Net Migration

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Green of Deddington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to reduce net migration in the current Parliament.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, as outlined in the Government’s manifesto, we will shortly set out plans for a new immigration system that will give us full control over who comes in and goes out of the UK and will lead to an overall reduction in numbers.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I declare my interest as president of Migration Watch UK. I am afraid that I do not have a booklet to wave, but I speak for 30 million UK adults who wish to see immigration reduced.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Read all about it on our website, and you will see how we got that figure. Last week, the Migration Advisory Committee made some recommendations that, on its own admission, would result in 16 million jobs becoming open to worldwide competition. Clearly a rapid increase in immigration is a considerable risk, as indeed has happened on a number of occasions, so will the Government, as a precaution, take powers to introduce a cap should that prove necessary?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we will introduce a new, points-based immigration system, and of course we will have the immigration and social security co-ordination Bill later this year. Noble Lords will know that reviewing legislation, having introduced it, will be at the top of the Government’s mind when they look at their overall priority of bringing the numbers down.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare a non-financial interest as president of Migration Watch, and remind the House that Migration Watch speaks for 30 million adults in the UK who wish to see immigration reduced. Eighteen million of them wish to see it reduced “by a lot”. For comparison, only about 5.5 million wish to see an increase, so they are outnumbered by rather more than five to one. The views of this very large majority are seldom represented in this House, so I shall focus on that very subject.

The critical test for the immigration Bill foreshadowed in the Queen’s Speech is whether it will achieve a serious reduction in the currently excessive levels of immigration. It is common ground that immigration on a modest scale is a welcome part of an open economy and society. I concur of course with the contributions earlier of the noble Lords, Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson. However, at its present level, immigration is adding, directly and indirectly, 1 million to the population of the UK every three years. One effect of this is to generate a need for 240 homes in England every day. These are extraordinarily large numbers which are not given enough attention.

Yet, despite the scale of immigration, there is no convincing evidence that immigration has increased the UK’s GDP per head, nor that it has increased productivity, which, as noble Lords will know, has been pretty flat for 10 years despite massive levels of immigration.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, told us today that the Government would deliver on the points-based system which has been promised for many years. Actually, although he does not seem to know it, we have had such a system since 2009. Unfortunately, it failed to ensure that so-called highly skilled workers went into highly skilled jobs. It also led to massive abuse of study visas. Noble Lords will remember that just part of the clean-up operation took several years and involved the closure of nearly 1,000 bogus colleges—this was an extraordinary degree of incompetence. Noble Lords may also have noted the remarks made by Mrs Theresa May in the other place last week, when she urged the new Home Secretary to look carefully at the lessons that have been learned about points-based systems. She should know.

What is this new system? The Government have been coy about the details, but they seem to have chosen the label “Australian” because it sounds tough and is therefore popular with focus groups. However, they will now have discovered that the Australian system is very complex and—whisper it—depends heavily on caps on all work-related routes, yet no mention of a cap has passed the lips of the Home Office.

It seems that the Government intend to build on the White Paper which they slipped out just before Christmas. That envisaged reducing the skill level from degree to A-level and “consulting” on the present salary level of £30,000. However, as the consultation is almost entirely with industry—surprise, surprise—a figure as low as £21,000 might emerge. According to our calculations, a salary level of that kind would expose up to 9 million UK jobs to new or increased international competition. That changes according to the level of salary that one puts in, but they are the kind of numbers we are talking about.

Cue an astonishing silence from Labour, the party of the workers, and from the trade unions, which one might think would be interested in looking out for the interests of potential recruits from the UK. Meanwhile—no surprise—businesses are on the warpath to achieve the lowest possible requirements and the largest possible flow.

Finally, will this system pass the test of achieving a serious reduction? It almost certainly will not. I am not sure it is even intended. This Government must pause and think. Their proposed immigration policy could very well lead to yet further increases in net migration. We are currently at a 10-year average of a quarter of a million a year; it has even touched in the past a third of a million. Under these proposals, it might very well go even higher.

