House of Commons |
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
WitnessesSir
Andrew Green, Chairman, Migrationwatch
UK
Mr.
Andrew Dennis, Head of Research, Migrationwatch
UK
Mr.
Richard Norman, Executive Member, Migrationwatch
UK
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 13 March 2007(Morning)[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]UK Borders Bill10.30
am
Chairman:
I remind Committee members and witnesses that todays oral
evidence session must stay within the scope of the UK Borders Bill.
Please try to keep questions and answers concise and in order. This
evidence session will last until 11.30 am, at which point I am required
to end it. I apologise to whoever is speaking then, as I will be
required to interrupt them.
Members of the Committee should
be aware that we are using brief No. 2 for guidance. It is available in
the Committee room should hon. Members require it. We shall proceed as
we have in previous sittings, withhon. Members catching my eye
if they wish to ask a question. Hon. Members and witnesses should
remain seated during the evidence session, as we are using the desk
microphones.
I welcome
the witnesses from Migrationwatch UK: Sir Andrew Green, the chairman,
Mr. Andrew Dennis, the head of research, and Mr.
Richard Norman, executive member. Thank you for coming along to give
evidence this morning, gentlemen.
Q
317317
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): One purpose of the Bill is to
reduce the amount of illegal immigration into this country. To help put
that in context, how big a problem do you see illegal immigration as
being? Is it getting
worse?
Sir
Andrew Green:
It is a very substantial problem and a
continuing one. One Government estimate of illegals contained a central
estimate of 470,000, which was three or four years out of date when
published. We adjusted it to take account of a substantial number of
failed asylum seekers in the interim and came up with the somewhat
larger figure of 670,000 as a central estimate.
The key point is that the
problem will continue.Even if you deal with the existing
illegal immigrantsin whatever wayI will come back to
that if I mayother people will come to this country ready and
willing to work for a fiver an hour and send home what are substantial
amounts of money by their own standards. On that point, I should like
to pick up on some evidence that was offered to the Committee in an
earlier evidence session by the TGWU, which argued for a phased system
of legalising undocumented workers. It did not like the word
amnesty, perhaps because it was a little too close to
the truth.
We are
strongly opposed to any such idea, for three very strong reasons.
First, it is wrong in principle to reward illegal behaviour. The
illegal immigrants to whom Mr. Damian Green referred are not
innocents abroad. They knowingly enter or remain in Britain
illegally; they have been undercutting British workers, and they have
helped unscrupulous employers to compete with honest
employers.
Secondly, an
amnesty, by whatever name, is extremely expensive for the taxpayer. The
Institute for Public Policy Research, which I think also gave evidence,
claimed in a paper dated March 2006 that making illegal immigrants
regular would netnote that wordthe
Treasury around £1 billion a year. Apart from being a shaky
calculation, it was not honest, as it deliberately took no account of
the extra cost to the Treasury of admitting 500,000 people to the
welfare system. Our calculation, which corrects that, suggests that the
additional cost to the Treasury would be £500 million or
possibly £1,000 million, although I recognise that those
calculations are very
general.
A further
important point never mentioned is that if we legalise illegal
immigrants they immediately become entitled to social housing. They
also become entitled to bring over their relatives, which will move
them up the housing list. This brilliant idea would therefore add
500,000 to the housing list at a time when we have already given asylum
or exceptional leave to remain to more people than we have built social
housing for. Itis an extremely serious issue and I hope that
the Committee will bear it well in
mind.
My third reason
is that they will be replaced. It is elementary that we should examine
the experience of other countries. The Italians have given five
amnesties in the past 20 years. The Spanish have given six.On
virtually every occasion, there have been more applicants than at the
previous amnesty, for the obvious reason that the word gets out:
Get there, stick around for a while and you will be
legalised. As a reward for his illegal entry and working in
Britain, you are giving someone a meal ticket for life, free education,
free health and free housing, so why would they not come to Britain?
Let us look at Spain and what has happened to the territories in north
Africa and the islands of the Atlantic. They are overwhelmed with
illegal immigrants. The point is so clear that there can be only one
policy.
I am delighted
that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality
announced two or three days ago a clear and firm policy that the only
way to go is to tighten up on illegal immigrants until it is no longer
worth their while to stay. I suggest that the Minister considers a free
exit policy. At the moment, if a person is arrested leaving the
country, having been illegal, there is a risk that he will be put in
jail at our expense for a year or so. I see no reason why we should not
at the appropriate time say, Okay, you can go. We wont
arrest you on your way out. A time limit might have to be put
on that, but it seems an entirely sensible way to
proceed.
Q
318
Damian
Green:
Clauses 28 to 35 of the Bill come
under the general heading Automatic deportation, a
phrase over which I and others have cast doubt. What is your assessment
of that? Do you think that the deportation procedures under the clauses
would be adequate for the purpose of getting rid of people who should
not be in this
country?
Sir
Andrew Green:
There will be no adequate means of
deportation until we look again at the European convention on human
rights. An immigration system is
only as good as your ability to remove. The ECHR is a major obstacle.
The refugee convention is not. As you know, it contains a let-out for
serious offenders.The ECHR, particularly article 3 on torture
and the well-known Chahal case that internationalises it, is a serious
obstacle.
