|
UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 143-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS AND EUROPEAN SCRUTINY COMMITTEES
MIGRATION ISSUES RELATING TO THE ACCESSION OF BULGARIA AND ROMANIA TO THE EU
Thursday 7 December 2006 MR LIAM BYRNE MP, MR CHRISTOPHE PRINCE and MS HELEN EARNER Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 74
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Home Affairs and European Scrutiny Committees on Thursday 7 December 2006 Members present Mr Richard Benyon Mr David Borrow Ms Karen Buck Mr James Clappison Ms Katy Clark Michael Connarty Mrs Anne Cryer Mr Wayne David Mrs Janet Dean Mr John Denham Jim Dobbin Nia Griffith Mr David Heathcoat-Amory Mr Jimmy Hood Gwyn Prosser Bob Russell Martin Salter Mr Anthony Steen Mr David Winnick
Mr John Denham was called to the chair ________________ Witnesses: Mr Liam Byrne, a Member of the House, Minister of State for Nationality, Citizenship and Immigration, Mr Christophe Prince, Director, European Policy Directorate, and Ms Helen Earner, Head of the Employment Task Force, Home Office, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: Minister, can I thank you very much indeed for coming this morning. As you know, this is, I think, a first in terms of a joint meeting of the European Scrutiny Committee and the Home Affairs Committee to look at migration issues arising from the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU. I will be chairing the session this morning, but I am grateful for Mike Connarty for working with me and putting this session together. Certainly from a home affairs point of view our Committee is increasingly aware that there are a large number of issues on the Home Affairs agenda in the UK which, in one way or another, are influenced by legal, political and policy developments in the European Union, and we are taking a much closer interest in European Union issues than has been the case in the past. Obviously the Scrutiny Committee has an established role in this area, and it seemed only sensible to have a joint meeting of the two committees to look at the current position. Minister, you have asked if you could make a brief opening statement, I think. Could I invite you, firstly, to introduce your officials and then to go into your statement, and we will get underway. Mr Byrne: Thank you. On my left, your right, I am pleased to be joined by Christophe Prince, who is the Director of European Affairs at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, and on my right, your left, is Helen Earner, who is the Head of the Employment Taskforce at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. Thank you for the opportunity of coming along this morning and thank you for the opportunity of making a short opening statement. One of the great privileges of my job is that you are never short of advice. Everybody has got an opinion, everybody has got a view and no-one is short of coming forward with it, and I respect that. I do not think it is racist to talk about immigration; I think it is absolutely fundamental to our national interest, and I think it is important for politicians to be at the forefront of the debate in the way that you and the Committee have been over the last few months. One of the biggest immigration decisions that I have had to help take since I became immigration minister is over the accession to the labour market of residents from A2. When I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning I was reminded of a quote by the Chinese revolutionary, whose name I cannot remember, when he was asked about the impact of the French Revolution, to which he said, "It is too early to tell." I think there is a little bit of that in this question of access to the labour market from the new accession countries. We have had a precedent to guide us in making this decision, that was the decision that we took about A8. We think the impact of migrant labour from A8 has been enormously beneficial to Britain, but we also think that there have been transitional impacts. There has been anecdotal evidence that has been put up to us about some of the impacts in different parts of the country that have been created through very rapid changes in communities because of immigration, and so the decision that we had to take when it came to Bulgaria and Romania was not whether to ever open our labour market but how quickly to open our labour market. Under EU law, we only have a maximum of seven years in which to impose restrictions, and the question, therefore, for us was: do we fling open the door to the labour market very quickly, very rapidly, or actually do we take a much more gradual approach? While in our minds there was this evidence of transitional impacts, our decision was to take a more gradual approach so that we might have a little bit more time to understand some of the impacts that people had talked to us about. The consequence of that is that we will propose regulations this afternoon which will mean, for most people coming to work here, that they will have to apply for a work permit, either as a highly skilled person or for a specific sector. Because we expect employers to look to EU nations to meet low-skilled labour markets, we shall also phase out access to low-skilled jobs from outside the EU as well. The terms of the accession treaty that we signed in 2005 and which, I think, was approved by the House without a division, we cannot treat citizens from Bulgaria and Romania any worse than before, and so that means the highly skilled migrant programme will continue, it means that students from Romania and Bulgaria will continue to be able to work part-time, provided they are enrolled at a college that is recognised, the self-employed will continue to be able to work here, as they can in other EU nations, but they will need to prove, when and if challenged, that they are genuine and not, in fact, employees posing as contractors, and dependents will continue to be able to apply for permits. Where there are restrictions, they will need to be policed, and, subject to the debate this afternoon, we plan to make it an offence for an A2 national to work without an authorisation document. We intend to make this punishable by on the spot penalties of about a thousand pounds. It will also be an offence for an employer to take on undocumented A2 nationals. Employers will be given full assistance in understanding their obligations, and we are investing quite significantly in an information campaign for employers. The regulations that put the system into place allow for a total period of five years. It reflects the fact that, after two years, we are required to notify the Commission if we intend to maintain restrictions, and we can then maintain them for another three years. However, Chairman, we are committed to reviewing the arrangements after a period of 12 months in case the decision that we took was too conservative and our economy wanted more. We have also made proposals for a Migration Advisory Committee to help us with future decisions. Finally, Chairman, I just wanted to conclude by saying how grateful the British Government was to colleagues in Bulgaria and Romania. We have worked very closely in this run up to accession. We have been working on our preparations for many months now, and we will, of course, be running an information campaign in Bulgaria and Romania too. I think that a gradual approach is the right approach, and I look forward to taking the Committee's questions. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Q2 Michael Connarty: Obviously, Minister, there was a real sense of disappointment and dismay, particularly from those of us in the EU Scrutiny Committee who have been following the accession and enlargement process and following the Government's positions taken on the enlargement, which are very enthusiastic, to have a statement made by placing it in the library, which meant that we did not have a chance to put our questions to the Home Secretary on the floor of House; and, therefore, I am very grateful to John Denham for organising this meeting so that we can put questions to a Home Office Minister at least. You have decided to restrict access to the labour market for Bulgaria and Romania, but there were no restrictions placed on workers from the ten new EU countries. That would seem to be very symbolic of the UK's attitude to the enlargement process and very enthusiastically welcomed. I think there is a lot of good in terms of the standing of the UK in the EU and particularly among the accession countries. Looking back, was it a mistake on the Home Office's assessment not to manage migration from the other Eastern European countries in a similar way to the proposal for Romania and Bulgaria? Mr Byrne: I do not think it was a mistake, Mr Connarty, because all the evidence that we have got about the impact of A8 accession has been positive. The committees will know that the Bank of England published research earlier this year which showed that accession has had a positive impact on, for example, the inflation rate in this country, and that is to be welcomed. The DWP has published two reports which have shown that there has not necessarily been any displacement of the domestic labour market through accession, but, as I say, the choice that confronted the Government was about the speed with which to open the door to new migrant labour from Bulgaria and Romania - not whether to keep it closed forever but how quickly to open it - and while there was evidence, however anecdotal and however isolated, the Government reached a view that it would be better to understand those impacts in a little bit more dealt and to be satisfied that we had the right kind of arrangements in place to take account of those changes before we made any further big steps, and that is why the approach that we proposed was gradual. Q3 Mr David: Minister, I was just wondering if you could explain to us what prior discussion there was with the Bulgarian and Romanian Governments, because the impression I certainly had by speaking to the Romanian Minister and also the Bulgarian Minister, who is the Commissioner Designate, was that it came very much as a surprise; it was a change of tack by the British Government at relatively the last moment. Is that true? Mr Byrne: I am not sure if that was true or not. We know that it was disappointing news to the Governments of Bulgaria and Romania that we did not give unrestricted access. I think we have always been great proponents of EU enlargement, that has been a key British foreign policy goal for some years now, but ultimately we have to win a case in this country, we have to command consent in this country for that policy and I think it would have been a risk, if we did not take the time to understand the evidence of transitional impacts that had been presented to us before making any decision, to open the door very quickly. Again, I come back to my central point, which is that the choice that we made was not whether or not to open the door, the only question that was in front of us was how quickly that door should be opened, and while there was evidence of transitional impacts, however isolated, I think it was incumbent on us to understand those in full and make sure that the right arrangements were in place as counter measures before deciding to open the door completely. I understand that it will have been, and was, disappointing news to the Governments of Bulgaria and Romania, it does not diminish our ambition for further EU enlargement. I think actually we will command and sustain domestic political support for that policy if we are able to show that we are managing migration effectively to the benefit of the country, and I think that is understood in Bulgaria and Romania amongst those governments, and, as I said in my opening remarks, we remain extremely grateful to those governments for the close co-operation we have had both in managing this decision and also on measures like crime, which I know the Committee will want to come to shortly. Q4 Mr David: What concerns me is that we did have a large number of workers coming to this country from Poland, but all the estimates, including from the Institute for Public Policy Research, about the numbers of workers from Romania and Bulgaria is relatively small, very small indeed, and yet we have had these last minute restrictions placed on the free movement of workers and it worries