an
estimate of how much it costs you now to carry out the kind of checks
from front end to back end that you have to do. What does that cost
your
company?
Gordon
McLardy:
I do not have a number that I can give you.
Clearly, labour time would have to be costed in. There is also our
gatekeeper system, database set-up and so on. From a hardware point of
view, the costsare not huge. We are talking about
£4,000, £5,000, £6,000something like that.
There is also the time invested in staff so that they can understand
what is a genuine document and what is not. Time must be put into it,
but again, I would rather invest the money up front, and there is a
clear business case for doing that. It will reduce turnover and we see
the benefit of
that.
Again, industry
must play a part. Yes, there will be costs and the industry should pay
for some of that investmentI shall probably get shot when I get
back. I would rather do that and pay some money up front, than get
fined. Furthermore, it is not good business for stories about private
companies to be spread all over the papers, saying that they have been
raided and lost 30 or so workers. It is right that everyone should play
their part. But please do not repeat that to my chief
executive.
Q
169
Mrs.
Hodgson:
What is your opinion of the pull factor that the
opportunity to work illegally has on people who might try to enter and
work in the country illegally? Is it a draw that some employers do not
do any
checks?
Gordon
McLardy:
I think that most reputable employers will
do some checks. The unscrupulous ones, who do not necessarily pay
taxes, will not do any, but they know exactly what they are doing.
There is a clear divide between those who genuinely just do not want to
carry out checks or pay taxes and so on, and those who perhaps do not
understand them, or think that they will not get fined so there is no
deterrent. It is a mixed
bag.
Gordon
McLardy:
They clearly do; we have a system at the
moment that lends itself to the illegal workers. The checks are not
robust enough and we do not enforce well enough, for whatever reason.
Clearly, there is an opportunity. There is a market out there for
forged documentation, and these chaps do that.They get into
communities in which they share the documentation time and time
again.
Q
170
Mrs.
Hodgson:
You mentioned the joined-up approach with other
agencies. Could you say something about the problems in respect of
that? You mentioned TUPE-transferred staff.
Gordon
McLardy:
You have protection undersection 8
of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 on TUPE-transferred staff
because you rely on the other employer doing the checks. We personally
do those additional checks, although we do not have to. Of course, you
find that other employers may not have been as robust as you, so you
end up inheriting a work force that is far from fit for purpose. There
are issues around that, and perhaps that loophole needs to be closed.
Were you to be transferring over, regardless of who the employer is,
the check should be exactlythe same; otherwise, you end up at
the point of discriminating against a certain element of the work
force.
Q
171
Mrs.
Hodgson:
Right at the end of your submission, you mention
benefits with regard to fighting terrorism.
Gordon
McLardy:
Absolutely. There is an untapped well of
information from employers. If the link between employers and the
enforcement agencies is clearly there, when we establish whether we
have illegal workers they can be dealt with. I have come across cases
in which we have done locker searches and found four passports for one
individual. There is a business and an underclass of illegal workers
with which we need to deal. If they are doing their jobs properly,
employers can help to detect them, and provided that enforcement is fit
for purpose, that can only benefit
everyone.
Q
172
Damian
Green:
I am interested in what you have just said because
it suggests that a system is already extant that would help the
authorities track down terrorists, multiple passport holders and so on,
but that it is not being effectively used. Obviously, there are laws
against that type of thing. Why are those laws not being enforced
properly? Is it because of problems with employers or with the
enforcement
authorities?
Gordon
McLardy:
From what I can see, there is no joined-up
approach to sharing information, whether it be the police forces, the
enforcement agencies or whoever. I am sure that data protection has a
part to play in all that. Freedom of information is, perhaps, not as it
should be. But there probably is notin fact, there is
nota central database that collates that information and allows
employers to feed into it, whether for addresses or employees that we
have identified. You then get a pattern.
You find that illegal
immigrants go to a certain area within the city. I shall use Islington
as an example, because I know it. They will congregate around those
areas because they know people who will get them accommodation, forged
documentation and so on. There is a huge amount of intelligence that
could be shared and used.
Q
173
Damian
Green:
You say that it should be shared, but intelligence
about whom? You say that illegal immigrants congregate, but how do you
know that someone is an illegal immigrant? I am slightly nervous
that
Gordon
McLardy:
The documentation will tell you that, for a
starter.
Gordon
McLardy:
They are people we have come across and
whose documentation we have checked. Regardless of what a person looks
like, documentation is the acid test. If the documentation is sound,
they have a legal right. If it is not soundsome forgeries are
really good and some are very amateurthe person is clearly an
illegal immigrant. One has to assume that they are, because their
documentation is not genuine.
Gordon
McLardy:
It varies with the situation. Generally, on
pre-recruitment days or recruitment drives, the people disappear and
leave. They say, Ill come back with the documentation.
I just need to wash my hands, and they will be away. If we find
them on the site, we absolutely call the police. They do not always
turn up, for whatever reasonthey have a huge job to do out
there. Enforcement officers may not have enough staff and will get
round to it. It depends on the priorities. For a while, the priorities
have been around failed asylum
seekers.
