Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR TREVOR
PHILLIPS
27 FEBRUARY 2008
Q1 Chair: Good to see you again, Mr Phillips.
This inquiry is about community cohesion and migration, and you
are the first of this afternoon's witnesses, so if I could start?
We also have a pretty tight timetable, so we will try and keep
our questions brief, and we would like the answers brief as well
and to the point. Can I start by asking you from the point of
view of your organisation what actions you think you should be
taking to promote good relations between migrants and the host
community?
Mr Phillips: First of all, thank
you, Chair, for inviting me. I think the most important thing
is to ensure that we understand exactly what is going on, and
that we essentially regard migration and integration as two sides
of the same process. There are many arguments about size and scale
and all the rest of it about migration which you may want to get
into, but essentially, we think that the first point is that we
can manage most migration. We think that most migration now is
broadly speaking benign, because it is economic. Humanitarian
migration is actually quite a small part of the flow, but in itself,
we think that this is part of the British tradition and so on.
So essentially, I suppose the answer to your question is that
what we think we need to do is make sure we have a properly structured
integration programme, that we do this explicitly, that we manage
it alongside our migration programme, and most of all that we
manage our integration programmes with regard to the kind of migration
that is taking place today. If I may just say one other sentence
about this, there is a great deal of confusion, I think, amongst
people about the nature of migration. Historically in this country
we have had migration which is essentially post-colonial, which
comes in rather discrete waves, like the one of which my parents
were a part, from the Caribbean, or from South Asia. Today, we
face a completely different sort of migration, many different
groups of people coming at the same time, principally coming for
work, not necessarily having had a previous connection with the
UK, not necessarily speaking English, and by the way not necessarily
wanting to stay here for good. This is a rather different proposition,
both on the migration and on the integration front.
Q2 Sir Paul Beresford: Trevor, you
have been talking about immigration. Migration is two-way, it
is emigration as well, and there is a lot of information in the
newspapers at the moment about emigration of educated professionals,
plumbers, builders and so forth, not necessarily white, but predominantly
white, out of this country to Australia, New Zealand, United States,
Canada, et cetera, and that presumably is having an effect,
perhaps positively, drawing Polish people here and others, but
do you think it is having an effect? What effect do you think
it is having? Is it important?
Mr Phillips: The first thing to
say, it is not new. Historically, until about 40 years ago, this
was a country of emigration, as you know. Where did all those
people in New Zealand and the new people in Australia come from?
So this is not a particularly new phenomenon to this country.
Do I think it is having an effect? I do not think it is one that
is specifically of significance for public policy. There is, I
guess, an argument that says the more churn—that is to say
both in and out—there is, the more communities change, and
at the heart of the discussion I think that you are having is
the issue of change and the significance to communities. I think
in that respect there is significance to it, but I think the truth
of the matter is that if we are thinking about the change that
is politically and socially significant in this country, it is
largely to do with who comes rather than who goes.
Q3 Sir Paul Beresford: Just a quick
follow-up: not today, but I would quite like you to have a little
think about it and look at the figures, because the other difficulty
we have which you have not touched upon is those people who are
leaving are migrants but they are trained professional people
predominantly, and we are losing a group of key people to the
development of this country.
Mr Phillips: But we are also,
as you will know, gaining a great many people who are skilled.
In fact, the entire purpose of the points system just introduced
by the Government is precisely to raise the bar on entry, so I
think in practice I would be surprised if there were a net loss
of skills that are economically valuable to us, and bear in mind
modern migration is really more economic in character than anything
else. So what we are, as it were, sucking in, are people with
skills that the economy as we currently have it in this country
needs.
Q4 Mr Betts: Before I ask the question,
can I just apologise for having to leave the Committee for a temporary
period shortly after your answer. It will not be due to anything
you have said, just to reassure you.
Mr Phillips: It usually is, so
it is all right, I do not mind.
Q5 Mr Betts: When the Commission
on Integration and Cohesion made its recommendations, we had a
pretty detailed response from the Secretary of State indicating
what the Government would do about those recommendations. Were
you content with the Government's response and do you believe
it is actually going to deliver on it?
Mr Phillips: Well, those are two
quite different questions. First of all, the way that I saw the
Commission's report, there were really three key things that I
think are important. One is the extent to which they drew attention
to the most significant issue for community cohesion, and that
is change. It is not just the fact that different people live
together, but they specifically pointed out that the local circumstances
are critical, and they identified three kinds of areas in which
there were risks, as it were, in relation to community cohesion.