I should
like to suggest some new thinking. Everybody in Britain is opposed to
torture. It is out of the question. Everyone is deeply reluctant to
send someone to a country where they might be tortured. That is common
ground. But we must recognise that the present situation is actually a
focus of attraction for people who have either committed a serious
offence or intend to; I am thinking particularly of
terrorism.
Chairman:
Sir Andrew, I want to stop you there. I ask witnesses only to respond
to questions from the body of the
Committee.
Sir
Andrew Green:
I think that that was a response. I
promise to keep my responses shorter, but two major issues have been
raised and they are central to the effectiveness of the Bill as a
whole. May I continue for one minute? I am in your
hands.
Sir
Andrew Green:
I suggest that we withdrawfrom
the ECHRwe can do that after six months
noticeand make a public statement to the effect that as from
that date of withdrawal anyone convicted of a terrorist offence in
Britain will be sent home with only a non-suspensive appeal. To anyone
who says that that is terrible, the answer is, You have brought
it on yourselves. You were warned. If you come to Britain and conduct
terrorist offences, you will be sent
home.
Q
319
The
Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality (Mr.
Liam Byrne):
I was very interested,Sir Andrew, in
what you were saying about illegal working in particular. Some of the
evidence that we heard in the initial evidence sessions concerned a
number of perspectives that echoed that. People felt that illegal
working was one of the principal drivers of illegal immigration.
Front-line immigration officers have said to me that when they come
across people, they very rarely find them accessing benefits but often
find them working illegally. I am interested in your perspective on how
significant illegal working is as a pull factor for illegal
immigrants.
Sir
Andrew Green:
I think that it is a very
important pull factor and also an incentive for people to stay on
illegally, which is another form of the same thing. There is no
question about its importance. I would also add that the ease of
getting away with it is another pull factor. The Bill addresses many of
the issues. It is an excellent Bill and we are very supportive of
it.
Q
320
Mr.
Byrne:
I was struck by some of the evidence that was given
by National Car Parks, which is a business that takes its corporate
reputation very seriously. The Home Office is indebted to it because of
its pioneering work in developing different ways of identifying whether
people are here illegally or not.
In his evidence, the director
of risk management from National Car Parks called ID cards a very
significant step forward. From National Car Parks
point of view, it found that understanding the validity of 50 or 60
different bits of paper proffered by wayof evidence was
expensive and not very reliable. An important part of the Bill is the
introduction of compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals to help prove
entitlement to work and public benefits. Do you think that that would
make any difference to some of these
issues?
Sir
Andrew Green:
Yes, it certainly would. We support
that. As you probably know, the guidance to employers at the moment
runs to 17 pages. It is really not reasonable to expect an employer to
look at a document and go through 17 pages of guidance.So,
yes, we believe that those ID cards will help substantially. Added to
that, I think that the real penalty has to be on the employer. There is
no point in trying to fine an illegal immigrant; he has not got any
money. I have lost count of the number of magistrates who have
expressed their concern on that point. A lot of people come before the
courts for various offences and there is nothing that can be done about
them. There is no room in the jails and they have no money to pay a
fine. If what this leads to is a lot of impoverished people in front of
the magistrates there is no point. If it leads to companies being fined
£20,000 and company directors going to jail, then you are
getting serious, and it is high time we did, in my
view.
Q
321
Mr.
James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): Sir Andrew, I believe
that I am right in saying that your organisation warned of the problems
over deportation that the Government encountered last May and June a
little while before those problems arose. It appears to me from the
House of Commons Library briefing that you were anticipating the reform
of the law and deportation last
January.
Sir
Andrew Green
indicated
assent.
Q
322
Mr.
Clappison:
One of the points that you made in your
proposals for reform was that the approach taken towards offenders who
are illegally in the country as opposed to those with legal permission
should be stronger than is reflected in the present Bill; is that
right?
Sir
Andrew Green:
We would be happy with as
strong a process as the House of Commons can agree to. There are very
serious issues both of fact and of public opinion here. As regards
being in advance of the Government, I think that we have been about
five years in advance of them on most issues for the past five years,
with respect, Mr. Illsley.
Q
323
Mr.
Clappison:
You would draw a distinction when dealing with
offenders, between offenders with legal permission to be in the country
and the illegal migrants, who we were talking about a few minutes
ago.
Sir
Andrew Green:
Absolutely. If they commit offences
here, then they should be prioritised for
removal.
Q
324
Mr.
Clappison:
I believe, from the Library paper, that you
also want a tougher regime to deal with repeat offences in the country.
As the Bill stands, what is described as automatic deportation would
only apply
to people who commit offences that result in a
sentence of 12 months imprisonment, which leaves the prospect of
somebody committing repeated offences and receiving shorter sentences
of imprisonment, as, for example, from a magistrates court, where
someone can only get a sentence of six months imprisonment. Is that
right?
Sir
Andrew Green:
Yes, it is. I think that you have had
some earlier discussion of this. That point needs to be looked at
seriously. At the moment the position would be as you describe. There
could be a whole series of offences and the guy is still here. That is
not amusing for the public. If you want to rebuild public confidence in
the immigration system, which certainly needs to be done, then that is
one aspect that needs attention. It would be helpful if in some way the
offences could be added together, so that on a second
offencecertainly a thirdthey would be removed
anyway.