Gordon
McLardy:
I think that they can
do.
Q
177
Mr.
Byrne:
Can I infer from your evidence that you believe
that there needs to be much better joint working between the
immigration service, the police, local authorities and others, and
that, secondly, we need a big step up in the resources that we provide
for enforcement against illegal
immigration?
Gordon
McLardy:
Absolutely. You have got to have the
resources and the support. If you get that support, the consequences of
not doing it are on you. Without that support, it will be very
difficult to do anything.
Gordon
McLardy:
Thank you very
much.
The
Chairman:
Welcome, gentlemen. I remind the Committee that
I have to adjourn proceedings at10.25 am and will have to
interrupt whoever is speaking at that time. Would you like to introduce
yourselves,
gentlemen?
Owen
Tudor:
My name is Owen Tudor. I am the head of the
European Union and International Relations department at the TUC. My
colleague, Sean Bamford, is a policy officer in that
department.
Jack
Dromey:
I am Jack Dromey, the deputy general
secretary of the T and G. My colleague is Omer Ahmed, the head of the
Migrant Support Unit in theT and
G.
The
Chairman:
Thank you for coming to give evidence this
morning. I remind witnesses and members of the Committee that we are
required to stay within the confines of the
Bill.
Q
178
Mr.
Byrne:
Throughout the Bill, there are measures to
strengthen the powers of the immigration service and its partners to
tackle the kind of exploitation of migrant workers that we often hear
about. To begin these questions, I would be interested in your
perspective on the extent of exploitation of migrant workers in this
country. Are there sufficient sanctions and powers to tackle that
exploitation
today?
Jack
Dromey:
I think that there is an acute and growing
problem. It varies from region to region and sector to sector. It might
be helpful to give examples. I have three very good, or rather very
bad, examples.
The
first example is in the rural economy. It is welcome that the
Government, with all-party support, brought in the Gangmasters
(Licensing) Act 2004 and established the Gangmasters Licensing
Authority, but it was in the rural economy that we saw an outrageous
example of the worst kind of exploitation. What happened at Morecambe
bay was an awful symbol of that. It will take time to work that process
through; the next stage is effective enforcement of the Act. There is
no doubt, however, that right now there is a ramp-up in particular
areas of the country, because of the seasonal nature of production and
demand. There are still rogue gangmasters operating, who pay workers
below the national minimum wage and even then charge them for housing
and transport. Those workers work in unsafe
conditions.
The
second example, which is a serious and growing problem in the food
industry more generally, is the growth of a two-tier labour market. The
numberof directly employed workers, who have better employment
conditions, is falling. They are still in the majority, although only
just in some factories, but the number of agency workers, who are
overwhelmingly migrants and the newly arrived, with poorer employment
conditions, is growing. That is bad news. It sees the exploitation of
the newly arrived and the undercutting of workers here for generations,
and it creates division that we have to contend with the whole time and
damages social cohesion. Therefore, equal treatment of all workers in
those circumstances is
crucial.
The third and
final example, here in London, is of building and cleaning. The work
force in Londonis overwhelminglycertainly in the
inner-London boroughsin building and cleaning. One could give
many examples, but just one from last year would suffice. It was a
company called Blue Diamond that had exploited the notion that
Bulgarians could come here who were self-employed in order to bring
hundreds of Bulgarian cleaners from remote villages to London. It paid
them the national minimum wage, but they then had to buy their own
safety equipmentthey had no safety training. Incidentally, I am
pleased to say that to the credit of the infrastructure company, that
contract was terminated.
The problem varies depending
upon industry and locality, but if one could summarise, it is bad news
for migrant workers who have arrivedand our country and economy
need migrationbut it is also bad news for those who have been
here for generations. Both are threatened by a failure to
act.
Q
179
Mr.
Byrne:
There are a number of measures in the Bill that
make it easier for the immigration service to pin down and identify
businesses that may be breaking the rules. For example, there are
provisions to allow the immigration service to access Her
Majestys Revenue and Customs data. We have already heard
evidence suggesting that where businesses are employing people
illegally, they are also breaking every other rule in the book. They
are not paying the national minimum wage or operating healthy and safe
conditions, and they are often not paying their taxes either. I am
interested to know whether that is your experience? Are businesses that
you see as exploitative also breaking other rules? Is there a case for
stronger sanctions against those businesses, whether they take the form
of seizure of property or cash, in order to deter that sort of
exploitative and abusive
relationship?
Owen
Tudor:
We certainly find that that is the case. You
are righta bad employer is a bad employer. They are not
suddenly good at doing other things. In particular we focus on, as Jack
has, the minimum wage deductions, working time abuses and things like
that. We welcome the steps that the Government are already taking on
enforcement of the national minimum wage. It seems to us that it would
be worth a little bit of what I think you are outlining: the Al Capone
strategy of using other means to tackle generally bad behaviour. There
are other measures we would want to see in relation to temporary agency
working. Jack has mentioned self-employment and tightening up on what
constitutes self-employment and how you determine that. That would also
be useful, and I think that sort of joined-up approach would be quite
welcome.