I conclude with this thought: if, for whatever reason, Brexit does not turn out well—perish the thought—and if that is followed by continued mass immigration, the Conservative Party will have dealt its own future a massive blow.

Immigration Staff: Recruitment

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I have said before, the hostile environment started under Alan Johnson and ended under my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The noble Lord has made the point about culture before, and he is right that the culture of an organisation is key to the way its policies operate. There are no targets of the kind that the noble Lord described. We have a general ambition of reducing net migration but targets—particularly in the hostile environment, as the noble Lord referred to it—no longer operate.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I shall be concise, as always. Does the Minister accept that there is a serious problem with the immigration service, which is that it is hopelessly under-resourced? The rate of removals has halved, and delays are growing all over the system. Does she accept that, if we want an effective immigration system, as the great majority of the public do, we have to pay for it?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

An awful lot of people want to come to this country and our immigration teams are very stretched. This requires resourcing, as everything does. We have very high employment in this country and we need people with the skills required to fill those jobs.

Immigration Detention

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It is very unfortunate if a child ends up in detention. The decision is balanced on the need of that child to be, perhaps, with its parents. As I told the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, the number of children in detention has drastically reduced since 2009.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that there has to be some balance in this debate? If there is a specific time limit, especially a short one, it is all too easy for someone to spin out the proceedings—perhaps, in some circumstances, by making a false claim—until he or she has to be released and can then disappear. There has to be some balance and there has to be an ability to detain people until their cases are sorted.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Anyone who wishes to frustrate the system could do so through a time-limited detention. The Government are clear: we want to limit time in detention, but actually placing a time limit on it has the effect that he describes.

Immigration (European Economic Area Nationals) (EU Exit) Order 2019

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Noble Lords should not misinterpret our position: we want free movement to continue. What I object to is the Government claiming to be taking back control of our borders, ending free movement and creating a level playing field for those entering the UK from EU and non-EU countries, when this instrument appears to do exactly the opposite. Saying “well, the difference is that now we are deciding to throw open our borders, not the EU”, is an interesting position to take. However, removing the cap on the number of skilled workers entering the UK, as the Government are suggesting in their year-long consultation on their future immigration policy, is at least consistent with this SI. We support the SI, but not the apparent hypocrisy of the Government.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, we risk getting somewhat lost in the detail here. It seems that the Government are now proposing to open up some 9 million jobs to worldwide competition, while at the same time effectively continuing with free movement to the European Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. As I said before, the risk is that this will run straight out of control. We really need to get hold of this, stay on the main points and be quite sure that the Government are ready to react if the numbers start getting really difficult.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I add to what my noble friend Lord Paddick said—it is the disjuncture and hypocrisy that upsets us. Of course, this is a one-way continuation of free movement. Many of us were extremely distressed when the Prime Minister cited the top reason for celebrating her ill-fated draft withdrawal agreement and political declaration last November; apparently, its top benefit was ending free movement. In fact, this is not happening—at least, not into the UK—and no consideration was given to the benefits of free movement for UK citizens in the rest of the EU. This instrument says nothing about those opportunities, which are being torn away from UK nationals. This will particularly affect young people and those of all ages who want to work or retire in the rest of the EU. It is the Government’s inconsistency which strikes such a difficult note.

Had I had the opportunity to ask my noble friends on the Front Bench, who know a great deal more about immigration law than I do, I may not have needed to ask this question, which concerns the difference between Articles 3 and 7, which I do not really understand. Article 3 is entitled:

“Grant of leave to EEA and Swiss nationals”.


Article 7 is entitled:

“Grant of leave by virtue of Appendix EU to the immigration rules”.