The first group is those in outer London and rural areas which
are experiencing migration in large numbers for the first time,
and all areas where there are new kinds of migrant, Portuguese,
Poles and so forth. Secondly, they drew attention importantly
to the issue of fairness and the perception of fairness and that
being critical to community cohesion. If people think new migrants
or new residents are being treated in some way more favourably
than they should be, then that becomes an issue, and indeed if
those who come in feel they are being treated unfairly, that creates
an issue of community cohesion. Thirdly, I think their solution,
"Shared futures", was the right answer. I think
there were three things missing in the Government's response,
which broadly speaking I thought was fine. Now whether they can
deliver on all of it, I do not know, though I think actually the
character of the Government's response was modest to a degree
that suggests that they ought to be able to deliver on it, but
I think there are three things that perhaps they ought to have
paid attention to. One is measurement. How do we measure what
is going on? They put a lot of store by the citizenship survey
which is based on perceptions, and indeed they are allocating
funds, you will see in their response, on the basis of what people
say they think about their area. The more people say that they
think that their area is fine, the less money they are likely
to get.
Q6 Chair: Can I just clarify, you
are not at this point talking about numbers here, you are talking
about the way in which you assess whether there is good community
cohesion or not?
Mr Phillips: Correct. What the
Government's response says is that they are going to hand out—well,
the total is £50 million, but I think the first tranche is
£38.5 million or something of that sort—the way they
are distributing funds is based on the percentage of people who
say, "People get on well in my area". The more people
say that, the less they are deemed to be of concern. I have some
anxieties about this. I think it is quite possible and quite likely
that people in a monocultural area, or in an area where different
groups of people never mix, are likely to say, "It is all
fine here". There is a well established school of thought,
started by Chicago academics in the early 1920s, which has a model
for immigration which suggests that actually, the point at which
people get anxious is the point at which true integration begins,
because that is when people actually start to meet each other,
and there is a little hump there that people have to get over.
So I have some anxiety about the issue of measurement. Secondly,
I think that both the original report and the Government's response
have not quite dealt with what is a very real phenomenon in this
country, and that is potential conflict and actual conflict between
new migrants and last wave migrants. We are thinking Sikhs and
Somalis, Iraqis and Kurds, Indians and East Europeans and you
hear it in all sorts of places, because the new migrants move
in adjacent to the last wave, because these are the natural gateways,
harbours, ports and so forth, and you hear it from the last wave,
"We worked hard, they do not", so I think this is a
phenomenon to which we have not really paid enough attention.
The third point I just wanted to drop into the discussion is to
return to my point earlier that migration now is largely an economic
phenomenon. That means that it follows the course to parts of
the country which are economically booming, and that is why, of
course, we have issues in London and the South East, issues which
are to do with infrastructure pressure and so forth. I wonder
if there should not have been a case for a more active consideration
of regional policy of the kind that we are seeing in Canada and
Australia, as part of both economic policy but also part of an
effort to ensure that conditions are more favourable towards community
cohesion and integration.
Q7 Mr Olner: I just get the view,
Trevor, that there is a world of difference between the perception
of the problem and the reality of the problem, and even during
your answer to my colleague, you kept using the words migration
and immigration. There is a huge difference, as you suggest, between
migration and immigration. I just wonder how fully understood
that is out there in the general public, and with the authorities
as well.
Mr Phillips: Well, yes. I think
one could get very technical about this, I agree, but I have to
say that I myself tend to use the word migration now because I
think it is a more neutral way of describing what is essentially,
as I said, an economic phenomenon. I think that the word immigration
for the last 40 years has, for reasons which are obvious if one
remembers what happened at the beginning of that period, acquired
a set of connotations which make it all about race, all about
difference, when it does not need to be. So I think you are right,
there is a sort of difference here, but I myself tend to try to
use the word migration now purely because I think it is better
for people to be able to talk about this issue without it being
overladen with racial overtones which, if they were ever legitimate,
are clearly almost irrelevant today.
Chair: Can we try and drill down on a
few specific questions? Andrew, do you want to raise one about
the Commission on Integration and Cohesion?
Mr George: Yes, I wonder if I might just
ask it as a lead-up, whether from your wealth of experience you
could perhaps guide me at least, for a community dealing with
the issues of known and existing prejudices which exist in the
community, whether it is better for a community to respond to
those in a positive way through a celebration of diversity, through
the recognition of the enrichment which migration brings, rather
than through being more kind of critical and accusatory and trying
to point out where the racism and the prejudice exists. In terms
of the balance of how to address the existence of prejudice in
the community, how do you get the balance right, because presumably
one involves one being associated with the thought police and
the other—
Q8 Chair: Can we try and keep this
brief, Andrew?