Jack
Dromey:
To be frank, we are very uneasy about the
emphasis of the approach. You tackle bad employersthat is for
certainbut let us have our eyes wide open to the consequences
of what is already happening and what is going to happen all the more
as a consequence of the obligation that you are placing on employers
through clause 23 in particular. We are running across more and more
examples of workers, who are normally racially profiled within
particular categoriesfor example, in building and
cleaningwho are being asked in at short notice to prove who
they are and whether or not they are here legally. The impact of that
is very significant on the workers concerned. It is, incidentally,
chilling as the majority are here legally.
The impact is also going to be
to force more and more workers out of employment into the worst areas
of the black economy characterised by super-exploitation. For example,
there are already 340,000 undocumented workers in London, according to
the Mayor. The problems associated with that number growing are very
significant and we might come back to that later on. I can understand
the desire, which we share, to tackle bad employers. That is why the
Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 was such good news. You have to have
your eyes wide open to the consequences of what will happen in
workplace after workplace as a result of clause
23.
Q
180
Mr.
Byrne:
Do we need to make it easier for migrants to
prove their identity and their entitlement to
work?
Jack
Dromey:
We are seeing hundreds of thousands of
innocent peopleinnocent in the sense that they
have nothing to fearin fear. We are seeing it now. You must have
your eyes wide open to the consequences of your actions.
Omer
Ahmed:
It is also important to recognise at what
point employers seek additional information to clarify immigration
status. They are happy to do it at the outset of employment and are
happy to accept documentation at that point. Despite subsequent
guidance from the Home Office that they should not pursue it beyond
that point, we find that when workers put forward issues to do with
health and safety or quality controlfor example, when working
on the undergroundonly at that point, when they seek to enforce
or promote some type of employment right, are they suddenly asked to
produce evidence of their entitlement. That is the type of abuse that
workers face. We consider that the proposals will strengthen the hands
of employers in that context without any adverse consequences on
employers by way of sanctions, in as much as the proposals provide for
sanctions. For example, there is no commensurate sanction to the
seizure of wages on the employer. That is a serious imbalance in the
proposal that needs to be looked at.
Jack
Dromey:
Seven days ago here in London, a big issue
affecting 200 cleaners about whether there would be compulsory
redundancies was satisfactorily resolved by the cleaners and the union.
But 24 hours later a letter went to all of them that was absolutely
appalling, and said, You are to come in, in batches, and we
will see each one of you individually over the next seven days. Please
bring with you the following documents: one, two, three, four, five. If
you do not provide all five documents within seven days you will be
sacked. Be mindful of the consequences of your
actions.
Q
181
Mr.
Byrne:
That is very useful. My last question is about
trafficking and human smuggling. That is an area on which the TUC and
the Transport and General Workers Union have commented in the past. We
have heard that up to three quarters of illegal entrants into Britain
are in the hands of organised crime. The Bill proposes tougher
sanctions and stronger measures to track down those traffickers,
wherever on the planet they perpetrate that crime. I would be
interested in your perceptions and impressions about whether the law
needs to be tougher on trafficking and smuggling.
Owen
Tudor:
I think it does. Sean and I gave evidence to
the inquiry of the Joint Committee on Human Rights into trafficking,
which produced an excellent report a few months ago. Trafficking is
obviously an abhorrent crime and tough penalties are needed to deal
with it. Our concerns are often more about what we do with the victims
of crime, because our experiencewith
traffickinglimited though it is, because we tend to deal with
the more organised sections of the economyis that one of the
key problems is identifying it and managing to find out who the
culprits are. Often, our concern about trafficking penalties is that
you need to ensure that the penalties will encourage the people who
have been trafficked to come forward to the authorities to give
evidence. Sadly, our experience is often that precisely the opposite
happens. The trafficked are unwilling to come forward because of their
fears about what will happen to them. This probably goes for all forms
of undocumented
work: we need to find penalties that penalise the
criminals rather than the victims. All too often,the
undocumented worker or trafficked person is the victim and
feelsand sometimes ispenalised.
Jack
Dromey:
We have had examples of exactly
thatworkers who have been trafficked into this country and are
members, who have escaped the clutches of the traffickers, but are
terrified to speak out. That is partly because they sometimes fear the
traffickers, who operate in their countries of origin and could, they
fear, threaten their families and communities, for example, but it is
also because of the consequences for those workers personally. That
goes to the very heart of what you do about workers of that kind and
how you bring them out of the twilight world that they are in. The main
thrust of the Billand of public policy generallyof
going after the traffickers is welcome and should be strongly
supported. These people are barbarians. The impact of their actions is
grotesque. To talk to their victims is, believe you me, to hear the
most harrowing stories, so the Government are right.
Omer
Ahmed:
While we are looking at trafficking, and the
need to move away from the idea that those being trafficked are
beneficiaries and towards recognising that they are victimsas
has just been mentionedit is also important to look at the
economic issues. Trafficking is not happening in an economic vacuum; it
is happening because there is demand. We need to look at what we are
doing to dampen down that demand, and in fact to eradicate it.