Q
325
Mr.
Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): Sir Andrew, I was
interested in what you were saying earlier, particularly in response to
the Ministers question. Last week I was reading a report from
the International Monetary Fund about the state of the UK economy. I
was particularly struck by one
bit:
To
prevent welfare tourism, the UK has restricted access
to social benefits for new A8 immigrants during the first year of
employment. That probably accounts for the fact that practically all
immigrants hold jobs and the percentage on welfare is much smaller than
that of the native
population.
The
IMF obviously has robust analysis and interpretation. Do you think that
the Bill will tighten up a process that has already been recognised
internationally as
tight?
Sir
Andrew Green:
No, I do not. What you are referring to
was of course only for the A8 nationals. It was brought in at the last
minute basically to try and deter welfare shopping by eastern
Europeans, and has had some success in that. On the whole, we have not
had people coming here just for the benefits, but as people come up to
their 12 months on the register, they become qualified. Numbers are
already increasing. I have no objection to that; that is part of being
in Europe. However, I do not think that that, of itself, is enough to
deal with the wider question of welfare
shopping.
Indeed,
there is an even wider point there too.In our negotiations
with the European Union over enlargement, wenot just us, but
Governmentscompletely failed to see, first, the potentially
massive impact on migration from much poorer countries to richer ones
and, secondly, the wide scope for eventual benefit shopping. Looking
into the detail, we find that it will become extraordinarily easy for
people from poorer countries in Europe to go benefit shopping in other
countries, because measures brought in on the basis of free movement of
labour have the effect that, once in the other country, people can
claim benefits on a much higher level than in their own country. One
quick example is child benefit, which eastern Europeans can already
claim. They claim at British rates, which is about five times what is
needed in Poland. That is just a small
example.
Q
326
Mr.
Wright:
On a slightly broader point, the IMF and recent
PricewaterhouseCoopers reports seem to suggest that the UK economy has
grown because of
migrants coming inrelatively highly skilled young men, plugging
domestic skills shortages. As a result, there is a higher tax receipt
and the UK economy is growing more than it normally would. Does not the
Bill tighten the illegal aspects of working in a positive manner, so
that people who want to and are allowed to come here are much more
controlled, so to speak? The tighter control regime is to the benefit
of everybodyindigenous and migrantbecause the migrants
have positive reassurance that they can be here. Do you accept
that?
Sir
Andrew Green:
There are two halves to that question,
and I accept the second half but not the first. You said that migration
is adding to economic growth, and that is undeniable. However, it is
also adding to population. The normal measure of wealth is GDP per
head. If you do the calculation that we have done, you will find that
the addition to population is prettywell the same as the
addition to production andthe resulting benefit to GDP per
head, as the Governments figures show, is less than a Mars bar
a month. As far as eastern Europeans are concerned, at least in part,
that is because they are low-paid and they go into low-paid
jobs.
However, as a
general proposition, if you look back over the years you will see that
Government estimates of the addition to both production and growth,
both of which have been quoted in the House of Commons, show very
little per head. One gives 4p a week and the other 14p a week. Work in
the United States, Canada and Holland points to a slightly higher
figureabout 0.1 per cent. of GDP, which is about 40p. We are
talking about very small sums, in so far as such things can be
measured. However, I accept that a lot of things cannot be measured in
terms of easing particular gaps or on matters such as diversity and new
ideas. I do not suggest that everything in this world can be measured,
or that money is everything, but I am saying thatthe
Governments case for large-scale immigration is absolute
nonsense. That case does not
exist.
Your second
point concerned the value of tightening up on illegals. I certainly
agree with that; there are many positive aspects to it. One of them is
that if employers have to train more British indigenous workers, that
is a very good thing, and they should not be allowed to dip out of it
by employing illegals.
Q
327
Mr.
Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con):
Sir Andrew,
first I should like to commend your organisation for adding to the
debate in an intelligent and rational way, although you would not take
that view if you had heard the TGWU last week. There has been debate in
this Committee over the past few weeks about the suggestion that this
measure is a legislative sledgehammer to crack an administrative nut.
Isnot the key issue the unreliability or
unavailabilityof accurate data about immigration under this
Government, and possibly under former Governments? Do you believe that
that can be corrected, for instance by a more robust collection of
statistics or evendare I invite you to comment on
this?by a border agency such as that which this Committee has
discussed? How can we rectify the situation so that we know what
numbers we are talking about and can make intelligent policy decisions
based on those data?
Sir Andrew
Green:
That is a good question. The first thing that
I would say is that I do not believe that you are dealing with an
administrative nut; you are dealing with a major issue about which
there is extremely widespread concern among the public. As you probably
know, 75 per cent. of the population would like an annual limit to
immigration. That is just one measure, but every poll will tell you
that and every poll will tell you that 80 per cent. have no confidence
in the present system, so it is not an administrative nut.