Mr Phillips: I see where you are
trying to go here. Forgive me, I do not really agree with the
premise of your question. I think it is perfectly reasonable for
people to say, "I want to get to know my neighbour, he is
very different to me, I like their children", and so on,
and at the same time be in some cases extremely angry about what
other people might say about their neighbour. In fact, I think
the truth of the matter is the more people get to know each other
across the lines of ethnic and religious difference, the less
those things become significant, unless they are drawn attention
to in a negative way by somebody else, in which case, what tends
to happen actually is that people get very angry about it and
say, "How dare you say that about my friend?" I think
for matters of public policy, the fundamental point is this: first
of all, everybody should be equally protected by the law, that
we should identify bias, discrimination and racism where we see
it; that the way in which we can best deal with the problem that
you identified actually between people is by putting people in
a situation where they get to know each other as people, as mothers
at the school gate, as fellow workers, as fellow students. That
is, in my book, the real underlying meaning of the word integration.
Q9 Mr George: At a national and practical
level, the Commission on Integration and Cohesion recommended
the establishment of a national body and yet you indicated that
your Commission responded with caution to that. Why are you so
cautious?
Mr Phillips: Because I do not
think we are there yet. I think we first have to get some of the
basics right. We first have to understand what is the problem
that we have to address, and we can talk about it in general terms,
but I would like to see some more specific measures being set
down; secondly, I think we need to have some common understanding
of what is our strategy for dealing with it, and for my money,
at the heart of the strategy has to be an effort to get people
not just to live side by side, but to interact in their real lives,
and their real everyday lives. Thirdly, I think we need to focus
on making sure that the levers that we have available to public
policy, that is to say the control that we might have over public
authorities and so on, to make those public authorities behave
in a way that ensures that people feel they are treated equally
and encourages people to get together. After we have done all
of that, then I think we can start thinking about whether we need
a single central body to bring it together. So I am not against
it, but I just do not think we are at that stage yet.
Q10 Anne Main: You will probably
have some very brief answers to this. I agree with Darra Singh
saying that one of the barriers to integration is not being able
to speak the language, it is also a big drain on local schools
and resources, not being able to communicate with their peers
and with their friends. Would you agree with that, and also, would
you like to give us your views on the change to funding with regard
to language courses, and also your views briefly on translation
services that are provided by councils which some say maintain
a dependency and do not encourage people to speak English?
Mr Phillips: Well, the answers,
as you asked for them briefly, are yes; yes, I agree with the
Government's policy; and no, I think translation services are
really a transition service.
Q11 Anne Main: Thank you. What about
funding to do with the language courses?
Mr Phillips: Well, that is what
I meant when I said I agree with what the Government is proposing,
that is to say, to move the emphasis and the weight of funding
towards people who need English because they are going to be settling
here long-term. I think for those who are coming to work, and
who are here short-term, actually, to be perfectly honest, they
can help themselves or their employers ought to help them.
Chair: Greg, do you want to move on to
social housing?
Q12 Mr Hands: Trevor, what are you hoping
to achieve with your inquiry on social housing allocations? What
do you perceive as being the risks in the report and what kind
of reactions might it set off, and do you think there are areas
where migrants are getting priority?
Mr Phillips: Well, let me first
say this as a matter of principle: I do not think there are ever
any risks associated with telling the truth, simple and straightforward.
What do we hope to achieve: well, the background is, of course,
that we know that there are many, many areas in this country where
it is said that somebody says that migrants get public services
unfairly or ahead of people who are entitled because they have
been paying their National Insurance stamp and so on and so forth.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the so-called—let
me be neutral—than in the arena of social and public housing,
where it is said quite widely and believed quite widely that new
migrants somehow "jump the queue". My view about this
is that there has never been any serious evidence produced to
show that this is true. Any time you ask somebody, it usually
comes down to "a bloke who said it to my friend in the pub".
My view about this is that, you know, I can be as cynical as I
like about it, but there are millions of people out there who
believe it. The job of my Commission is to be an independent authority,
to provide independent evidence on these matters, and the reason
that we put forward the idea of an inquiry into this is simply
to see, is there any truth in it? If it turned out that there
is some truth in it, actually, we are the right people to do the
inquiry, because we are the people who have the power to stop
that sort of discriminatory allocation taking place, so it seems
to me that the steps are pretty straightforward: we find out if
there is something wrong, unlawful, unfair going on. If there
is not, we tell everybody, and everybody can shut up about it.