Something for which we have been strongly pushing for some
timeand which we would very strongly ask the Committee to look
atis the consideration of the 500,000 or so legacy asylum
cases, involving people who are unable to take up employment or are
prevented from doing so, and who are effectively destitute. Bringing
those people into the employment market would, arguably, significantly
reduce the demand at a stroke. That needs to be looked at, because we
cannot say that we are operating in a free market economy but at the
same time ignore the demand side pressures that cause trafficking to
flourish. The traffickers will argue, We are providing a
commercial service. Abhorrent as it appears to all of us, that
is the basis of trafficking, so we must do whatever we can to dampen
down the demand
side.
Q
182
Damian
Green:
I want to pick up the point that you made about the
Government having their eyes open to the effect of the legislation. I
assume that,by toughening up rules on biometrics, penalties on
employers and so on, the Government want the 340,000 illegal workers in
London whom you mentioned to go back. That is the logic of the
Governments position. You disagree with that, do you
not?
Jack
Dromey:
Fundamentally, yes. At its most absurd, there
is the svelte voice of reaction, Sir Andrew Green, who I understand did
not turn up to see you earlier this week. He said to me last year on
the Today programme that all you had to do was clamp
down on the employers and these workers would drift away. I am not
quite sure whether the notion was that they would drift away on the
boats in which some of
them had come to our country. The simple reality is this: of course you
need to sort out the immigration and nationality system. It is right
that there should be the integrity and physical safety of our borders,
and it is right that there should be clear laws relating to fair,
managed migration. Of course it is right that you should be tough on
those who abuse our hospitality and commit serious crimes. We should
never deport somebody to their death, but as far as I am concerned, if
somebody commits murder or rape, they should be deported.
But what do you do about the
residual army of good men and women, many of whom have been here for
many years? I know hundreds and hundreds of them personally, because we
have thousands of members in that category. The Bill will potentially
add to the problem. I could give you example after example of people
who are pillars of the economy, pillars of the community and pillars of
their local churches, and who have put down roots, brought up kids,
sent them to school, got married and, often, bought homes. They live in
this awful twilight world. So we must sort the system outI
absolutely accept that. However, sooner or later politicians of all
parties, including the Conservative party, must end this myth that
somehow you can hunt down an army of half a million peopleand
growingand deport them. It is impractical, and to be frank it
is also immoral.
Damian
Green:
We are supposed to be discussing the Bill, rather
than the wider, fascinating subject.
Jack
Dromey:
You asked me the
question.
Q
183
Damian
Green:
I know, and I was interested to hear the answer.
The logic of what you have just eloquently said is that the more
effective that the Bill is, the worse the problem that you identify
will become.
Jack
Dromey:
Yes.
Q
184
Mr.
James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I was interested in
what you were telling us about the agencies that recruit people,
particularly from eastern Europe; you mentioned Bulgaria and Romania.
That is recruiting people so as to get around the restriction that they
can work here only if they are
self-employed?
Jack
Dromey:
Yes.
Jack
Dromey:
It is very interesting. Yesterday I addressed
a seminar at the Bulgarian embassy. You will obviously be aware of the
transitional arrangementsthe rather peculiar transitional
arrangementsand the three categories of people who are able to
work now. One category is the self-employed, and there is this barmy
notion that the self-employed are doctors and architects. In fact, what
was very interesting about the discussion yesterday was that this is a
loophole that has been exploited, in the way that I described when I
talked about what Blue Diamond did.
Q
186
Mr.
Clappison:
Can you spell out exactly how the agencies are
doing this? The agents simply go over to these countries and recruit
people?
Jack
Dromey:
They go over and recruit vulnerable people to
bring them here. This particular company set up an agency itself to do
it. The agency went over, brought the workers here and then said,
You are self-employed. There is evidence of that
happening on a widespread basis.
I would like to make two quick
points. First,there are many companies that approach their
responsibilities in a reputable way. Yesterday, there was an excellent
presentation by a guy who brought over 1,300 Polish bus drivers for
First Bus, and I must say that the way that he had gone about that was
exemplary; there should be no criticism at all of what I thought was a
very progressive approach.
The other point that I would
like to make is that there are a number of things that are not in the
Bill and that are not happening more generally. If one wants to act to
end this problem of the exploitation of agency labour, one thing that
would greatly assist that process would be expediting legislation here
in Britain to ensure equal treatment of agency workers and the directly
employed.
Q
187
Mr.
Clappison:
What sort of wages do the people who are
employed by agents as self-employed people from Bulgaria
earn?
Jack
Dromey:
In theory, it is the minimum wage; often, it
is beneath. In the case of Blue Diamond, there were minimum wage
arrangements, but the company then charged people in different ways. I
stress again that it was to the credit of the infrastructure company
that it terminated that contract.
Owen
Tudor:
One of the problems, of course, is that if
these people are self-employed, they are not being paid wages at all;
they are being paid a sum, and it then becomes very difficult to
disentangle what is being paid to them and what it covers, in terms of
an hourly rate or something like that. All too often, we find that they
do not get paid at all and that they are left for weeks on end without
getting paid anything. As Jack said, very often they face deductions.
As a rule of thumb, what seems to come through, time and time again, is
that you find people being brought in on agency
contracts.