Secondly, is this the right way
to get a better idea of what is going on? It might be the only way. Its
purpose is to provide a means of counting people in and counting people
out as individuals. I have justbeen to the United States, New
Zealand, Australia and Singapore. In all those countries, I was both
counted in and counted out as Sir A. Green. It is perfectly possible to
do that. That is what the measures are aiming at. Once we have that, we
will have a number of other things. We will have a much more accurate
idea of numbers, which is becoming important. Immigration is now so
high that it is very important to know what it is, how tight the labour
market is and what to do about interest rates, as the Governor of the
Bank of England has said
repeatedly.
Even if we
go down that road, and I sincerely hope that we will, I should like to
draw your attention to a potential weakness that could blow the whole
system out of the water. I hope that the Government are conscious of
it. The pressure on visa-issuing posts is so great that they get their
brownie points for dealing with the queue. I noticed that when the
Minister gave evidence he referred to Pakistan and the speed at which
it had dealt with its queues. That may be brilliant or it may not. It
may be that they were just dishing out visas. As you know, on average
issuers have something like11 minutes to
decide.
Related to
that is an important second point, which is that decisions whether to
issue bright new issues are not legal decisions. They are matters of
judgment by the entry clearance officer as to whether the person
standing in front of him will go home at the end of it. If that goes
wrong, the whole system is futile. People simply come in with visas
that they should never have had in the first place. We will be helped
by the fact that this system will tell us that they have overstayed. At
the moment there is absolutely no effective feedback. We will know that
they have overstayed, but how are you going to find them and remove
them? We have half a million whom we cannot remove now and we are
making no impression on that half a million.
We issue 2 million visas a year
and refuse half a million. You do not have to be very far wrong with
those issues to build up a very large illegal community in Britain, so
what I come back to is the care with which those visas are issued in
the first place. In my view, it is going wrong. The balance is going
wrong. The pressures are too great and we are moving towards a kind of
computerised tick-the-box system that is extremely easy to fool. If
applicants stand in front of a visa officer he will know, for example,
if a person comes from a good family, if his father has a big business
or whatever. Any of you who have stood in a visa sectionI have
stood in a lot of themwill know what the pressures are and how
you rely on the instincts of the entry clearance officer and the
support of his
local staff. We are moving away from that. We have these systems whereby
you apply to some agency somewhere downtown. That is a serious weakness
and actually also extremely inconvenient to the applicant, because they
cannot get at the man who is taking the decision. I will not go on
about it, Mr. Illsley, but I want to underline the fact that
your entire effort will be wasted if the Government do not re-examine
the matter.
One
delicate issue that I wish to mention is that we should not send
immigration officers or ECOs of dual heritage to the country of their
other heritage. That leaves them much too vulnerable to pressures
offamily, friends and so on. I am not saying that they
wouldwell, I am saying what I am saying. They are just too
vulnerable. By all means send them to a different country, but not to
their own other country. That is foolishness, and it is happening on a
significant
scale.
Q
328
Mr.
Jackson:
I have read the evidence that you submitted by
way of a research paper that the Library prepared. Do you think that
the judiciary are letting us down with regard to the deportation of
foreign criminals, or would you put the blame for that at the door of
the Home Office as we stand now in the post-May 2006
situation?
Sir
Andrew Green:
There are two issues here. There was
clearly a serious administrative failure in even considering these
people for deportation, and that was obviously a Home Office problem,
but I think that the essential problem comes back to the state of the
law. That in turn comes back to the ECHR, which I mentioned, and
article 3. We must find a way around that. At the moment, the
Government are supporting a Dutch case before the ECHR that they hope
will ease it up. I think that it is to be considered in the summer.
Maybe that is the way forward. Of course, it would be the convenient
way forward, if there is enough progress on that case, but if there is
not, we have to think again. We cannot be in the situation that I
described.
Q
329
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Joan
Ryan):
Sir Andrew, I am interested in your analysis of the
link between illegal entry and organised crime. I am sure that you are
aware that estimates suggest strongly that around75 per cent.
of illegal entrances are facilitated. Our approach to tackling that
involves strengthening the borders, introducing measures to count in
and out and to know who individuals are through biometric ID and so on
and extending the scope of our powers regarding facilitation,
particularly in relation to territoriality. What is your analysis of
the link between organised crime and illegal entry? What do you think
would be an effective means of tackling
it?
Sir
Andrew Green:
First, we strongly support your
measures. We think that they are useful. Secondly, the people doing
such things are highly sophisticated, as you well know. As soon as one
measure is taken, they will seek to find a way around it. One has to
stay on the case. The introduction of the Serious Organised Crime
Agency was a major and helpful step, as was the tightening of the law
that you described. I think that heavy penalties on employers will also
help as we tighten up the situation generally. I am sure you know
that there were only eight successful prosecutions
of employers in the past five years. That is bound to encourage illegal
arrivals. As all that is tightened up, there will be much less
incentive.
If I may be
heretical, we ought eventually to move to the point where people found
to be entering illegally are detained until they are removed. At the
moment, the detention estate just will not permit that, but it should
be the position. In the long term, we should be aiming for
that.
