Migration

Debate between Dan Carden and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policies on migration.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this area of policy, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time and granting this debate. Few policy areas generate as much unwanted noise as migration, and my aim in securing this debate is to have a reasonable, rational, evidence-informed discussion on the impact of the Government’s migration policies. Those policies are also looked at individually, whether that is Brexit and the impact of the end of freedom of movement, asylum, or other areas of immigration. I am grateful to the Father of the House and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for co-sponsoring this debate. They both bring considerable expertise to this area, and I am looking forward to their contributions.

We are living in a world that is characterised by increased, near-constant movement. Goods, capital and services are increasingly unburdened by borders. One central pillar of the globalisation that we have been living through over the past 40 years or so is that human beings have to some extent also become units that can be moved around the world to enable profit. For decades, cheap labour and trained labour has been used here to lower costs and keep things going, and while we withdrew almost entirely from vocational training, we have seen increased immigration. For many working-class communities, their experience of immigration has been a form of wage suppression.

This is one of the most complex areas of policy that we encounter, cutting across several Departments and dividing public opinion. Specifically, we must begin to take a more focused look at the evidence of policy impact. Why has net migration hit a record high, and what will its impact be? According to the Office for National Statistics, net migration stood at 606,000 people in 2022, with 1.2 million people arriving. Of that number, 925,000 were non-EU nationals. Those numbers include refugees under the respective Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, but that growth has slowed over the past few quarters as the impact of those two schemes decreased. Despite that record number, the Government continue to say that net migration will decrease. That is what successive Conservative Governments have said since 2010, but despite such promises, no decrease has ever been achieved. That huge gap between rhetoric and reality is borne out by the figures. Net migration stood at 256,000 in 2010, and is now 606,000. That is the reality of the situation.

The Minister will stand up and try to say that the Labour party voted against all the Bills that claim to address those increases, but the reality is that none of that legislation has achieved the Government’s stated aims. Net migration has increased, small boat crossings have increased, and the asylum backlog has increased, and all that is because the increased movement of people, and increased migration, is a reality of the modern world.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the increase in boat crossings, but overall the number of people coming over the channel, not just in boats but in trucks and through other irregular forms, has actually decreased over time, has it not? The problem, partly, is that other regular forms of entry into this country are being tightened and people are prevented from them, which forces many people into dangerous forms of migration.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point and share his view on the need for legal and safe crossing routes to this country. I look forward to hearing other contributions on that point.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are displaced from their homes because of climate, poverty, famine, drought and conflict. Many more seek a better life as economic migrants. We must acknowledge that reality and engage with communities here at home that have understandable concerns about the effects of that increase on their ability to buy a house and access health and education services as well as what those increases mean for the public purse.

It is impossible to understand the ruptures in our politics over the last decade without thinking seriously about immigration as a social, political and economic issue. One of the biggest causes of the Brexit vote was a response in many working-class committees to being told that nothing could be done about the forces of globalisation. The mass migration of people around the world will continue, but our immigration system can be managed more effectively, can be more efficient and can be more humane. I believe that our politics needs to put more emphasis on addressing the root cause of some of the concerns that people have about the impact of immigration on suppressing wages and placing pressure on housing stock in local communities, if we are to continue to live in the open, tolerant society that we all wish to have.

There are some areas that we can address to improve the migration system for all involved. I want to use my time to discuss three such areas: visa costs, labour shortages and backlogs at the Home Office. On visa costs, the total minimum cost of the current 10-year settlement route for an adult with indefinite leave to remain stands at £12,836.50. For families, that is extortionate, with fees paid for each individual, including children. Those punishingly high fees force many applicants into debt. While there is a clear need for the visa system to pay for itself, in some cases the cost of visas stands many times higher than the administrative costs of processing them. To take one example, the fee for in- country naturalisation stands at £1,330, yet Home Office figures show that the unit cost for facilitating naturalisation stands at just £372. While those eligible to apply for a fee waiver may do so, applicants cannot apply for a fee waiver for indefinite leave. That makes little sense, especially for those who come to work in our NHS or social care. I would appreciate the Minister’s views on that. Will he look at giving them the opportunity to apply for a fee waiver? The substantial visa cost does not include ancillary costs such as legal advice, translation services and the enrolment of biometric data.

Further, it is not just the substantial financial cost that presents a challenge. Repeat applications, which take an increasingly long time, must be made. Such applications are not subject to a service standard, and applicants are also subject to a default “no recourse to public funds” condition. That has an obvious detrimental impact on applicants, causing them stress and placing them in a form of bureaucratic purgatory. Surely it does not have to be this way.

A joint report by Praxis, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, which are all organisations that do hugely valuable work in this area, highlights that if applicants had the option to apply for longer blocks of leave—for example, five years instead of two-and-a-half years—applicants’ stress and anxiety and Home Office caseworkers’ workloads would decrease. That would go a considerable way towards guaranteeing security for those who may have already lived and worked in the UK for a long period of time.

On costs, the Home Office could cap them at the administrative cost only, or grant an automatic fee waiver to those who have had their “no recourse to public funds” condition lifted. These are all little measures that could make a big difference.

I have heard the Immigration Minister say in this House on several occasions that the UK visa service is now meeting or exceeding every one of its service standards, but that means nothing if, as we currently see, many applications are not subject to those service standards. Will the Minister commit to introducing a service standard for all applications to improve performance? Will he also indicate what recent steps his Department has taken to simplify the visa application system and lessen the administrative burden on both applicants and caseworkers? It is clear that there is so much to be done in this area.