Owen
Tudor:
I am talking generally. There seems to be an
almost unspoken assumption that they will be paid about two quid an
hour less than the going rate that other people are being paid. That
was the experience with easyJet at Luton, for
instance.
Q
188
Mr.
Clappison:
We know that the genesis of this was that the
Government wildly underestimated the number of people who were likely
to come from Poland in the first wave of people from accession
countries; we got hundreds of thousands, rather than 13,000. So these
restrictions were introduced in the light of that. However, what you
are telling us is that they are not working very well, and that they
are stimulating this cottage industry of agents going over there to
find self-employed people.
Jack
Dromey:
It has been a deep-seated problem for some
years, not just from Bulgaria and Romania, but more generally. The
estimates were wrong, but we now have tens of thousands of Polish
members. They are good men and women.
Jack
Dromey:
They have been good for our country. It was
interesting to see the PricewaterhouseCoopers study that nailed many of
the myths about those good men and women: their age, the fact that many
go back, they do not draw on social services or state benefits anywhere
near as much as this countrys workers do more generally, they
are good, reliable workers, good people and the economy needs
them.
Do you know
what would be really helpful? I say this to all parties but to the
Conservative party in particular: why do we not start celebrating the
benefits of migration? Of course, we must deal with some problems that
undoubtedly exist, but why do we not all start celebrating the benefits
of migration? And why do we not attack the politics that saw big,
one-page adverts in papers yesterday for Migration Watch, saying that
a migrant a minute comes to Britain? It is like, just
when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, there is a
migrant a minute arriving on our shores. Disgraceful. I would hope for
better political leadership.
Q
189
Mr.
Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con): So you want
censorship, do you? You do not want them to have an opportunity to
debate
Jack
Dromey:
Do you know what I want? I
want
Jack
Dromey:
The straight answer is that I want
responsibility
Jack
Dromey:
I want responsibility, because do you know
what happens when you get that kind of approach? It is like what
happened last weekend when three young Polish workers were beaten up by
thugs in the south-east of England. Please be aware of the consequences
of your actions as well.
The
Chairman:
Order. From here on in, I ask Committee members
and witnesses to return to the Bill,
please.
Mr.
Jackson:
Can the witnesses speak to the issue rather than
having a diatribe, and answer the
question?
The
Chairman:
Yes. We can all stick to what is in the Bill.
The witnesses are giving evidence on what is contained in the
Bill.
Q
190
John
Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): I shall try to return
to what the consequences of the Bill might be and to understand its
implications. I am very lucky: I have a very competent caseworker who
understands immigration law. To me, it is one of the more complicated
areas. Given those complications, you are saying that the Bill might
increase the size of
the twilight zone, or perhaps create a midnight zone of no regulation at
all. Is that what you are saying?
Jack
Dromey:
Yes.
Q
191
John
Hemming:
Are you also sayingthat controlling
immigration, substantially through employment and employers, could give
employers a keyhole surgery approach to immigration, with which they
can act in an arbitrary manner that is not in the interests of the work
force, using the excuse of immigration regulation?
Jack
Dromey:
Yes. We have experience of employers
tolerating people theywe are pretty sureknow to be
undocumented workers until the point at which those workers decide that
they want their rights. The employer then suddenly discovers that they
are illegal immigrants and turns them over to the authorities, earning
Brownie points for being an allegedly good employer. I think that that
comes under the category of bad employer.
The more you get employers to
police the immigration system, the less you will get workers who are
the best advocates of decent employment in that workplace, and the less
they will have the power to ensure that that
happens.
Q
192
John
Hemming:
In essence, it may increase the illegality in the
system, rather than reduce it?
Jack
Dromey:
Yes. There is a lot of anxiety among
employers about it. I remember speaking at a seminar last year. It was
a Chatham House rules event, however the chief executive of one of the
two biggest agencies in Britain made a very interesting contribution.
He said that he had real problems because no one quite knows who has
the right to work and who does not, and that employees of his agency
had been arrested as a consequence. That was a company that genuinely
wanted to operate regularly.
Only yesterday I had a meeting
with some of the major contract cleaning companies here in Britain,
expressing their anxiety about the consequences for them. They also
recently met Ministers to express that anxiety. I am all in favour of
going after bad employers, but because of the way that the Bill is
constructed, we are concerned about the consequences and that the Bill
might be abused in the way that we indicated in the example about the
200 cleaners. They suddenly stood up for their rights, with a
satisfactory outcome, and they are all being toldeach one
individuallyCome in and prove who you are, and bring
these documents: one, two, three, four and five. If you do not, you
will be sacked. That cannot be
right.
Q
193
John
Hemming:
In essence, you are saying that, given the
complexity of the situation, having biometric data may mean that you
know who someone is, but you still do not know whether they are allowed
to
work?
Jack
Dromey:
Yes.
Owen
Tudor:
You talked about the system beingvery
complicated. It is complicated partly becausethis is why we use
the term undocumented workers very often rather than
illegal working or illegal
immigrantwe are often talking about people who entered
the country entirely legally. The Bulgarians and Romanians are an
excellent case in point. Their presence in the country is entirely
legal because they are citizens of the European Union and are allowed
to be here. They may not be allowed to work here though, depending on
which sector they are in. That might become a little complex because
industrial reality sometimes does not fit simple industrial
classifications.