Q
330
Joan
Ryan:
On a different topic, we have seen a drop in other
categories of asylum seeker, but the number of unaccompanied
asylum-seeking children seems to remain reasonably steady. I am
concerned about the numbers, and those who are found not to have a
founded case but who cannot be returned because of problems of
reception arrangements in their country of origin. Do you think that
unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are being used to get a foothold
to assist the entry of others? How big do you think that problem
is?
Sir
Andrew Green:
I think that there is little question
about it, and I would be surprised if your own papers did not
demonstrate that. There are serious problems in relation to those
children. We do not say much about it, because we think that with net
foreign immigration at 300,000, that is where the focus of attention
should be, but in terms of justice, we should take firmer measures to
discourage the use of children for that purpose. The firmest measure
would be to send them home, but you could do that only if you could
make satisfactory arrangements in their home countries. At present, it
would almost be cheaper to send them all to Etonnot quite, but
very nearly. They are costing £20,000 a throw.
Such children are being
deliberately put into Britain to live on the British taxpayer and so
that eventually they might bring their parents with them. That is
unacceptable, but the problem is that we are the only people who will
say that in public. A huge number of organisations take a different
view.
Q
331
Mr.
Clappison:
May I return to the judgment of entry clearance
officers and the granting of visas? What you have told us today about
the granting of visas certainly fits in with what I have been told on
visits to posts overseas with the Home Affairs Committee about the
importance of the judgment of the person on the spot who is making the
decision about granting the visatheir local knowledge, their
experience, all the things we rely on them for. Clause 19 appears to be
allowing evidence to be given to challenge the exercise of that
judgment in front of a tribunal in this country as opposed to at post.
That is my understanding of itit will allow evidence to be
given to an appeal tribunal against the exercise of the discretion at
the post overseas. How importantly do you think we should value the
exercise of that discretion, using as it does the judgment of
individual immigration officers, based upon their experience, their
knowledge and their
work?
Sir
Andrew Green:
That judgment is absolutely essential.
I think appeals against that judgment should not be allowed. It is
turning into a legal nightmare. A
foreigner applying to come to Britain does not have
any particular right to come here and if they get refused, they get
refused. I am sure that there is no other country that bends over quite
so far backwards in order to provide rights of appeal to those who are
refused. I think we should minimise the scale of appeals and not
provide any more access for it. The wretched Home Office is overwhelmed
by numbers as it is. The number of appeals for family visitors has
doubled every year since the costs were removed; it is now possible to
appeal for free. We now have a thousand appeals a week. It is costing
the taxpayer£1 million a week. What is
moreIm afraid you have got me startedit is not
just mum and dad. For families of the size we are talking about, the
number who qualify is of the order of somewhere between60 and
100, and they can all appeal. What is more, they can appeal even if the
main purpose of their visit is not to visit their relatives. This whole
business of appeals against refusal of visas is getting out of hand and
I hope that when the Government have time, and courage, they will take
an axe to it.
Q
332
Mr.
Clappison:
What you have just told us was not contradicted
by the evidence that the Home Affairs Committee received about the
relationship between appeals tribunals in this country and decisions
that were taken in post. We are dealing with the points-based
system
Sir
Andrew Green:
Absolutely. On that point, I heard a
very senior judge in the immigration appeal tribunalI think he
runs itwho was asked whether he had ever been to a post. He
said, Oh no, I never go to a post in case it influences my
judgment. I will leave it at that.
Q
333
Mr.
Clappison:
On the points-based system generally, this will
govern applications for work permits for people from outside the EU.
How significant a source of migration, and of economic migration, do
you think work permits have been in the past few years? That is, work
permits from outside the EU carrying a right of settlement in this
country.
Sir
Andrew Green:
They have been quite significant. The
number of work permits issued has, depending on how you define them,
trebled or quadrupled. Of course, those people canand
dobring their families. They can apply after four years, now
five years, for settlement. Ninety-five per cent. of thosewho
have applied for settlement have been granted it. So it has been a
major source of immigration and unfortunately it has coincided with the
weakening, not to say collapse, of our border controls. So, at the same
time as our border controls were becoming extremely ineffective, we
were actually encouraging immigration on a significant scale. Then of
course we had the miscalculation over east Europe, and the net result
has been therefore the crisis that we now
face.
Q
334
Mr.
Clappison:
Whilst the contribution of economic migration
to economic growth may be a matter for debate, do you think that in
looking at these proposals we should bear in mind that there can be
little doubt that people who do come to this country will want, for
example, a roof over their heads, that they will want housing, that
they will need to use the infrastructure in this country and that this
will have other economic effects?
Sir Andrew
Green:
There is no question about that. In fact, at
present one in three new households is a result of immigration. That is
on the Governments forecast of immigration, of 145,000. The
actual rate is already much higher than that. So, yes, to the extent
that someone comes here on a work permit and benefits the employer,
that is one thing. But there is also a sense in which the taxpayer is
picking up the cost of everything elseschools, roads, hospitals
and transportand to an extent the convenience of the indigenous
population is being affected in the years that it would take to put in
that extra infrastructure. So, it would be quite wrong to have an
immigration policy driven by employers, and that is what we have been
moving towards.