me that we have caused tremendous damage to our relationship with the Romanian and Bulgarian Governments. I do not know if you saw the letter which appeared in The Independent yesterday. It was written by the former British Ambassador to Bulgaria from 1989 to 1994. If I may, Chairman, I would like to quote from that letter. What Richard Thomas wrote was, "We encouraged Bulgaria to apply for membership of the European Union. This cherished goal will be achieved in a month's time, and will draw a line under half a century of oppression and tyranny. But instead of welcoming the Bulgarians back into the European fold, our pusillanimous government have chosen to label them - and the Romanians - as second-class EU members by denying them the working rights which have already been accorded to the other new members from former communist Europe. That by doing so we are also denying ourselves the economic benefits of an addition to our workforce of well-motivated and skilled immigrants is almost beside the point." It is an important quote, and I am sure the Minister will have read it, but it is really quite an indictment of what the British Government has done. Just to finish the quote, "We have behaved despicably", the former ambassador says, "and I would be ashamed, as a one time resident apostle of all things worthy and noble about Britain, to show my face again in Bulgaria." I put it to you that is a pretty damning indictment from a former British ambassador, and I think that it is very difficult to argue, as you are trying to do, that we are putting the restriction on the free movement of people from Bulgaria and Romania without doing irreparable damage to the Government's relationship with those two countries. Mr Byrne: I do not have the same expertise as Mr David in matters European, but I do not think that there will be damage, in the way the former ambassador outlines, for a very simple reason, which is that when you look across the rest of the European Union you can see many other EU Member States making exactly the same decision as us. It is true to say that there have been countries which have decided, I understand, to impose no restrictions on migrant labour from Bulgaria and Romania - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia are all countries which, I understand, are not imposing restrictions - but if we look across the bigger economies in Western Europe, if we look at France, if we look at Germany, if we look at Spain, we can see, I think, that there are governments who are all planning to impose some kind of restrictions. I understand that Italy has not yet made an official announcement. So I think, although there may be noise, such as the noise that we are hearing from the former ambassador, actually the thrust of that policy intention for enlargement will be recognised. I think the measured approach we are taking will command more support in the medium-term and in the long-term for further enlargement, and I do not know why Britain necessarily will be singled out for the ire of the Bulgarian and Romanian governments when other countries are making very, very similar decisions. Q5 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You are belatedly trying to slam on the breaks here with Bulgaria and Romania and doing a lot of damage internationally, as my Committee knows because we have been there. What puzzles me is that, simultaneously with this, you passed earlier this year the Immigration EEA Regulations which give an unrestricted right of residence to all EEA citizens, which, of course, will include Bulgaria and Romania from 1 January. So they can come here with their wives, their partners, their family with an entitlement to education and health and all the rest of it, but if they want to work legally and pay tax we are expecting them to pay £70 and to register with your scheme. This is a crazy way to proceed. You are trying to restrict immigration when you do not have the powers to do so. Indeed, the regulations, of which I have a copy here, do give this unrestricted right of residence. Can you explain what the Government is trying to do here? Mr Byrne: Absolutely. The principle of free movement is obviously enshrined in the Treaty of Rome 1957, and it was obviously incorporated into UK law when we signed up to the European Union in 1973. I understand that the directives around free movement were put before the House in 2005, I understand that they were passed by Parliament through negative resolution, I understand that they were not prayed against, and they obviously took forward a lot of policy that was in the Accession Treaty, which was, I think, signed in April 2005 and incorporated into British law without a division in the House. So I think many of the principles about which you are talking, this principle of free movement has actually commanded political support from all sides of the House over quite a sustained period of time. I think it was important that we negotiated, as part of the Accession Treaty, the right to restrict access to the labour market. I think that restrictions on the labour market will have an inevitable impact on the attractiveness of Britain as a destination, certainly for people from accession countries. Overseas visitors are enormously important to our economy. Last year overseas visitors spent about £13 billion in our economy. Nonetheless, as a destination in which to stay and reside, I think that any individual from an accession country would take into account the ability to work. I do not think that labour markets can be changed structurally very quickly, and, again, I come back to the central point that the decision for us is how quickly do we throw open the door to workers from Bulgaria and Romania to come and work in our economy. The decision was do you fling the door open quickly or do you do it slowly, and I think the right decision was to open the door slowly because, while there is still evidence of a transitional impact, I think it is incumbent on the Government to understand it. My starting point is slightly different, Chairman, to Mr Heathcoat-Amory's. We have well established principles of free movement, but actually we know that access to the labour market can be a draw; therefore it is important to control that while there are still questions remaining about the transitional impact on public services. Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry; you have not answered my question. Chairman: I am sorry to say this, but we are twice the size of a normal committee and I have got a number of members trying to catch my eye on supplementaries and, to be honest, I am going to have to move through the members who have allocated been allocated the questions. Mr Heathcoat-Amory: We are not getting answers, are we? Chairman: It is for everybody to judge whether they are getting answers or not. I have tried to bring you in on a supplementary, but lots of people are trying to catch my eye and, to be honest, we will get bogged down on just a handful of members unless we can make some progress. I think members will have to ask their questions and we will have to make the best progress that we can. Jim Dobbin: Minister, to go back to a point that Mr Connarty made, this was an extremely important announcement, ground-breaking news, you could say, as the television news programmes would describe it. How can the Home Secretary justify making this announcement on the radio, on the Today programme, before he actually made a statement to the House? Q6 Mr Winnick: It has never been done before! Mr Byrne: I missed that, Chairman. Q7 Chairman: There was a suggestion that the Home Secretary was breaking new ground by making the announcement on the Today programme before it was made to the House. Mr Byrne: I understand that the Committee are concerned that there was not an oral statement to the House, as occurred on A8 accession as well. I am not aware of any detailed briefing to the press on the announcement before the written ministerial statement was tabled. My understanding is that on the day the Asylum and Migration Committee ran from 8.30 that morning until 9.30, the written ministerial statement was then made at 11.30 and the Home Secretary did clips with broadcasters from the Home Office to coincide with that timing. I am aware that there was an announcement from Number Ten during, I think, the third or fourth week of September that restrictions were likely (I think was the quote) and, Chairman, in the Westminster Hall debate that was tabled by the right honourable member for Leicester West on 18 October, my colleague, the honourable member for Enfield North, used the same language that was in the Number Ten announcement, noting that the approach would be gradual. But I come back to this point that I am not aware of any detailed briefing to the press on the details before the day that the written ministerial statement was announced. Q8 Nia Griffith: Minister, you have mentioned restrictions put by other EU Member States on workers from Bulgaria and Romania. Could you enlarge upon those restrictions and tell us in what way the decisions by other countries have influenced the UK decision? Mr Byrne: I think every country is making its own decision based on a number of often quite domestic considerations, not least the state of their own domestic labour markets, and, obviously, the UK benefits from much lower unemployment and much higher employment than many other EU countries. I would not characterise the position that we have taken as very different from other major EU countries. If it would be helpful to the Committee, I can run through a little bit about what I do know of the positions of other countries. As I said, I understand that some countries are not imposing any restrictions. They are mainly Eastern European countries - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. I understand that the position the French Government is taking is that, having opened up 52 sectors to A8 nationals in May, they are proposing the same arrangements for A2. The German Government, I think, is proposing a work permit scheme, which I do not think will be awfully different to the work permit scheme that the German Government put in place for A8 nationals. The Italian Government I do not think has made an official announcement, although did lift transitional arrangements for A8 nationals in July. The Spanish government, I think, is likely to impose a two-year transitional period on Romania and Bulgaria and has also lifted restrictions on A8 nationals as well. So I think we can see that a number of countries in the EU are following the British position where you have a lack of restrictions on nationals from A8 but transitional arrangements in place for countries from Bulgaria and Romania. I think we were amongst the earliest wave of EU countries to make our announcements, and we have made our announcements pretty much in line with the Irish Government, which will construct a regime which is very similar to our own. Q9 Mrs Cryer: Minister, I would like you to talk about the level of migration that would have happened had these restrictions not been put on. Have you or your department made any estimates of the sort of numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians who will be entering this country but for the restrictions that have been applied, and do you think that the Institute for Public Policy Research estimate of 48,000 in the first 18 months seems right to you? Mr Byrne: I think it would be very unwise to make predictions about future flows. I notice the IPPR report with interest. I notice that the IPPR report said that, given the complexities of different variables that are involved, trying to predict migration flows from Bulgaria and Romania to the UK accurately would be extremely difficult. Given the history of debate in this area, I also took the time to look at what my predecessor, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for defence, said when he was asked this question earlier on the question of accession of A8 countries. What Hansard actually says is that, "The Home Office has not accepted or adopted a figure; it has merely published information to show what other work people have done and what their methodology has been." We very often have a number of 13,000 as a prediction bandied around as a Home Office figure on the question of the number of people from A8 countries coming, and I think I would just take this