If there is, we will stop it.
Q13 Mr Hands: It sounds like you
are going to be finding that there is no jumping of the queue.
Mr Phillips: Do not presume that
at all.
Q14 Mr Hands: It sounds like that
is your own opinion.
Mr Phillips: No. I thought I was
quite careful to say that I had never seen any evidence, but that
does not mean that there is not any evidence. I am a chemist.
Q15 Mr Hands: Fair enough. Is there
a question though as to whether there should be? If there is an
argument that there is no jumping of the queue, what about those
who make the argument that there should be priority and preference
to those who have been locally resident for longer, which I think
is a slightly separate question, but is your inquiry looking into
that as well, like local letting schemes and things like that?
Mr Phillips: I think it is a perfectly
reasonable question to ask. What we are probably going to do is
do a phase two of this exercise, because that will take longer,
but I think the question in principle that you are asking is:
is it ever legitimate to favour those who have, on the face of
it, some prior claim, some prior entitlement, because of longer
residence? Well, I think the answer is that in principle, there
must be a case for that. However, I think fundamentally, what
this is really about is transparency. I do not think anybody would
argue if, for example, a local authority argued it out, put it
to a vote and said, "These people get preference, and that
is the way the system works", whether it is newcomers because
they have bigger needs, or people who have been there for a longer
time because they have a historic entitlement. You could make
that decision either way, it is a political decision. From our
point of view, we are not a political organisation, we are an
NDPB, so we do not have a view about that. What we do have a view
about is that whatever is done must be transparent, it must be
decided legitimately, and those who pay for those services must
know what has happened, so that involves a properly set-out, articulated
policy, a decision on that policy, and transparent monitoring
of that policy. At the present time, we are not convinced that
any of those things is happening.
Anne Main: Can I just ask a very brief
supplementary to that? Given that many of the people who present
to a local authority will have a high need and be homeless, do
you think that having a large number of homeless people in an
authority's area will give that perception to those people?
Chair: That would be getting back into
a discussion about housing allocation policy.
Anne Main: I am just asking about the
remit that you have because I am conscious that you are taking
it on board that a housing authority has an obligation to house
homeless people, and that can sometimes make people feel, who
are waiting patiently on a list, unfairly treated.
Q16 Chair: Trevor, can I come on
to that in the context of the discussion about housing allocations
policies?
Mr Phillips: I can answer that
in a sentence. Hypothetically, that is entirely true, but there
is no actual suggestion that there is any correlation between
the anxiety that people feel and, for example, the numbers of
homeless people on the local housing roll. If you compare Barking
and Dagenham with Westminster, I do not see that issue becoming
a major political question in Westminster, it is in Barking, and
the homelessness roll in Westminster historically is many times
what it is in Barking.
Q17 Dr Pugh: Can I take you back
to some of the earlier remarks you made on the trade-off between
addressing inequalities and working towards community cohesion?
It seems to me to be a kind of no win situation. Either a migrant
community is worse off, with poor jobs, low pay and poor housing,
and then there is no resentment, unless they are competing for
jobs that other people want; or alternatively, they are perceived
to be better off, and have a better deal on housing benefit and
other things. Very rarely is it the case that you get the appearance
of absolute equality, so in a sense, it is almost an impossible
mission you have, both to satisfy ambitions apropos community
cohesion and also with regard to inequality, is it not?
Mr Phillips: Forgive me, I am
not sure I completely understand the question, because I do not
think that there is any particular reason or any history, that
people just do not—not that this is anything particularly
to do with migrants—people do not just dislike people because
they are poor or homeless.
Q18 Dr Pugh: That was not my point.
My point was that when the migrant community arrives, and they
are clearly seen to be doing the worst jobs, getting the lowest
pay and the poorest housing, there is, generally speaking, a degree
of community tolerance and maybe community cohesion. If on the
other hand the reverse is the case, the situation becomes more
difficult and more socially problematic, and therefore, getting
the community cohesion and getting the equality are sometimes
seen to be crossgrained.
Mr Phillips: I see. Yes, but I
do not think that is anything like the situation at the moment.
I mean, most of the newest migrants into this country over the
past four or five years are people who come and work. I cannot
remember right now the actual number of, for example, people from
Eastern Europe who are claiming benefit, but it is absolutely
tiny.
Q19 Dr Pugh: But the vast bulk of
people who are working in the migrant community at the moment
are doing jobs that other people are not sufficiently attracted
to, are lower paid than other jobs, are living in more crowded
conditions, and were that not the case, you could argue—
Mr Phillips: Oh, I see.
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