Until
1995, roughly, we issued 40,000 work permits a year. That was deemed to
be enough. Now, suddenly, there is this huge demand for more, and the
reason, of course, is that it is very convenient for the employers. You
take a skilled man off the shelf and you do not have to train a Brit.
Furthermore, a Brit might move to another company, whereas a foreigner
is less likely to. So, to the extent that you bring in skills from
overseas, you are reducing the incentive for employers to train their
own British employees and that is clearly what is happening.
We would say two things about
the points system. The first is that it does not change very much, if
you look at it in detail. The other is that, if you set out the number
of points required and how many points you get for x, y and z, it is
not terribly difficult to construct the application in order to get the
points that you need, if necessary by forging documentsand in
most countries you can forge whatever document you like. Then, if you
add to that a whole right of appeal, which I think may be
envisagedit is not clear from the Bill, but the implication of
the Bill is that it is envisagedyou are making another rod for
the Home Offices back. The bottom line is that if someone does
not get a work permit, they do not get a work permit. It seems to me
that to have a whole range of appeals is something that needs to be
closely examined.
Chairman:
I remind Members that we finish at11.30 am and I have four
Members who wish to ask questions.
Q
335
Kerry
McCarthy (Bristol, East) (Lab): You talk about the need
for an annual limit on immigration. How do asylum seekers fit into that
system?
Sir Andrew
Green:
They do not. I do not think that you can, or
should, set a limit for asylum seekers. If they are qualified, that is
fine; let us have them in. If they are not, they should go. They are
not part of this
argument.
Q
336
Kerry
McCarthy:
Okay. Is there not a danger that people would
use the asylum-seeking process as another route into the country,
rather than coming via the migrant worker
route?
Sir
Andrew Green:
They do now, on a substantial scale.
Roughly three out of four applicants are found to have a case that is
unfounded, either for asylum or for what is now humanitarian
protection. So, yes, they will try to use the asylum system.
I should
also add that the number of applications for asylum has gone down to
fewer than 30,000 a year. So, it is only one in 10 of net foreign
migration. That is, in part, why we are not talking about asylum at
present. We think that the real issues are about immigration. I also
think that the Government deserve some credit; they have got those
asylum numbers down. It would be nice if the numbers went even further
downin terms of false claims, that
is.
Q
337
Kerry
McCarthy:
May I follow up on what you said about the
staffing of the entry clearance posts? Am I right in thinking that you
are saying that if there is a British national of Indian origin, for
example, they should not be allowed to work at the entry clearance
posts in
India?
Sir
Andrew Green:
Correct.
Q
338
Kerry
McCarthy:
Because you thinkbasically, you are
saying that they are liable to engage in corrupt
behaviour.
Sir
Andrew Green:
No, I did not say that; I very
carefully did not say that. I said that they could come under family or
other pressures.
Q
339
Kerry
McCarthy:
But that, in effect, means that they would not
be trusted to do their job properly, if the effect is of their being
corrupt in the way that they do their
job.
Sir
Andrew Green:
In a society in which family and tribe
are extremely important, to a measure that most of us do not really
understand, I think that it is unwise to submit someone to those
possible pressures, and it is unnecessary to do so. They are probably
perfectly good entry clearance
officers
Q
340
Kerry
McCarthy:
You are saying that they cannot be trusted. You
are not saying that it is for their own benefit, really; you are saying
that they cannot be trusted.
Sir Andrew
Green:
You see, I am not saying that. I
am being very careful not to say that. I am saying, do not put people
under that pressure when you do not need tosend them somewhere
else.
Q
341
Kerry
McCarthy:
I was at the deputy high commission in Mumbai
recently, which employs a number of local staff. Presumably, you are
saying that it should not employ local people
either.
Sir
Andrew Green:
No; you have not understood the point.
There is a difference between local staff and entry control officers.
The local staff are invaluable. They often provide the interpretation,
the local knowledge and so on, but the decision is taken by the entry
control officer, who is UK-based. Actually, we always have some
problems with local staff in terms of corruption, and in both the posts
that I headed I hadto sack people. It is very hard to detect
corruption by local staff, but when you do you have to sack
themand I did, without hesitation. So what I am saying is in
reference to the entry control officers, not the local
staff.
Q
342
Mr.
Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): We have touched on the role
of employers in this policy area. Do you believe that
unscrupulousand, some would
say, parasiticemployers can somehow be
excused for employing illegal workers? I think that the answer would
not be yes, from the evidence so
far.
Sir
Andrew Green:
I think that there is no excuse for
employers to employ illegal workers, undercuttingthe wages of
British workers and, equally seriously, undercutting honest employers.
It is absolutely unacceptable. I am in touch with a number of employers
who are having real difficulty. I am thinking of a cleaning firm in
particular, which, as a matterof principle, operates cleanly
and is having difficulty surviving, because it knows damn well that its
competitors are paying a couple of quid
less.
Q
343
Mr.
Reed:
For the purposes of the debate, it is clear, then,
is it not, that the persons undercutting the minimum wage in this
country are those employers, not those employees, whether legal or
illegal?
Sir
Andrew Green:
Exactly;
yes.
Sir
Andrew Green:
And that is where the penalties should
be. I
agree.
Q
345
Mr.