opportunity to remind the Committee of what my right honourable friend actually said at the time. I would concur with the position that he took then. I think it would be very unwise to make predictions about what future migration flows would look like, Chairman. Chairman: Perhaps Mr Benyon would like to pursue that. Q10 Mr Benyon: I entirely understand your caution, Minister, in this area, but what we would like to know is why the prediction from the previous accession countries was so disastrously wrong and who at the IND at the Home Office was involved in that decision, what was their methodology and why did they come to up with the figure that they did? Mr Byrne: It is a question on which a number of parliamentary questions have been tabled over the last two or three months and, because of those questions, I made sure that a copy of that report was the laid in the House. Chairman, the honourable member is perfectly at his liberty to go and have a look at that, but I think, from what I have read of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for defence's remarks, he did spell out fairly clearly that there were big questions and big assumptions in the methodology that University College, London, incorporated into its work, and some of those assumptions were, for example, the decisions that had been made by other Member States, I think some of the assumptions were around unemployment differentials in different countries. So I think there were a number of independent variables which my right honourable friend was very clear to the House about back in 2003, and, for all of those reasons, I think I would echo his remarks at the time, which is that it would be very unwise to make future predictions. Q11 Mr Benyon: Were you not getting any messages, for example, from embassies or from business saying, "We have pressures in this area"? Was there no indication that there was going to be the scale of migration that there eventually was? Mr Byrne: I think my right honourable friend was very clear about the assumptions that he was operating on, which is that it was very unwise to make predictions. I think my right honourable friend had looked at the report, I think he acknowledged that a number of different variables were involved in the University of London's calculations and I think the conclusion that he reached was that the variables were so uncertain it would have been unwise for him or the Home Office to publish any particular projections of its own, and I would echo that conclusion. Q12 Chairman: Minister, it is the case, is it not, that the Home Office commissioned it, the Home Office paid for it, the Home Office published it, and surely it was the case that the Home Office at least took comfort from that low estimate when it took the decision on accession? The position today seems to be that the Home Office has decided, given that experience, it would rather not ask the question at all when it comes to Bulgaria and Romania, because it would seem that nobody has even attempted to make any estimate of what might happen or what the implication of your new policy is. Mr Byrne: I think the Committee will draw its own conclusions about the value for money that the Home Office obtained when it commissioned this research, and perhaps even the National Audit Office would be interested. Q13 Martin Salter: How much did it cost, Minister? Mr Byrne: I would certainly be happy to write to the Committee with the cost. Chairman, I would just underline what my right honourable friend has said; the Home Office has not, however, accepted or adopted that figure, it has merely published the information to show what other work people have done and what the methodology is. Q14 Michael Connarty: What you seem to be saying, Minister, is that this is a policy taken in a vacuum of evidence, no evidence-based policy, but a political decision, or are you saying that there is evidence that you are not willing to share with us? Mr Byrne: I think very often political decisions are made without the benefit of perfect information. Q15 Michael Connarty: This decision about Romania and Bulgaria. Mr Byrne: I think very often political decisions are made without the benefit of perfect information, but, as I say, I come back to my central argument, which is that the choice that we had to make here is not do we stop migration from Bulgaria and Romania for ever, it was simply a question of how quickly we open access to our labour market. I just think that the right decision to make, while there was evidence of transitional impacts, was to take a gradual approach until those impacts could be fully understood and the Government could be satisfied that remedial measures were satisfactorily in place. Q16 Gwyn Prosser: Is the consequence of phasing out the low-skilled migration scheme from non-EU applicants that it will be reserved specifically for Bulgaria and Romania? Mr Byrne: Chairman, that is correct. One of the consequences of the doctrine of community preference is that, while there are restrictions on access to the labour market from people from Bulgaria and Romania, then we cannot offer access to low-skilled jobs from outside the EU, because then the question would come: why do not you offer those jobs first to people from Bulgaria and Romania? So while there are restrictions on access to jobs for workers from Bulgaria and Romania, the implication of that is that access to low-skilled jobs from outside the EU will have to be suspended. I make no assumptions about what the future will hold. One of the initiatives that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has launched is the idea of a Migration Advisory Committee. A couple of weeks ago we launched that consultation together with the CBI and with the TUC - we were grateful for the support of both organisations - because we think that as we move into the future and we introduce a points-based system, there will be quite big questions about how high the hurdle should be for people from other parts of the world to come and work in this country. If you are introducing a points-based system, there is an obvious question: how many points do you need in order to come in? I could sit in a dark room in the Home Office with civil servants and come up with the answer to that question, I am sure, but I think, and the Committee's work over the past has underlined this, that there is a role for a much more open conversation as a country about how high those hurdles should be, and we think the Migration Advisory Committee could help us brigade expertise and information and also act as a focal point for that debate. So we are out at consultation on whether such a committee should be set up and the kinds of questions that it should take into account and I think a committee has great virtue in helping us make these decisions in the future, and this would be one of them. Q17 Gwyn Prosser: But just looking at next year, is there a cap on the number of low-skilled people coming in from those two countries? Mr Byrne: There is. With the caveat that there is obviously a stand-still clause, and so schemes that we have got in place such as the highly skilled migrant programme, the ability to access work permit jobs in the way that people can today, students, dependents, we cannot make the position of Bulgarians and Romanians any worse when applying for those jobs, but when it comes to low-skilled we can impose restrictions, and the quoted restrictions that we are proposing are 16,250 permitted to take employment in the agricultural sector and 3,500 in the food processing sector. The 16,250 figure will be a quota for a seasonal agricultural worker scheme where employees can work for a period of six months. The food processing sector scheme gives people the right to work for 12 months, Chairman. Q18 Chairman: From 1 January those two schemes will be limited purely to people from Bulgaria and Romania. No-one will come in after 1 January to fill up those quotas from outside the EU? Mr Byrne: The schemes will actually be phased in during the course of next year. At the moment they are schemes which are managed by operators who go abroad and recruit workers, and at the time of our announcement some of those operators had already recruited for harvests in the New Year and so the arrangement that we made is that the schemes will be phased in during the course of the New Year. So on day one on 1 January next year it will not be possible for 16,250 plus 3,500 low-skilled migrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania to come in; we will phase up to that capacity over the course of 2007. Q19 Ms Buck: The Minister knows that one of the concerns that has been expressed about the restrictions on low-skilled migration into the EU is from the Bangladeshi workers, for example. I wonder if he could tell us, firstly, what representations he has received from other groups who potentially will lose out and whether he has had conversations with colleagues in the DTI and elsewhere about whether there are sectors within the economy which actually do draw from low-skilled migrant workers outside the EU and how they will be affected? Mr Byrne: Can I first put on record my own thanks to the honourable member for the representations she has made on behalf of Bangladeshi workers in particular. Partly on her advice, I took the opportunity earlier this year to meet with representatives from the British Bangladeshi Chamber of Commerce and from the Bangladeshi Catering Association. We had very lively discussion over an afternoon in the Home Office, and what I undertook to do is consult with colleagues across government as to how some of those representations could be taken into account. I would want to be open with my honourable friend about this. There are questions of timing, but there is also an opportunity, with the introduction of the points-based system, I think, to work very closely with representatives of Bangladeshi workers to understand how those workers can play their part in a point-based system and acquire rights to work under the points-based system. I do not think we will answer those questions over night, but I can sure my honourable friend that those conversations are now ongoing. Q20 Ms Buck: Two points on that. Firstly, could we have a clear timescale as to where that has all got to? Secondly, I am grateful to him for responding on the issue of the Bangladeshi workers, but have there been other representations elsewhere either from other groups or from other sectors of the economy? Mr Byrne: I will be happy to look into providing a timetable to the Committee. I have not personally received representations from other particular sectors, although, of course, I meet business representatives very often. My view is that this is another example of why an institution like the Migration Advisory Committee could be very effective in helping us brigade these different views from different sectors, process the best information that we have got available and reach a balanced view about how the points-based system should roll out, not just in low-skilled areas but also in medium and high-skilled areas too. I think at the moment business, in particular, can find dealing with the Home Office sometimes slightly problematic, and I think the more that we do to bring these kinds of decision-making processes out into the open, give them a proper structure, give them a proper focus, connect them to, for example, Sector Skills Councils, which are already growing up and down the country, the faster we will arrive at a better reflection of the British economy, frankly. Q21 Mrs Dean: Minister, is the Government concerned that it is not possible to restrict the migration of self-employed people within the EU, even on a transitional basis, and has the Government had discussions with EU partners on this matter? Mr Byrne: The Home Office is charged with not just implementing the scheme but also enforcing the scheme, and there are longstanding obligations to observe the rights of those who are self-sufficient or self-employed. Naturally I am concerned that we have the right regime for policing potential abuse of that particular field for employment, and so officials at the Home Office, and in particular at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, have been working quite closely over the last few months in order to construct an enforcement regime. I know the Committee will forgive me for not exposing too many