Labour shortages in areas such as health, social care and hospitality can only be described as hellish across the UK. Sector after sector tell us that they need more access to skilled staff and they simply do not have that access at the moment. The impact of the shortages is obvious. They act as a drag on our whole economy, holding back prosperity and reducing the quality of life for people across the country. Shortages affect productivity and public services and neither can be improved if we do not fill vacancies. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation estimates that, if labour shortages are not addressed, they will cost the UK economy a staggering £39 billion a year. That is a catastrophe and the Government must not allow their rhetoric on reducing net migration to act as a barrier in addressing that huge fiscal black hole.

Increasing access to skills training and education will go some way over the years to improving labour shortages, but we must also look to migration. Employers have long decried the onerous, bureaucratic and time-consuming nature of recruiting staff from abroad. While employers should make every effort to recruit locally, the Government should not act as a roadblock, stopping local businesses such as restaurants and other businesses across the hospitality sector, the NHS or social care from recruiting the staff they need from further afield.

Local businesses tell me of their frustration. They do not understand why, after Brexit, after leaving the EU and the end of freedom of movement, now we are in control of our own borders, we are not using that control to allow UK businesses to recruit to prosper and grow. It is clearly in the public interest to have a thriving visitor economy. For Liverpool, it makes up more than 50% of our economy. It is a matter of life and death that we have a properly staffed national health service and address shortages in social care. As it stands, the Government are sticking to their line that they must keep net migration down, but I think they should shift to look at how we can use migration policy to address the labour shortages. Many measures have been introduced in the form of a temporary exception to the skilled worker criteria under the points-based system and the introduction of a specific visa for seasonal agricultural workers, but workforce challenges are clearly not being solved. The Government must go further. I am aware that the Migration Advisory Committee recently launched a call for evidence on reform of the shortage occupation list. I urge the Government to heed its calls when they arrive.

Finally on labour shortages, why have the Government not moved to allow asylum seekers the right to work? There is support from both sides of the House for this policy change. Refugee Action highlights that the ban currently costs the public purse around £500 million a year. All available evidence, including the Home Office’s own leaked report from September 2020, refutes the Government’s argument that enabling asylum seekers to work is a pull factor. I have met many people residing in my constituency seeking asylum who also want to contribute to their new communities and are desperate for the right to work and to earn a living.

All these issues are made much worse by delays in the Home Office’s decision making. My caseworkers frequently encounter cases with almost indeterminate delay. Although they try to make progress through the UK Visas and Immigration hotline, often responses are non-specific, unhelpful and sometimes contradictory.

To give just one example, one of my constituents applied for asylum in January 2019. She completed her interview in the same month and was referred to the national referral mechanism, as she was identified as a potential victim of trafficking. In November 2021, a positive conclusive grounds decision was reached on the case—in other words, she was identified as a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking. The nearly three years of waiting for a decision were difficult for her and her children, not knowing where their future may lie.

In February 2022, my office was told by the Home Office that my constituent would receive a decision on the asylum part of her claim within six months. That created an obvious expectation from my constituent. But when six months had passed, she informed me that no decision had been forthcoming. After my office notified the Home Office of that, we were told there was no timeframe for a decision, despite the previous commitment. My constituent’s solicitor then issued the Home Office with a pre-action protocol. The Home Office committed to an asylum decision by 1 May. No decision came on 1 May. We wrote again to the Home Office, and I am still awaiting a response. Four and a half years have passed since the initial application, and nearly a year since the Home Office committed to making a decision. That case is not an anomaly; it is one of many I could have chosen to illustrate the point. I would appreciate it if the Minister’s office could reach out to mine to discuss just a few such cases that would greatly benefit from his intervention.

More widely, backlogs are now a well-known aspect of our migration system. They are a feature, not a bug. The Minister has hinted that a quick decision-making process would act as a pull factor again. However, among other issues, that ignores the huge cost of asylum accommodation in the meantime. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide clarity on this point in his closing remarks.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The cost of housing asylum seekers is huge. There is no ability for local communities who might believe they could do it cheaper and better in alternative forms of accommodation to draw down money. The Home Office has paid huge amounts, often to corporate organisations, even though local organisations would be able to do it better. Giving asylum seekers the ability to draw down that money on an individual or a community basis, and allowing communities and councils to organise accommodation, would at least help to alleviate some of the trauma that people face in Home Office hotels.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s point, and I hope that this debate is a space for exactly those kinds of ideas so that we start to see improvements in the system.

Delays seem to be worse in the asylum system, even as the Home Office chooses to be selective, applying service standards to other types of application, such as for naturalisation or further leave to remain. The backlog on so-called legacy cases has started to fall very slightly. However, the Prime Minister’s commitment to clearing the backlog will not be met at the “current pace”—not my words but those of the Home Secretary.

There have been smart moves to address the huge backlog. For instance, last week, the Government quietly dropped the two-tier refugee system introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. That is a perfect example of the Government very quietly replacing a noisy, reactionary policy with one that has more chance of being workable. It is also illustrative of the desperate need for a coherent and honest long-term strategy in this area.

We all want a migration system that works for all our constituents, those seeking asylum and those wanting to work or visit our country. I am grateful for the time to put some of my thoughts on the record.