Reed:
One of the hallmarks of this debate is that it is
coloured, informed and inflamed by a lot of false assumptions. You
clearly believe that this whole debate should be based on a factual
analysis and empirical data that are beyond
question.
Sir
Andrew Green:
Absolutely so. That is what we have
been doing for the past five years. I was engaged in a debate the other
day and was criticised for stating the facts. I was told that the facts
offended people. Thatis unfortunate. I think that we are now
moving, Iam glad to saysteadily, slowlytowards
a situation where these issues can be debated on the basis of their
facts. There will always be people who try to introduce other elements,
but we let that wash over
us.
Q
346
Mr.
Reed:
On that point, you talked earlier about the cost to
the Treasury of illegal immigration being, perhaps, £500 million
a
year.
Sir
Andrew Green:
If you legalise illegals,
yes.
Sir
Andrew Green:
It depends on your assumptions. All
these things are pretty shaky. But the key point we are making is that
you absolutely must include some estimate of the extra cost of
admitting half a million people to the welfare
state.
Q
348
Mr.
Reed:
Finally, I am a little confused about the point
about the dual heritage of entry officers. How far do we take this?
Does this apply, perhaps, to people of dual US and UK nationality, to
those with an Australian and British heritage or to people with a
Canadian and British heritage? How far do we
go?
Sir
Andrew Green:
That would be a matter for management.
But my point was addressed to those countries where family and tribal
pressures are extremely high. If you judge that to be a risk in a
particular country, then you should not send someone of dual heritage
there for that particular job.
Q
349
Damian
Green:
I want to return to the enforcement clauses,
because you have made the point already that, at the moment, the system
has more or less collapsedI think you used that wordand
that you thought that the provisions in the Bill were excellent.
Indeed, Conservative Members do not oppose the extra powers. Given the
work that you have done internationally, looking at how other countries
control their borders more effectively, what extra powers would be
useful? As you know, we have proposed an integrated border force,
bringing together the various fragmented bodies currently responsible
for such matters. We have proposed that because it is what countries
with better control over their borders seem to have. From your
experience around the world, where have you seen the best practice that
this country should
adopt?
Sir
Andrew Green:
I will bring in a
slightly different aspect of my experience, which is that the
Administrations of different countries are very different from each
other. On the particular point that you raise, I would say two things.
The Home Office is now engaged in a massive and, I think, courageous
exercise to try to get a grip on our borders. The last thing that it
should do at this juncture is have a reorganisation of that kind.
Bureaucracies are not Meccanothey are plants and you cannot
pick them up, cut them to pieces and put them together again. They
depend heavily on each person knowing what other people are responsible
for and, no less importantly, knowing who is any good. If you want to
get something done, you have to know the ground.
At some time in the future,
there might be some benefit from a reorganisation, but British
organisations are quite good at informally working with each other.
Personally, I would leave it at that at this administrative juncture,
without ruling out, at some future date, once we have got a hold on it,
some changes in the direction that you suggest. I certainly would not
do it
now.
Q
350
Damian
Green:
My question was about other countries, and those
that seem to have an effective system, even though they are very
attractive countries. Whose immigration system do you think works
best?
Sir
Andrew Green:
Australia, probably. The effectiveness
lies in two things: first, actual knowledge of who is coming and going,
which is now being put in place, and secondly, the ability and
resources to remove. If you have both of those, the administrative
arrangements, between this body and that, are important, but not as
important. We need knowledge of who is still hereand we might
get a nasty shock when this comes into playand the ability to
remove those who should not be here. Already we think that there are
500,000, but we could find far more. In terms of priorities, that is
where we should go
next.
Q
351
Mr.
Byrne:
I was very interested in your comments on the
single border agency. It reflects things that I have said about
retaining an open mind, but questioning whether now is the time to
undertake such a reorganisation. From your comments, can I deduce that
you are advocating an overhaul of the visa system, if not the family
visitor system in
particular?
Sir
Andrew Green:
I will focus on just one issue, which I
have already mentioned. We need to look very carefully at the resources
that we are putting into that
initial check. It is going entirely in the opposite
direction, and if we do not get that right, we can all go home. I think
that frankly it is going wrong for the reasons that I have described:
the box-ticking of, Weve got all these people through
and weve got rid of this queuewonderful.
Actually, that is not the point. The point is to have an effective
judgment on each of the many cases and you cannot do it unless you have
the people on the ground and you put the resources into
it.
Q
352
Mr.
Byrne:
You have personal experience of this next question.
In some of the evidence that we heard in the early evidence sessions,
we heard about quite wide variations in rates of abuse between
different posts. It almost sounds as if you are advocating
post-specific variations, if you like, in the kind of resources that
are applied and the sort of metrics set and used to
manage.
Sir
Andrew Green:
Yes. One of the things that is being
done, but should not be done, is to compare refusal rates between one
country and another. If there is a high refusal rate, it may be because
the standards of honesty are not the same in every
country.
Q
353
Mr.
Byrne:
So, measures to lock down successful applicants to
a single identity would, presumably, help us to count people in and
out; you mentioned that the Sir Andrew who was counted in to America
was the same who was counted out.