details of that, but I have also had the chance to talk to my right honourable friend the Paymaster General about how we work very closely on this in the New Year. So, yes, it is an important part of the conversation that we have had with colleagues across government. Q22 Mrs Dean: Following on from that, could you tell us why so many applications from Bulgarians and Romanians for visas onto the ECAA scheme for self-employed business people have been rejected since 2005? Mr Byrne: If I may, I would like to do a more thorough piece of work to answer that question in detail. If I could drop the Committee a line, I would you be grateful. Q23 Mrs Dean: Would you be concerned that unsuccessful applicants during that period will now be able to come to the UK without restriction? Mr Byrne: I think my concerns are more general about how we enforce the new regulations that we are putting in place. Restrictions that we impose will not be for ever, they will only be for a period of time. We are committed to review their effectiveness after 12 months, but while those regulations are in place it is important that they are effectively policed, and that is why we thought the fixed penalty notice scheme was important, because very often that will be one of the fastest ways that we can punish people for breaking the rules, by stinging them in the pocket. There is an equivalent regime for employers who are not doing the requisite checks, and we have to just work very closely with colleagues in other parts of government to make sure there is the right regime in place to tackle any abuse of rights which are available under self-employed status. So my concern at this stage is more general and to make sure there is the right cross-government working, to coin a phrase. Q24 Mrs Dean: Will you be able to send us details of why so many have been refused? Mr Byrne: I will. Q25 Chairman: There is not a loop-hole here for one-legged tilers to come on a self-employed basis? Mr Byrne: While there is the possibility for people to come and work as self-employed, I think there is the potential for abuse, and, as for any other part of the enforcement regime, it is incumbent on the Home Office to make sure that robust preparations are in place, and that is what I am seeking to do with my colleague the Paymaster General. Q26 Gwyn Prosser: You have shown a reluctance to make estimates of future numbers of immigrants coming into this country. How confident are you about the numbers that have already come in from Eastern Europe, in particular taking into account the self-employed and those who are unregistered? Mr Byrne: The information that we have available is provided by ONS in particular, and there are three or four categories of data that the ONS provide which shed a little bit of light on this question. For example, if we look at the number of visitors, in 2005 about 5.8% of the 6.9 million visitors that we received to this country were from Eastern Europe. Of those, about 76,000 were from A2 countries. Of the applications that we had for work permits in 2005, about 13% and a bit were from Eastern Europe, about 4,000 applicants for work permits in 2005 were from Bulgaria and Romania, so admittedly quite a low number, and ONS also provides information about settlement, where I think about 8.2% of grants for settlement that we made in 2005 were for people from Eastern Europe and, of those grants, 1,200 were migrants from Bulgaria and Romania, so, again, admittedly a low number, but ONS information is probably the best source of answers on this question. Q27 Gwyn Prosser: Does that information allow you to look at the number of unregistered workers who have come in from Eastern Europe as a whole? What figure have you got of that, or what estimate could you give of that? Mr Byrne: The information that we have available is the information from the Worker Registration Scheme. The issue with information provided by the Worker Registration Scheme is that, of course, it clocks people in but it does not clock people out necessarily; so what I do not think the Worker Registration Scheme information gives us is a sort of snapshot of precisely how many people from Eastern Europe who are coming to work have now left and how many are therefore still here. Q28 Gwyn Prosser: That does not cover the unregistered? Mr Byrne: It does not cover the unregistered; that is correct. I think that this whole question of how many people are here, how many people have left, just underlines this point of why we need to start putting in place systems to effectively count people in and count people out of the country. When you have got 100 million people moving in and out of Britain each year, that is not a small job but it is a job that I think we are going to need to start. Q29 Ms Clark: Could you outline for us what the main advantages have been of the recent migration from Eastern Europe? Mr Byrne: I think the principal advantages that we see are advantages for economic growth. The Treasury published some analysis pre-accession which showed that about ten to 15% of the economic trend rate of growth was down to migration. So we can see, in general terms, what the impact of immigration can be on an economy. As I mentioned, the Bank of England published research which showed that they felt that immigration from Eastern Europe in particular was having a positive impact on the inflation rate in this country, and we also know from the Worker Registration Scheme that there have been a number of people from the A8 counties who have chosen to work in public services, including the NHS and particularly in social care as well. Anyone who knows anything about those sectors will know that they are important occupations for the broader public health of the country and they are also areas where there have been labour shortages. So I think at a macro-economic level there is clearer and clearer evidence of the benefits of immigration, but also, at a more localised level, we see through the Work Permit Scheme evidence of where A8 nationals are making a positive contribution to our public services. Mr Steen: On a point of order, Chairman, I have been here since we started, as have many of my colleagues. You have had four questions from one of my colleagues, two questions here. Why are Conservative members being excluded from the questions? Chairman: What I am doing is allowing each member who has an allocated question to ask a supplementary question if they wish to do so. The only person who has had an additional supplementary question on an unallocated question is Mr Heathcoat-Amory. You, unfortunately, Mr Steen, did not come to the meeting in time for the allocation of questions. I regret that. I have already indicated to you that I am going to bring you in at a later question. There is nothing else happening other than members are following the questions that we agreed collectively at the beginning, and individual members may, if they wish, ask another supplementary question on the back of that. If you look through the record, you will find that is exactly what has happened. Whether it happens to be the case that there are more Labour members than Conservative members who have come to this session, which happens to be the case, is not in my hands. I suggest that we move on. Mr David, would you like to continue. Mr Steen: On a point of order, he has already asked two questions, why is be being given another two questions? Chairman: Because, Mr Steen, having interrupted in the way that you have, and you have been in this House somewhat longer than me and know that there are no points of order in select committees, I want to make sure that Mr David has completed his question. I will then move on. Q30 Mr David: Minister, following on from what you said previously about the economic advantages of migration, do you have some concerns that the restrictions placed on workers from Bulgaria and Romania will mean that certain skills gaps will not be filled and we will not have the kind of economic growth stimulation which we would always have had? Mr Byrne: I think that concern does exist, Chairman, and one of the reasons why the Government committed to review this question after 12 months is precisely because we were aware that the restrictions that we imposed may be too Draconian. It is also why we posited the idea that the Migration Advisory Committee could be an institution, if people thought it was a good idea, that could serve as well in making some of these assessments. We have between five and seven years to impose restrictions, but what we wanted to do is commit, and commit publicly to an early review in case we have got the decision wrong. Q31 Mr Clappison: You spoke in highly positive terms about the consequences of migration. Do you see any disadvantages? Mr Byrne: Some of the evidence that we collected over the course of the summer was brought together for us by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, and then, for the last six or seven weeks, I have made it my business to visit different parts of the country and, wherever I have gone, I have brought together a round table of people from local public services to talk precisely about this question of whether there is a commensurate impact on, for example, public services and whether there is any evidence of a displacement effect in the labour market. The most systematic analysis of that latter question (whether there has been a displacement in the labour market) has been undertaken by DWP in two reports in 2005 and 2006 and they were unable to find any negative consequences for the domestic labour market of A8 migration. On the question of impact on public services, however, there has been anecdotal information of specific and isolated pressures. For example, some local schools, we know, have struggled to cope through an influx of children from A8 families, we know that some local authorities in different parts of the country have reported pressures in overcrowding, typically of private housing. The National Health Service has not reported any negative impacts, but while that evidence exists, I think it is incumbent on the Government to understand it in a bit better detail. The Audit Commission, working together with colleagues at DCLG, is undertaking a more thorough and systematic analysis of this question, and I understand that some of their work will be published in the New Year. So there is evidence that there is some isolated specific evidence of pressures, but beyond that it has been difficult to pin down anything precise. Q32 Mr Clappison: You have spelt out your economic case for migration. You know that some of those studies are very hotly contested and there is a different economic point of view about the consequences of significant migration (people from low-income countries coming to a high income country prepared to work for a lower wage and the consequences of that in terms of economic growth for the work in the economy and also unemployment), but, putting those to one side, there are longer-term consequences as well for other things. You mentioned, very briefly, housing, which you have been thinking about quite recently on your own admission. Yesterday the Government produced this tome about how it was going to change the planning system to accommodate increased demand for housing. You must accept that migration on the scale which we have seen in recent years, certainly during the last ten years, makes a significant contribution to housing demand, housing growth and the need for new housing, particularly in London and the South East. Do you think about that in advance long before you take these policy decisions? Mr Byrne: Absolutely, and I have always been very clear that, in a world where migrants move faster than ministers, it is absolutely incumbent on the Government to understand whether public services are able to change and flex as far as communities can change. One of the reasons that we drafted very carefully paragraph 2.9 of our consultation document on the Migration Advisory Committee was that we wanted to pose the question about whether the Committee should develop a methodology to take into account the wider impacts of immigration, because I do not think it is credible and I do not think any Government of any shade, colour and opinion would build a positive case for immigration unless it is able to explain to the British public how the consequences of immigration in the round have been