You
also have large numbers of people who are undocumented workers for part
of the week, but not the other part, because they are students who have
worked longer hours than they are supposed to, and things like that.
Many people slip in and out of having the right documents because it
may be a matter of whether their work permit has expired, and so on. It
is very complex in that sense. An indication of who someone is and
their ability to enter the country is not the same as an indication
about whether they are a legal worker.
Q
194
John
Hemming:
It is clear that you would not want to increase
enforcement through employers, but what else would you try to do with
the
Bill?
Owen
Tudor:
We would prefer to see measuresthat
encourage greater regular, formal employment generally. One of the key
problems that we see is the conflation of migration policy with
employment policy. It just gets very difficult to put those two things
together. I am not entirely certain what you can do with a Bill that is
about migration to deal with the problems that you have got in
employment. Our main concern is that immigration status is not the same
as employment
status.
Q
195
Mrs.
Hodgson:
Some of my questions may have been answered, so I
am just trying to gather my thoughts. I will start with the 200
cleaners whom you mentioned, Mr. Tudor. Before you arrived,
we listened to a guy from the NCP, who seemed to feel that the one
documentthe biometric immigration documentwould help
him to work out who is here legally and who illegally, and therefore
who can work legally. He felt that that would help, because there are
currently up to 60 documents that people can present. I take your point
that whether you are here legally is different from whether you can
work here legally, but surely the first step toward clarity in that
whole process is to find out who someone is. The guy from the NCP
talked about working with all the other agencies, when we know who
people are, to establish whether those people can work here legally. Do
you not see that the biometric immigration document would help in that
regard?
Owen
Tudor:
I understand that point, but my understanding
of the steps that NCP currently takes to deal with potential
recruitsI have heard its presentation in other
settingsis that its concern, to be blunt, and I do not
criticise it for this, is more to make sure that its system is
absolutely watertight in terms of the law. Its system is directed not
at ensuring that it gives employment to people who would be good
employees, but at ensuring that it has fulfilled the requirements of
the law in making sure that it employs no one whom it should
not.
Owen
Tudor:
It is good for the company, if the approach is
merely that it wants to ensure that it is not liable for having done
something wrong. We generally prefer employers to be operating in the
spirit of employment law, rather than just ensuring that they cannot be
criticised. I entirely understand their approach, because if I was in
their position, I would not want to be doing something that would land
me in court. It is not about whether they have a good work force or
whether the workers are treated right or not; it is just about making
sure that they fulfil the legal requirements. I am willing to accept
that biometric data will make it easier to fulfil the legal
requirements for which the Bill provides, but that does not answer the
question about whether this is a good thing or not.
Omer
Ahmed:
May I just add something to that? A biometric
card presented to an employer is only evidence that that person has
given a biometric card. It may contain information about what they are
entitled to and what they are not entitled to, but we still face a
problem. Employers are currently taking documents that, for want of a
better word, they clearly know do not belong to the person, and they
are happy to use them. There is no indication that the Bill will change
that.
Where someone
turns up with somebody elses biometric card, which says that X,
Y or Z has theright to employment, the employer uses that, and
enforcement measures are subsequently taken by the immigration service,
whereby it is determined that the card does not match up with the
person, the effect would still be almost entirely on the worker. There
are no balanced sanctions in respect of the employee. The proposals
would not make a huge difference to the way that the labour market
currently operates and would not put an end to the abuses.
It is also important to examine
the group of people to which the biometric data relate. They relate to
people from beyond the European Union. From our own experience, we know
that the majority of these people will be people from ethnic
minoritiesfrom Africa and Asia. A range of issues to do with
race, equality and discriminatory practices need to be addressed. Real
dangers may arise as a result of some of the powers that are suggested
in the Bill.
Equally,
the proposals do not set out the cost of obtaining such biometric data.
Where are we going with this? Are we saying that we now wish to create
a specific financial barrier to entry to the UK? I am now thinking of
some of the figures that were provided to the general public on the
costs of identity cards. Let us consider what it might cost somebody
travelling to the EU from Asia or Africa. We are seriously talking
about a new set of discriminatory barriers, because thiswill
effectively mean that people seeking to enterthe UK from
Africa and Asia will have to pay a disproportionately higher amount
than would normally be the case for those from more prosperous states.
That must be
considered.
Q
197
Mrs.
Hodgson:
I am sure that the Minister will come back on
those points. I am also sure that the levels have not yet been set and
are being considered. That was spoken about the other
day.
I want to return
to a couple of your points. You are saying that somebody could get hold
of a biometric
card that does not relate to them. I am sure that such a card would have
a photograph on it. Are you saying that it would be a forgery and that
biometric cards could be forged?
Omer
Ahmed:
No. There are indications that there are
security issues, but we do not need to go into those at this stage. The
current situation is that people are presenting passports containing
somebody elses photograph to employers, who are accepting them.