Sir Andrew
Green:
Absolutely, and what is happening, as you
know, is that people get into this country and then send their passport
home so that their cousin comes on the same one. That certainly
happens in one country that I know of, and it is
widespread.
Sir Andrew
Green:
Yes, and you must have it. Are you putting it
in
place?
Q
355
Mr.
Byrne:
Yes. My final question comes back to the point made
by Mr. Reed about the range of powers that this Bill puts in
place to tackle illegal working. What has been attempted is quite a
wide range of powers, such as the power to access Her Majestys
Revenue and Customs information, or to search personnel records, or to
arrest employers who are knowingly employing people illegally, or to
seize cash and to dispose of assets that are seized. Are there any
obvious gaps in the strengthening of powers to tackle the principal
culprits, as I think you have put itthat is, the employers who
are undercutting their competitors?
Sir Andrew
Green:
Those are widely drawn powers, and I entirely
support them. As far as I can see, you have drawn them as widely as you
could get away with, and I think that you are right to do
so.
Chairman:
I thank Sir Andrew, Mr. Dennis and Mr. Norman for
their attendance here this morning. The Committee will now have a short
pause until the witnesses have left, before we resume deliberation on
the Bill.
Clause 7
Effect
of non-compliance
11.30
am
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Byrne:
The clause forms an important part of the legal
machinery of clauses that we have assembled under this heading. Its
purpose is to provide some disincentives for those foreign nationals
who might choose to try not to comply with the regulation that we put
in place requiring them to apply for a biometric immigration document.
We have sought to put a number of sanctions in placein
particular, toprovide the Secretary of State with three powers
to disincentivise non-compliance.
First, there is a civil penalty
regime, which subsequent clauses will set out. Secondly, there is the
power to curtail leave, and thirdly, there is the power to vary it. The
Secretary of State would, of course, have the discretion to decide
which sanction it was most appropriate to apply in any particular case.
The intention would be to set out the modus operandi for that judgment
to be exercised in a code of practice, but we do not want the Secretary
of State to be able to pile up these sanctions, one on top of the
other, but to choose between
them.
An argument that
was rehearsed during the debate on ID cards was about the
appropriateness of sanctions to disincentivise behaviour that we wanted
to discourage. There were questions about whether people from different
backgrounds or those who found themselves in different circumstances
might not be able to acquire a biometric immigration document, through
no fault of their own, and I want to make a couple of points on that
subject.
First, there
are substantial incentives for foreign nationals to
apply for biometric immigration documents; it is not something that
people would recoil from, because biometric documents will make the
lives of foreign nationals easier. During the latter part of last year,
when I was going round the country holding round tables with local
business and public services, I was struck by the fact that some
businesses said that they were not interested in employing foreign
students, for example, because they did not want to take the risk that
they were here illegally.
In an earlier evidence session,
National Car Parks mentioned that the transaction burden acted as a
disincentive for the company to hire foreign students. Biometric
immigration documents will put the minds of many people in the business
community at ease, as it will make it easier for foreign nationals to
prove their entitlement to be here and their right to
work.
Secondly, people
who are asked to apply for biometric immigration documents will often
already have applied for leave to remain and have been through an
application process. Some foreign nationals, such as asylum seekers who
have come through the asylum process, will already have deposited their
biometric and biographical information with the immigration
service.
In doing so they will have acquired an application registration card,
which is used to manage and monitor the issuing of
benefits to those who apply for asylum. Clause 5(3)(d) provides for
biometric and biographical information to be rolled over into an
application for a biometric immigration
document.
We can give
the Committee several reassurances in respect of imposing too onerous a
burden on certain categories of foreign nationals. It will be a fairly
straightforward process and it is important that as part of the legal
machinery the Secretary of State has the ability to apply civil
penalties, to curtail or to vary leave, to disregard an application,
and to refuse an application for a biometric immigration
document.
Damian
Green:
It is worth pausing for a second on the clause. As
I have argued in previous debates, the immigration system must be
robust, but it must also be fair, and seen to be fair, because public
confidence will be restored only if it is both robust and
fair.
The Minister
will be aware that people are worried that the clause might be used to
violate the protections offered by various international conventions to
which the Government remain signed up. As we heard in the evidence
session, some people believe that we should pull out of the European
convention on human rights. I am not conscious that that is yet
Government policy, although it is a fast-moving area, but there are
genuine concerns out there that the wide powers that the clause gives
to the Secretary of State might be used to violate peoples
rights under the ECHR, various Community treaties or the refugee
convention. It is worth noting clause 7(2)(e), which states that
regulations may
provide
for the consequence of a failure to be at the discretion of the
Secretary of State.
That
is potentially a hugely wide provision, giving the Secretary of State
quasi-judicial powers of a high order.
No such clause should pass the
House without its being noted that such powers are potentially
dangerous in the hands of an unscrupulous Secretary of State. It is
part of the scrutiny role of the House to point out potential dangers,
which I am sure are unintended. There are points to be made about the
rights of individuals under various conventions. I hope
thatthe Minister can reassure us on them; otherwise, the
provision will cause deep unease in various parts of the
community.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 7
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
|
| |
©Parliamentary copyright 2007 | Prepared 14 March 2007 |