taken into account. I have not had the final word on this, but I think there is a case for taking into account those wider impacts of immigration. Genuinely, it is a difficult thing to do, it is a difficult analysis to conduct. You are quite right to say that there are differences of views, not just between parties but also inside parties, and I think that is why the consultation we have launched on the Migration Advisory Committee is so important, and I would urge you to look at it and respond. Q33 Mr Clappison: How much additional housing do you say is as a result of migration? What is the Government's figure? Just a short answer on this one, just the figure. Do you know it? Mr Byrne: Chairman, I will not pretend to speak with colleagues at the DCLG, but if it would be helpful I will be happy to solicit the answer from them for the Committee. Q34 Mr Clappison: You are the minister for immigration. Surely in taking into account immigration you should be thinking about the consequences in terms of housing? Mr Byrne: Absolutely. Q35 Mr Clappison: Do you know the figure? Mr Byrne: There is a short-term question here and a long-term question. Q36 Mr Clappison: Do you know the figure? Just tell us the figure. Mr Byrne: The short-term question is: what is the impact on public services? That is why, when we announced the decision that we did in the written ministerial statement on accession from Bulgaria and Romania, the Home Secretary made it clear that colleagues at DCLG were going to work with local authorities, who are often best placed to look at the evidence of specific pressures and to report back. In the long-term the answer has to be, in my view, to provide a way of taking into account the wider impacts of immigration. Q37 Mr Clappison: Can you tell what the figure is, please? Do you know it? Mr Byrne: No. I have made it very clear that the question of wider impacts on public services is something that colleagues in DCLG will look at over the next few months. Q38 Mr Clappison: Can I tell you what the figure is supplied by your own government? I find it surprising that you do not know it. It is that 65,000 additional households per year between 2003 and 2026 will be attributable to migration, and that is 31% of the total of household projections. Surely this is something you should be thinking about long in advance when you are taking policy decisions on migration, both in terms of Eastern European migration--- You are smiling, but you have spelled out the case and you do not even know what the figure is. Mr Byrne: I have been trying to underline how the approach to immigration decisions I think needs to change in the future, and I think there is a very good case for taking into account wider impacts on public services and other parts of the economy, but it is a question that we want to pose rather than answer. I would encourage you to look at the consultation we have launched on the Migration Advisory Committee. I think you would like it a lot. Q39 Mr Clappison: Can I wrap this up. My constituents are already living with the consequences of the decision which you have taken, because we are being told in your document here about how much extra housing we are going to have built in London and the South East, and you are taking decisions which are allowing, on your own admission, 600,000 people (I think it is) from the previous wave, and some more from this, and migration from other sources and you are not thinking about the consequences for housing. Mr Byrne: Chairman, I know that this is a debate this morning about the future rather than the past, but I have made it quite clear that I think the way that we make immigration decisions in the future does need to take into account wider policy ramifications, and that is why we have published the document that we have. Q40 Chairman: You have promised to write to us, Minister, specifically though on the question of immigration which is associated with Eastern European migration. Mr Byrne: Precisely. I have promised to solicit an answer from my colleagues in DCLG. Q41 Ms Buck: Almost certainly, I think, less than the growth in second-home ownership would be the answer to the housing question. As somebody who is broadly sympathetic to this agenda, I have to say, representing a Central London constituency, that we are not good and have never been good at both projecting and compensating swiftly for the consequences of population change on public services, and, although it is very hard, and quite frequently impossible, to unpick which particular strands the population change is responsible for changes in demand in services. For example, by a month ago I had over 100 secondary school children without a school place in the London Borough of Westminster. I am not suggesting that they have even anything to do with Eastern European migration, almost certainly they do not, but, nonetheless, that is an example of the way in which we are not responsive enough to the changes in pressure. Central London also has a very particular problem (and I think this is due to Eastern European migration) with street homelessness. I think the first question is: if it is impossible to project accurately a figure for Bulgarian and Romanian migration, how is it possible for our public services to plan for the delivery of services such as health, education and housing, and, if that is not possible, what on earth are they supposed do about it and what kind of negotiations are you having with other departments to enable them to make the best possible job of it? Mr Byrne: I think, Chairman, this is a question of extreme importance. When I have gone round the country talking to people from public services over the last two or three months, what they have asked us to think through more carefully is how we can provide the information that we do have more readily to local strategic partners so that they can plan and change services more effectively and faster. The Home Office is about to go into a period of negotiating public service agreements with the Treasury and different parts of Government. The other opportunity I think we have over the next two or three months, though, is, as part of those discussions, to develop in a far more sophisticated manner the way in which we use local area agreements to work together with local partners, and I give you an example of the kind of question that this might help with. When I was in Newcastle recently the leader of Newcastle City Council said, "We want to grow our population in Newcastle by 7% over the next ten years. As hard as we try, we will not hit that target by encouraging the good citizens of Newcastle to breed faster. We are going to have to rely to a degree on immigration. If we are making those kinds of changes to the local population base, then we know that there will be community cohesion issues which need managing. How can you, as IND, work with us constructively and with our local partners to help us manage some of those questions?" I do not think those questions are issues that can be addressed satisfactorily by negotiating interesting PSA targets in other parts of government; I think we have got to look much harder at how we use local area agreements to share the information that we do have. What I do not think that solves is your point about futurology, I think that question is always going to be difficult, but I think we can do a lot more to provide the information that we do have and, indeed, the information that DWP has about patterns of migration that we know about. Q42 Ms Buck: It does not solve the problem of futurology; it also does not wholly solve the problem of responsiveness. For example, in a situation of quite rapid population change such as we have in London, we are dealing with local government grant settlements that are based on a population that is two or three years out of date. Whilst the Area Agreement Framework may be good sense in terms of policy, surely we do have to do a great deal better in terms of allowing a funded responsiveness to those local authorities and other public services that are on the frontline. What representations have local government made to you about that and what negotiations are you having with other departments about that? Mr Byrne: Public spending is obviously a matter for the Chancellor, and you will forgive me for not encroaching on that. The conversations I have had with local authorities have really actually been about the way in which we can work together in the future. It is absolutely right to say that there are things that local authorities can learn from each other about how quickly they respond to these kinds of changes in their local communities, and actually one of the conclusions from the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit work over the summer was that some authorities were doing a pretty good job at changing public services in response in the right kind of timeframe, and part of the work that colleagues in DCLG will be doing, together with the Audit Commission, is looking at how those strategies can be shared more effectively. Q43 Ms Buck: Again, that is also fine. I suspect the authorities that are doing best are those that already have some spare capacity and the authorities that are struggling are those which have already got a very severe capacity constraint, such as in London. Let me come to one particular problem which is that of street homelessness, that has been a real challenge for central London. I wonder what negotiations you are having with other departments to make sure that local authorities that are having to deal with a rapid increase in street homelessness are not losing out financially as a consequence. Mr Byrne: We are supporting discussions which are being taken forward by colleagues in DCLG simply because we think it is local authorities who are in pole position to understand these matters and understand how they can be responded to most effectively. DCLG colleagues are in the lead on this, we are adding our thoughts into it. Q44 Chairman: Minister, perhaps you could give us another note from the DCLG on that. Mr Byrne: I will do that. Gosh, their workload is piling up. Q45 Chairman: Minister, if we can move on looking again at the background information that has led to your decision on Bulgaria and Romania. The written ministerial statement from the Home Secretary states that studies have found no evidence that migrant workers have undercut wages, yet you yourself this morning have pointed to Treasury studies that have shown that inflation has been lower because of Eastern European migration. The main reason, in fact the only significant reason, that inflation is lower is because wage levels have been held down by the Eastern European migration. By how much are wages in this country lower than they would have been without the A8 migration? Mr Byrne: That would be a question which could be answered better by DWP and Treasury and I will be happy to solicit that from them. I think the point that the Bank makes is that, just to delineate two things, wage growth and, therefore, inflation is what is being helped by migration rather than, as you put it in your question, wage levels actually being lowered. I think focusing on the growth is important. If I may, I will also appraise the work that the DWP have done when I respond because, as I said, they have undertaken two studies, which I think you, Chairman, know about, which have also looked at this related question of displacement of the local labour market which I think is also germane to the thrust of your question. Q46 Chairman: Would you accept that there are sectors of the economy not covered by the Labour Force Survey and not covered by the registration scheme, particularly, for example, self-employment in construction and large areas of agency work where there is at least anecdotal evidence that there have been actual falls in the pay of some people working in those areas, even if that is not the general experience in most of the sectors of the economy? Mr Byrne: There has been anecdotal information that has been provided to us, not least from Southampton, but the difficulty that the Prime Minister's strategy unit had over the summer when they looked at this question was pinning down a detailed analysis and an evidence base which was very, very difficult and that was a big factor. The difficulty in assembling that evidence base was a factor in our decision to say, "We should only