There is nothing preventing the same process from being adopted with
biometric cards. In which case, the entitlement of a person to work
will only ever be raised at the enforcement stage, or at the stage at
which, as we have been hearing with respect to the cleaners, that
person seeks to assert a basic right of employment or a basic
workers right in respect of health and safety, for example. At
that point, it may well turn out that, suddenly, the employer
recognises that the photo on the biometric card is not
the
Jack
Dromey:
I understand the argument about biometric
cards being put forward by the Government, but I do not think anyone
should pretend that biometric cards solve the problem of identity
just like that, to quote Mrs. Thatcher
quoting Tommy Cooper. We have only to look at what happens now in
relation to passports. I understand the argument being put forward, but
I am not quite sure if it is the cure-all that has been
suggested.
Owen
Tudor:
The other problem is that, in a sense, we
understand the need to assist NCP in doing what it does more cheaply,
because it is doing good things and they ought to be assisted, but our
concern is that the problem of undocumented work and employers
employing people who are undocumented is not, generally speaking, about
good employers that are somehow fooled and unfortunate enough to end up
employing an undocumented worker. That is not our experience of
trafficking, for instance, and it is not generally our
experience.
Our
experience is that some people set out to employ undocumented workers
because it is cheaper than employing someone who is going to be able to
enforce their rights, and so on. Therefore, making it simpler for good
employers to do their job of checking who is available will not do much
to deal with the problem of those employers that decide that they are
going to ride a coach and horses through the situation in the first
place.
This is a
bizarre story, but I honestly swear it is true: we have come across
Portuguese workers in the east midlands, who have a perfect right to
work in this country with no restriction whatever, who are buying
forged Brazilian passports so they can demonstrate they are
undocumented workers. That is because certain groups of employers in
the east midlands specifically target employing undocumented workers,
but would not take them if they were Portuguese, because then they
would have rights. That is the sort of problem we are encountering and
I am uncertain that issues about biometric data will actually solve
that problem.
I
recognise that the Minister might be feeling that it is not the job of
the legislation to solve every problem at a stroke, but those are the
sorts of problem we are
finding with undocumented workers, not the sorts of problem that NCP
will find are more easily dealt with through biometric
data.
Q
198
Mrs.
Hodgson:
On a point of clarity, you referred to clause 23,
which is about arrest, and said that there were all these employees who
would be frightened because of it. Are we talking about employees who
can work legally who may, for whatever reason, be worried that they
cannot prove it or about people who are working illegally, whether they
are illegal immigrants or
not?
Jack
Dromey:
I can think of half a dozen examples we have
dealt with in the last three months alone, Sharon. A lot of people are
acting in advance of the Bill. In circumstances where employers sense
that the obligations on them are being tightened up, often, in the way
that I have describedfor example, the 200 cleaners who stood up
for their rightsthere is a chilling effect on people who are
here legally due to their being asked to come in and prove who they
are. That was not the case on at least two occasions but, believe you
me, you want to see the impact it has on people. I have seen at first
hand people who have nothing to fear in tears over the consequences of
that.
We recognise the
problems that Government are having to grapple with, but that is why we
keep saying, Can we all be aware of the consequences of our
actions?
The
Chairman:
I am conscious of time, and I ask hon. Members
and witnesses to bear that in mind,
too.
Q
199
Kerry
McCarthy:
I will stick to one question. I am slightly
confused by the evidence being given. There are obviously lots of
problems with how the system works now with regard to checks on the
legality of workers. If you are not happy with what is proposed in the
Bill, how would you like to see the system operating? Do you accept
that there is a need for checks on the legality of workers or are you
advocating an amnesty for the illegal workers who are in the country?
What would you like to
happen?
Jack
Dromey:
That question goes to the heart of the issue,
and it is not easy to answer. First, it is clearly preferable for
people to come here legally and work. Secondly, nobody doubts the
importance of the integrity and physical safety of our borders.
Thirdly, it is important that we have clear rules on managed migration.
How do we get the balance right? We understand the thrust of the Bill,
and we would say in evidence that, on the one hand, it has to be
constructed in terms that recognise its consequences and that, on the
other, all parties need to face up to the simple question, what is to
be done about people who have been here for years? How do we bring them
out of the twilight world in which they
live?
It is absolutely
necessary to sort out the immigration and nationality system with
claritythat it is what employers want, and we are in favour of
itbut you have to be careful about the consequences of your
actions, and you have to deal with the historical
problems.
Q
200
Kerry
McCarthy:
I accept that. In my constituency surgery I see
people such as those you mention, particularly those from
Afro-Caribbean countries who have overstayed for 10 or 12 years and
have children who were born in this country but who now face
deportation. That is a difficult situation. However, if we do not
tighten up the law, it will continue in years to come. Would it not be
better to prevent people from staying, working and settling? It is as
though we are leading them astray with a false promise that they will
be allowed to do that, although the problems arise as a result of their
having comeor overstayedillegally in the first place.
How would you address
that?