be opening our labour market gradually". There is anecdotal information which is coming to us from the labour market, there is anecdotal information coming to us from public services, we have to understand that information better and satisfy ourselves that the right remedies and policies are in place to take account of them, if they are true, before we take any other peak steps in immigration. Again, part of the decision for taking a gradual approach to opening our labour markets in Bulgaria and Romania was precisely because we felt that it was right to take the time to understand precisely the kind of concerns that you are outlining in a lot more detail. Q47 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Minister, you say that you are taking into account the wider impacts of immigration. Do you also take into account the fact that you cannot control the numbers of people coming from Bulgaria and Romania who will be using services like health, education and housing because under the regulation which I alluded to earlier, which was passed by the House in April, they get an unrestricted right of residence here. I am puzzled about how you are going to control this wider impact even if it is your policy to do so. Mr Byrne: Again, I do not think this is a new issue. The principle of non-discrimination in providing access to social assistance was something that I think was in the 1957 Treaty and enshrined when the Heath Government took us into the EU in the early 1970s. I think that some of the principles were recently codified in the Free Movement Directive which was passed by negative resolution without being prayed against by either party. The deal that we did in 1973 therefore does provide people who are coming to this country and if they are accessing work are entitled to receive in-work benefits. The evidence that we have from the workers' registration scheme is that people applying for in-work benefits has been quite low, but in a way I am slightly surprised at the question because this is not a new issue, this is a deal that we signed up to in the early 1970s. Q48 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: It is a new issue because these regulations do go substantially beyond the freedom of movement which was implicit in the original Treaty of Rome. These regulations give very specific rights of residence and there has been a succession of parliamentary written questions since then, and I have one with me on health which shows that right of residence automatically gives right to free hospital and GP treatment. The same is true of education and a range of benefits, though not all of them. You are trying to restrict immigration from Bulgaria and Romania by the sole device of trying to get the law abiding workers to register under your scheme. You have no way of preventing them coming over here and legally living here, and then they will either work in the informal black economy, as happens all over Europe, and then they, their dependants, their partners and everybody else who they bring with them, all quite legally, will get automatically complete instant access to all of these other services, so how are you going to prevent this wider impact on immigration which you referred to earlier? Mr Byrne: The action that we can take is naturally constrained by the treaties that we have signed up to and which were incorporated into British law. These are not new issues, these are decisions which have been taken by governments of a different colour over two or three decades, and most recently we did incorporate the new regulations on free movement. As I say, they were passed by Parliament under the negative resolution procedure and they were not prayed against. It is an error to say that we are trying to manage migration in this way because ultimately people from Bulgaria and Romania do have the right of free movement into this country and that is a deal which we signed up to when we signed the Accession Treaty. As I say, what we can do is exercise our derogation in controlling access to the labour market. That does have knock-on implications for access to benefits and so, to give you an example, there are benefits which become available once people have been here for 12 months and under the low skill quota scheme that we are proposing for seasonal agricultural workers, the likelihood is that people will only come and work for six months because the quota is issued for six months, so people will not build up the rights to non-work benefits. Access to in-work benefits is something that is well established in this country. Q49 Mr Steen: I am glad to have the opportunity at last to ask you a question, although I was here right at the outset of your attendance. There is a real problem about the black economy which you have not mentioned understandably. I do not know if you know it takes two months for a European national to come into Britain to work and to get a National Insurance number. Until they get the National Insurance number they cannot be taxed or paid. A bank will not open an account without a home address in this country and they also want a bank statement with a home address in this country from the bank in the country where they lived previously, so they want a change of address from the bank in wherever it is to their home address in England. They cannot get a home address in England because they cannot have a bank account and they cannot get paid. As a result of that, there is a massive growth of the black economy. Because people cannot do things legally they do things illegally. I will pass over the housing issue for the moment as well. I believe this is widespread with the 600,000, but it is going to increase with the Romanians and Bulgarians coming in. How is England going to deal with this? I only spoke to the tax inspector yesterday who said it is up to two months, it can be longer, to get a National Insurance number, therefore people will not get paid legally. Mr Byrne: This issue of illegal working is very important and I think over the course of the next 12 months the Committee will see us put the question of illegal working far more central in our strategy for tackling the broader issue of illegal immigration. We already said a week or two ago that we will accelerate the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act which will allow us to bring in a civil penalty regime, which will make it easy for us to find employers who are breaking the rules and employing people illegally. It will also introduce a knowing offence which, if there is a criminal conviction, will expose the employer to unlimited fines and potential imprisonment. Against the backdrop of the implementation of those powers we have also said that we will double the resources for enforcement and removal over the next few years, that is potentially an extra £100 million a year. In the new year we will publish our enforcement strategy which will explain to the House precisely how we will put some of these things together with our exploitation of new tools, such as biometric identity cards. In answer to the precise question, this is something that has been put to me by a group, we have a group in the Home Office called the Illegal Working Stakeholder Group, it has got some great representatives from the business community on there, including Mark Boleat who speaks for a lot of operators in the agricultural sector, and at our last meeting this was an issue that was put to me and at the time I thought it sounded a pretty practical difficulty which we should try and solve. I committed to that group to have a look at this together with DWP colleagues to try and ---- Q50 Mr Steen: Help them with some specific information. Mr Byrne: Some practical remedies, yes, absolutely, I think it is a very good point. Chairman: Minister, thank you. I think we will need to move on. You have largely anticipated what was going to be the next question, so I will move to Nia Griffith. Q51 Nia Griffith: Minister, you remember back in 2004 that we were one of only three countries who opened our doors immediately, with the other states opting for a more transitional approach. There is a mechanism by which the UK could have asked the Commission for permission to suspend the right of freedom of movement of workers from A8 countries to the UK if, for example, there had been serious disturbances in the labour market and given that only three countries opened their doors and other countries chose not to, that may well have exacerbated our particular problems. Was any consideration ever given to using that mechanism? Mr Byrne: I do not know whether any explicit recognition was given at the time, I will certainly dig through the files to provide an answer to that. The briefing which I have been given on this question is that it is in urgent and exceptional cases that Member States can suspend Community law provisions and they then obviously have to notify the Commission as to why they are doing that. I understand that a good example of the kind of rationale which a country could use in order to take that step would be if there had been acute difficulties in a particular region or a particular occupation. I think on the basis of the evidence that we have got, and which I have talked about this morning, I am not sure if we would have been able to construct a robust enough argument to invoke those provisions. Q52 Nia Griffith: When you think about the difference between the estimates and the actual number of people who came, there might well have been good material there to invoke that. Mr Byrne: However, the evidence that we have got is that there have not been negative impacts on, for example, UK claimed account unemployment. The reports that DWP have provided show that there has not been a displacement effect on the local labour market either. Although the University College London, despite the check it got from the Home Office, did not get the projections quite right and the number has been significant over the last few years, I do not think today we have got the evidence to take a further step and say the impacts have been so negative that we want to present a case to the Commission to suspend the Community law. Q53 Nia Griffith: When we are considering the issue of Bulgaria and Romania, has there been any consideration given to using this mechanism if when they join the EU we suddenly find that there are much larger numbers coming over than perhaps had been anticipated, using that rather than singling out these two particular countries to be treated differently from the other eight? Mr Byrne: There has not been explicit consideration of that question because the evidence that we have got from the previous large scale movement has been that there have not been particularly negative consequences other than the anecdotal evidence which I talked about before. My judgment would be that we would find it difficult to make that case but it could be perhaps something that we reflect on when we construct our 12-month review a bit later down the line because what we have to look at is not just the numbers of people moving but the impact that they are having, whether it is positive or negative. Q54 Mrs Cryer: Minister, do you have any information on the impact on other EU countries of the restrictions that they imposed on entry post-2004? Mr Byrne: Chairman, we are not aware of any systematic study of the effectiveness of restrictions across the EU. It is the case that the European Commission published a report on the functioning of transition arrangements in 2003. Some members of the Committee will not be surprised to learn that the focus of that report was on making a positive case for free access and it therefore focused on the benefits of free movement rather than emphasising the difficulty in applying controls. That has been the only systematic study that officials have been able to dig out. Q55 Mrs Cryer: So we have no idea? Mr Byrne: We have not got a systematic study of the effectiveness and restrictions of other EU countries, no. Q56 Mrs Cryer: Have you any concerns about the restrictions that we are going to impose on Bulgaria and Romania and do you think it may just increase the number of people who are bogus self-employed migrants or undeclared workers who are coming here from Bulgaria and Romania? Mr Byrne: I think with any restrictive regime, de facto you create risks which you have to police and that is why we are very grateful for the co‑operation that the Bulgarian and Romanian Governments have given us in, for example, tackling organised crime. Some of the intelligence we have suggests that three‑quarters of illegal immigration into the UK is in the hands of organised criminals, therefore part of our preparations for accession have been through closer liaison with organised crime‑fighting authorities in Bulgaria and Romania so that we can understand these questions in a bit more detail. Any regime of restrictions creates the risk of abuse and we have to make sure that we have got the right preparations to police that in place, but when you have got a situation where pretty much all of the other big European economies are making the same kinds of decisions as us, that gives me some cause for comfort. Q57 Jim Dobbin: My question is about the cost of implementation of all of this. Could you tell the Committee what extra resources the Home Office is going to receive to make all of this happen? I will just mention three particular areas: for example, to process the applications for accession worker cards and registration certificates; to alert employers to the new arrangements; and to provide information to potential migrants in Bulgaria and Romania about the new arrangements to make all this work properly. Mr Byrne: Chairman, we cannot finalise the costs until we have got absolute certainty that our regulations will fall into place and so, subject to the debate this afternoon, if, as I hope, the regulations are approved that will put us in the position over the next couple of weeks to finalise those costs. We also have a number of parliamentary questions on this issue, so I can commit to come back to the Committee with the final costs once they are documented. Q58 Mrs Dean: Minister, following on from that, how will the new offences of taking employment without authority and employing workers without authorisation be enforced? Will you be employing more inspectors checking on workers and making sure they have got the correct paperwork? Mr Byrne: Yes, absolutely, that is exactly what we will be doing. As I said in response to an earlier question, over the course of the next year this whole question of tackling illegal working will move far closer to the centre of the stage for our strategy of tackling illegal immigration. I do think that we need a significant step‑up in the resources which we invest in enforcement and removal and we need a much sharper focus than we have today on illegal working in particular. The Home Secretary already announced a week or two ago that we want a significant increase in the number of frontline immigration staff to help us tackle this problem. In particular though, we will be strengthening our capacity in the field of intelligence‑gathering and we will propose some potentially quite helpful new powers in the Border and Immigration Bill in the new year, for example to access the kind of data we need in order to pin down where employers are breaking the rules, but we also want to strengthen our ability to analyse and assess that information. Some of the work we are doing jointly with the police is about how we can access a lot of the expertise that the police have built up in economic investigations over the last few years, so the Home Secretary has already announced that there will be a significant increase in frontline staff, something of the order of 800. A large number of those new staff will be investigators because when you are trying to go after dodgy employers you need to invest that bit more in pinning down who they are. I might just say that some of the evidence we have got from a pilot which we ran in our own region, the West Midlands, called the Joint Workforce Enforcement Pilot showed that where we found employers who were employing illegal immigrants, they were also breaking every other rule in the book as well, they were also breaking the national minimum wage regulation, and health and safety regulations and they were very often exploiting people who had come here in search of a better life. Part of what we are going to do next year is work far more closely with other agencies which are looking at this field of vulnerable worker protection so that our efforts can be co‑ordinated and made more effective. Q59 Mrs Dean: Will you be able to guarantee enforcement will begin on 1 January and, following from what you have just said, will you be working with employers to understand the rules and regulations regarding employing people who have originated from other countries, because sometimes there is a problem that they fit the rules differently than they are and say somebody cannot be working when they can, so there is a two‑way need for education of employers, I think? Mr Byrne: Yes, I have a great deal of sympathy for this because when I was in business I used to employ people from abroad and often found it difficult to understand their entitlement to work. We have made investment in helping employers understand their obligations. We have just recently written to about half a million businesses up and down the country reminding them of their obligations to check somebody's immigration status before they take them on and we are also strengthening the employers' helpdesk and helpline we provide for employers in January. We work quite closely with organisations like the CBI to help us get this right and yes, of course, we have got a number of operations which are planned from 1 January to send a very clear signal very quickly that we are going to take abuse of these rules seriously. Q60 Michael Connarty: I would like to turn to the question of duration of this decision. We have had a letter tabled from Daniela Andreescu, the Secretary of State for the Bulgarian Department of Labor Abroad, and also a paper from the Embassy of Romania and in both of these submissions there are questions about duration. There is, in fact, in the Romanian Embassy submission a question of whether what we are doing is challengeable, but they do stress that it appears not in an official agreement but in the statements of the Government that there would be a review after one year. Could you make it quite clear when the Government will revisit these restrictions and how long does the Home Office anticipate they will last? Mr Byrne: The regulations that we are tabling this afternoon are for a total period of five years and this reflects the fact that after two years we are required to notify the Commission if we are to maintain the restrictions and we are then allowed under Community rules to maintain them for a further three years. Although the regulations that we are proposing this afternoon are for a total of five years, Chairman, Mr Connarty is absolutely right to say when we made the announcement in the written ministerial statement earlier this year, we did commit to reviewing the arrangements within 12 months in case the regime that we were proposing was too conservative and our economy needed more migrant labour from Bulgaria and Romania to help this country grow. We have made that commitment and I am happy to reaffirm it this afternoon. I would add that we do see, potentially, a role for the Migration Advisory Committee in helping us understand this question and getting the decision right, but that is contingent on whether or not we get a positive response to the consultation paper that we put out - another plug for that - but personally I think it could help a lot. Q61 Michael Connarty: Perish the thought that this Government should be more conservative! The written ministerial statement also stated that: "before we take further steps, our plans for immigration reform should be further advanced", I was intrigued by that phrase. Could you explain why the Government's plans for immigration reform should be "further advanced" before restrictions are eased and what exactly is meant by this? Mr Byrne: I suppose it is a bit of a personal interest of mine. We do think that it is right for the Government to take a little bit more time to understand the transitional impacts on public services before we open the door more quickly. However, as Immigration Minister, I do have a personal interest in using that extra time to make sure that the enforcement regime we have in place to police the immigration rules is more robust than it is today. John Reid, the Home Secretary, my Rt Hon friend, has been very clear about what he thinks are the strengths and weaknesses of the immigration service and I think the one field in particular that needs to be strengthened is the field of enforcement and removal. That is exactly why in the IND review before the summer we said we want to double the resources for enforcement and removal. In the new year we will publish plans of how we are going to do that and also plans of how we are going to use ID cards and biometric identification to tackle illegal immigration and, again, before doors are widened any further I have a personal obligation to use that time to make sure the regime we have in place for tackling illegal immigration is as robust as possible and that is what that sentence alludes to. Q62 Michael Connarty: I was concerned that there seemed to be a lack of evidence‑based policy rather than just political‑based policy. Could you tell us what criteria will be used to decide to loosen or end the restrictions, in other words what are the targets that you have set against which we will judge them? What is the template or do you not have one? Mr Byrne: My own personal view is that template is something which should be developed by the Migration Advisory Committee because these are very complicated questions and, as Mr Clappison said, there are heated views on different sides of this argument. How you measure and quantify the impact on public services is enormously difficult and it is perhaps easier to understand the impact on economic growth. Rather than prescribe an answer today, what the Home Office has done has been very open and said, "Well, look, this is a difficult question. Do people think that a Migration Advisory Committee could answer this question more effectively than the Home Office and Liam Byrne on his own and, if the Migration Advisory Committee can play a role in answering this question, should it try and construct a methodology for taking these different things into account?" That is partly why I have an interest in getting the Migration Advisory Committee up and running before we get to this review which we committed to after 12 months. You are absolutely right, evidence in this field is difficult to document, that was one of the conclusions that the strategy came to when it looked at this question of impact over the summer and I think we need to take steps to strengthen the evidence base so we can have proper evidence-based policy-making. I nearly said "policy-based evidence-making" there, I caught myself just in time. Q63 Chairman: One of the developments that seems to have taken ministers a little by surprise was the number of A8 migrants who have been able to claim child tax benefits on behalf of children who are not resident in this country. To what extent would the number of similar benefit claims being made by Bulgarian and Romanian migrants be a factor in deciding the case on which we open our borders? Mr Byrne: We posed the question in our consultation on the Migration Advisory Committee about whether or not wider impacts should be taken into account and, I think it is in paragraph 1.7, we pose a sort of shortlist of what some of those impacts should be, such as fiscal impacts and impacts on public services. I think it is important that when respondents are answering the question, "Should there be a methodology for taking into account wider impacts?" that views like that are posed. Today I do not have a view on the precise nature of the wider impacts that should be taken into account, but I think it is important for Government to ask the question. It is a difficult question to answer, there will be different views. Getting a consensus on it I am sure will be quite difficult, so I can only confess to having taken the first step. Q64 Mr Clappison: The Migration Advisory Committee can only advise the Government within the ambit of our treaty commitments with the European Union. As you have said today, there are limits to what the Government can do to restrict access to the United Kingdom from the accession countries and for how long those can last. In the