Omer
Ahmed:
We would not use the word
amnesty, but there certainly needs to be
regularisation. It is impossible to say, We are going to close
the borders and then deal with the problem, but it might be
possible to do it the other way rounddeal with the problem,
then secure the borders much more firmly. The proposals would mean
tightening the borders but not dealing effectively with the 500,000
legacy cases and the additional hundreds of thousands of illegal or
undocumented workers. The numbers are hugesignificantly higher
than those that have been mentioned.
We also need to bear in mind
the desire, which was mentioned earlier, to prevent the rights of
indigenous workers from being driven down. One outcome of how the
labour market is structured is that the indigenous worker is under
enormous pressure. By that I mean that wherever bad practices exist and
unscrupulous employers are allowed to flourish, it is not just the
migrant workers who are affected. It has a massive effect on the
indigenous workers. They are the ones who are being told that they need
to toe the line.
We
are not trying to say that the law should not be changed and migration
should not be managed, but there has to be a reasoned view about the
status of those who are here. It is crucial to know whether people can
be physically removed. That is a logistical, financial and moral
question as well as a legal one. Is it physically possible to remove
all the people we are talking
about?
Jack
Dromey:
It is absolutely right that we should raise
legitimate concerns such as thoseabout the impact that the
legislation might have, the impact that existing legislation is having,
the problems that we have to contend with in the world of work and the
problem of the army of undocumented workers that will ultimately have
to be resolved. However, we do not want to send a message that because
we have raised those legitimate concerns we are opposed to everything
in the Bill. We are
not.
There is an
important public policy debate to be had on how to sort out the mess
that is the immigration and nationality system, how to have clarity on
who has the right to work and who does not, and how to clamp down on
bad employers. We do not disagree with the objectives of public policy
that lie behind the Bill; the question is how to construct legislation
that works.
Q
201
David
T.C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con): You said earlier that there
are hundreds of thousands of people who work in low-paid jobs in
London. I think we all accept that, even if the figures are hard to
understand. The jobs are mostly in the service industrycleaners,
people working in restaurants and shops, and domestic
servants.
The
principle behind the Bill is that it will be harder to come to this
country and work illegally. If that succeeds, which is a slightly
separate question from the general principle that we are discussing,
one of two things will happen. Either people will have to pay more for
those servicesthey will have to pay more money to the
shopkeepers, waitresses, waiters and so onor people might start
to move out of London to obtain those services in a place where they
are more affordable. Is that not quite a good thing from the point of
view of those who are in low-paid jobs? Their wages are bound to rise
if the Bill
succeeds.
Jack
Dromey:
I do not think that it is axiomatic that
wages will rise if the Bill
passes.
Q
202
David
T.C. Davies:
Not as a result of this one Bill. In general,
however, if the Government are successful in reducing the number of
illegal workers who enter the country, the wages of low-paid workers
will rise, will they not? That is supply and
demand.
Jack
Dromey:
If there are fewer people in undocumented
situations in the informal economy or the trafficked economy, then yes.
It is not necessarily a matter of rising wagesthere will be
less exploitation. It might simply be that the people who profit from
low wages will have to profit slightly
less.
Jack
Dromey:
Indeed.
Jack
Dromey:
Of course. That is why we
exist.
Q
203
David
T.C. Davies:
So, instead of talking about the general
principle of whether the Bill is good or bad, we should probably accept
that the principle of restricting the number of people who come to the
country and work illegally is a good one, and merely consider ways to
improve the
Bill.
Jack
Dromey:
I repeat what I said to Kerry McCarthy. We
need to sort out the immigration and nationality system, and we need
clarity on who can
come and work. It is legitimate to safeguard the integrity of borders
and to have proper, managed migration. The debate can sometimes be
polarised, but we do not differ from some of the fundamentals of the
Governments approach on those principles.
I shall not pick at everything
that has been said, but we have three concerns. First, we have to have
our eyes open to the consequences and think through what they mean for
the legislation that can be framed and how it can be implemented.
Secondly, we ultimately have to tackle what politicians of all parties
have been reluctant to tackle: what to do about people who have been in
the country for years and how to sort that situation out. Our view is
that sensible regularisation measures should be used. Thirdly, on your
point about exploitation, David, we need to address other things that
should be done to end it. There will not be equal treatment tomorrow of
agency workers and of the directly employed, although, funnily enough,
there is a Bill on equal treatment coming up tomorrow. If Parliament
supports it, dramatic progress will be made. I hope that you
dothe Bill is
admirable.
If, as I
hope, all of us are concerned to protect the interests of the newly
arrived and of workers who have been in the country for generations,
let us alsoat the next stagetackle things that are not
in the Bill. I hope that they will be covered
tomorrow.
David
T.C. Davies:
That Bill is a private Members Bill,
but I am sure that if the Government support
it
Q
204
Kitty
Ussher (Burnley) (Lab): Time is short. It has been useful
for us to be warned to be aware of the hundreds of thousands of people
who are here illegally. We have heard some hints on what you would like
to happen to those people, and you mentioned regularisation. May I use
the final 30 seconds to pin you down on that, because you said that we
need to sort it
out?
It
being twenty-five minutes past Ten oclock,
The
Chairman
adjourned the Committee without question put,
pursuant to the Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at half-past One
oclock.
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