interest of having policy made well in advance on immigration, is the Government giving any thought to the immigration consequences of future accession to the European Union? I am thinking particularly of the case of Turkey because the UK is a supporter of Turkey becoming a full member, as I understand it, Turkey is a candidate country; other countries have different views and different emphases, we understand on this, Turkey is a country of 70 million people with low incomes. Is the Government thinking about the migration consequences of Turkey's admission to the UK when it is making policy? Mr Byrne: Of course. The Home Office is never shy about coming forward with its views about immigration consequences of any decision that the Government makes so, yes, as conversations across government take place over the next, it must be, five or six years, I suppose, about further accession, the Home Office will be making sure that immigration issues are part of that debate. Q65 Mr Clappison: As I understand it, the Government's policy is already in favour of Turkish membership and we are favourable to Turkey, so if you are having conversations, can you tell us, have you any view on migration from Turkey or if it is likely to take place? Mr Byrne: Sorry? Q66 Mr Clappison: Do you think there will be migration from Turkey in the event of Turkish accession to the European Union? Mr Byrne: I think any accession by new Member States brings different patterns of migration but this is not a short-term decision, it is not a decision that we are really locking down now, it is a decision that is subject to an enormous amount of discussion across Europe. As you say, different Member States have got lots of different views and as those debates proceed the Home Office will be making sure that immigration issues are part of those discussions. Mr Clappison, you will be delighted to hear that we will not be alone in making those contributions, I think a lot of other Member States will have concerns which are more acute. Q67 Mr Clappison: Our position is different from that of other countries and we have been an advocate. What I am asking you is if you have a view on how much migration there might be from Turkey in the event of Turkish accession? Have you got a view on that? How much might there be? Mr Byrne: I have already said that I think it would be very unwise to predict future patterns of migration from even A2 accession states. I am even less tempted to speculate on patterns of migration from Turkey if and when Turkey joins the EU in 2012 or 2013. Q68 Mr Clappison: Is it not difficult for you to have any input on the Government's policy-making on this when you do not know whether there will be any migration or not and you have not taken any steps to find out if there is going to be any? Mr Byrne: I think the Home Secretary's voice is always given due consideration when he contributes to these debates so, no, I do not think it will be difficult for the Home Office to argue its case. Q69 Chairman: Mr Clappison, I think the horse may not be dead, but it is very well flogged. I think you made the point and the Minister has had his chance to give the answer. Can I wrap up a couple of migration related questions. BBC Panorama recently reported in a show that it would be very easy for a non-EU national to gain access to the UK by obtaining documents posing as a citizen of a new EU Member State. At the same time the European Commission has expressed concerns about the quality of border controls in Romania and Bulgaria. With the accession coming into place next month, what is your assessment of the level of risk of non-EU nationals now being able to enter the EU, and in particular the UK, as a result of the change? Mr Byrne: My assessment is that there is a risk there which is still to be managed. As with all EU nationals, Romanians and Bulgarians will have to present a valid passport or ID card to gain entry to the UK. We promised and committed in the IND Review, which we published before the summer, to strengthen border control operations with a particular focus on increased detection of forged and counterfeit travel documentations. An important part of our preparations for accession has been the work that we have undertaken together with Bulgaria and Romania to strengthen the ability of their agencies to detect forged documents and the work, not just in our own country but also in our EU partners, includes work to analyse statistics on A2 document abuse so that we can build up a much fuller picture to inform the mitigating action that we take. The honest answer is that we think there is a risk still to be managed. We have recently agreed that Romanian border police will come to work with us in the UK to identify and train our own staff in what they know about forged documents, so it has been an important part of our preparations. Q70 Martin Salter: Minister, given the impacts on public services, the economy, wage rates and community cohesion, there are clearly sound reasons for your decision to restrict entry from Romania and Bulgaria. However, there was an awful lot of bigoted garbage written in sections of Her Majesty's press which sought to demonise people from these two countries as disease-ridden criminals. You will have read the response, and if you have not I suggest you do, from the Bulgarian and Romanian Embassies which highlights the fact that some tabloid journalists were attempting to bribe prostitutes from Romania to fly into Britain on 1 January 2007 so that they could run stories about this sex trade tidal wave that was about to sweep the nation. I have got two questions. Are any journalists likely to face prosecution for attempted people trafficking? If not, why not? Secondly, what is the true picture of organised crime in Bulgaria and Romania and did it have an impact on the decision that you made? Mr Byrne: I am very grateful for that because I had not picked that up in the press. Of course we will look at what evidence we can collate. Q71 Martin Salter: Minister, I will help you, it is the response to the joint inquiry by the Home Affairs and European Scrutiny Select Committees on migration issues relating to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU. I think it is a joint response from both embassies. Mr Byrne: We will look at that evidence with some interest. On the question of organised crime, the decision which that informed was the lobbying work that we did with the European Commission in order to press for benchmarks in reform of justice and home affairs areas in Bulgaria and Romania. In particular, we wanted to see progress on tackling organised crime and its influence in public life and in particular its impact on corruption. Understanding any pattern of crime is difficult to pin down but our assessment is that there are risks from organised crime in Bulgaria and Romania. My colleague, Vernon Coaker, at the Home Office has been helping chair a crime task force together with Metropolitan Police and others in order to make sure that the work which we have done with police agencies in Bulgaria and Romania is as robust as it can be. We are particularly grateful to SOCA for the work that it has done in Bulgaria and Romania making sure that there are preparations in place. I would echo again, I am very grateful to the Bulgarian and Romanian Governments for the depth and strength of co-operation that they have offered with SOCA and our other police agencies in helping make sure that we have got a robust enough picture of threat assessment and responses in place for organised crime. Q72 Mr Steen: I am most grateful, Chairman. As the Minister probably knows, there is going to be a major debate in the House next Wednesday on the human trafficking issue and Romania and Bulgaria will no doubt be mentioned. The only way to halt trafficking, would you agree, is to snuff out demand not just for sexual exploitation, domestic slavery, begging and stealing, but to halt demand from those living in the UK already. We are always looking at what might be happening coming in from Bulgaria and Romania and other EU countries but it is all demand driven and it is demand driven by UK nationals. I am wondering what the minister feels should be done, which is not being done at the moment, to ensure that when Romania and Bulgaria enter the EU they do not satisfy the demand even further and that we enforce new ways of stopping people coming into Britain to satisfy demand from the British. Mr Byrne: I think that is a good point. This is an area that my colleague, Vernon Coaker, leads on at the Home Office. I take your point about tackling demand and that is obviously an issue which is going to be of concern to the police, but in the context of this debate this morning what I would say to the Committee is that an important part of our preparation has been the joint work that SOCA has been able to do with Bulgaria and Romania in order to make sure that we are sharing intelligence about the picture of organised crime so that we can tackle interventions effectively. We have an operation called Operation Reflex in particular which has brought together a number of agencies here in the UK, including the immigration service as well as the police and others, in order to target people trafficking because it is a significant issue. Q73 Mr Steen: I would just like to corroborate what the Minister is saying. Having spent a morning with the Chief of Police in Romania, I would like to pay tribute to the arrangements between the Home Office and the Romanian police, they are very impressive indeed, and the way in which you are going to be profiling, fingerprinting, DNA testing and firearms profiling is marvellous with the Romanians, but a similar arrangement is not going on with the Bulgarians or with any of the other ten EU countries that have already entered. Whilst we are rightly concerned about Bulgaria and Romania and, having also spent an afternoon in a high‑security prison in Romania meeting some of the criminals who have been apprehended, it seems the problem is that when we are looking at those two countries and forgetting the existing countries, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and others where we do not have this excellent arrangement which we have set up with Romania, because of the press interest in that, that is where the other problems are emanating from and so long as the demand goes on in this country it will be pulled in from the other countries. Mr Byrne: The preparations that the police and SOCA have made are not driven by the intensity of press interest, they are driven by a threat assessment, and so where you see us put our chips on the board it is not based on what we see on the telly, but it is based on the threat assessment. Those threat assessments were the first bit of work that we asked colleagues to do before the summer. This point about EU‑wide co‑operation I think is absolutely vital and there are EU-wide proposals on sharing DNA information and other data which I think will go forward in the new year. I have certainly been very impressed, I suppose, with the common ground which I think there now is, particularly across the major EU countries, that this issue of better information-sharing is absolutely fundamental to very practical co‑operation, and the position of the British Government in these discussions has always been how do we get practical co‑operation. We are much more interested in driving through practical operations rather than any kind of esoteric new steps at the policy level. What we will see under the German Presidency is some renewed vigour behind the practical delivery of some of the ideas that we posited under the British Presidency and the global approach to migration. I very much hope data-sharing and particularly sharing information on DNA is an important part of that. Q74 Chairman: Minister, you bring us nicely to a whole set of issues that are right at the centre of the Home Affairs Select Committee's current inquiry into the EU's role in relation to all of these criminal justice and migration matters, and Mr Steen's question has shown how many complex issues are lying behind the decision that the Government has taken about the Bulgarian and Romanian accession. Could I thank you on behalf of both Committees for the time you have spent us with this morning and the way in which you have answered our questions and been willing to respond. Mr Byrne: Chairman, thank you.
|