I simply do not understand the difference between those legal bases for extension of leave, as “EEA nationals” covers EU nationals as well. Perhaps the Minister could help me. That also spills over to the health charge, because Article 10, on exempting from the health charge, appears to apply only to those who acquire leave to enter or remain,

“by virtue of Appendix EU to the immigration rules”.

It does not appear to cover those who get leave under draft Article 3. As I say, it may just be that I do not understand how all this interacts, but perhaps the Minister can enlighten me.

Migrant Crossings: Naval Assets

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, an awful lot of work is going on to stop the movement of people across the water—recently it has been in the channel, where the waters are very dangerous indeed. The noble Lord might like to know that as recently as the last couple of weeks, the Home Secretary met Minister Castaner to discuss bilateral co-operation on maintaining our waters and keeping people safe when they make those terrible journeys across the channel.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that most of these refugees crossing the channel are from Iran, and that their chance of staying in the UK, whether permission is granted or not, is 97%? Would it not therefore be better to have a really effective way of differentiating between genuine refugees and economic migrants, and making sure that the latter are returned?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is correct about the high percentage of Iranians. His second point is right too, and that is what we are trying to achieve.

Future Immigration

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. When he says that not everyone who voted to leave the European Union was driven by immigration concerns, I totally agree. I was one of them and as an immigrant I can hardly complain about immigrants. He suggests that we perhaps adopt a model such as Norway. I cannot say what the House of Commons will do and I would not like to predict what will happen, but I think Parliament needs to work through the whole process in a way that meets the result of the vote of the people of the UK.

My noble friend is absolutely right to mention the smooth and unbureaucratic processes that people should experience as they go through the border. We have already talked about opening up the eGates to additional countries: the Five Eyes plus Japan, South Korea and Singapore. I think that that will make the journey through the border a lot smoother. As for a lack of bureaucracy, the Home Secretary has also talked about a more digitally friendly immigration system. That is important, as we are not trying to complicate the system but we are considering the whole world in our future immigration system.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister may know that I have been engaged in immigration policy for 18 years. I am actually quite astonished by this White Paper because it could be described as cloud-cuckoo-land. The Opposition spokesmen have already poked a couple of dozen holes in it and I fear that the Minister will have a lot of difficulty later with all the points that arise from it. Does she realise that the key point is that, far from reducing immigration, it is very likely that it will actually increase net migration, and might increase it considerably? Does she appreciate that that would be seen as a slap in the face for the roughly 38 million people who want to see immigration reduced? Finally, I will make only one point because the Opposition have raised many of them: can she assure the House that the sudden introduction of an uncapped route for unskilled workers for up to a year is not merely an attempt to fiddle the immigration statistics and that these people will be included in the numbers?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On the noble Lord’s second question about fiddling the numbers, the suggestion is that the uncapped route is up to one year. The reason we have had the row about students so many times is that the people included in the immigration figures are those who stay for more than a year. Therefore, one would not include in the immigration figures people who are on a three-month holiday. We have to set the level somewhere and I do not think that anyone has argued about where one sets the time limit for being included in those figures. As for increasing net migration, we are suggesting the introduction of a system that is based on skills to meet the needs of the UK economy. Obviously, the idea is that the net migration figures should go down ultimately, but the system we are proposing today is the subject of consultation which will run for a year. I am sure that many views, such as those of the noble Lord, will be expressed on the future system.

Brexit: Border Control

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. We have a border delivery group in place ensuring that it looks at the risks and the commitments made to maintain flow and security. The boats that we are talking about are flexible to a number of needs. We have always been an island—that is nothing new—but the noble Lord is right that we have to have sufficient infrastructure to patrol it.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, if I may return to dry land, will the Minister confirm that it is the Government’s intention to offer visa-free access to EU citizens unless they wish to come here to work? If they were to do that, it would enormously reduce the extra burden on the Border Force and on the borders in general.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We have visa-free access for many countries. The exact look of our immigration system as we leave the EU is of course subject to the negotiations, but to have people flow as freely as possible through our borders is the ultimate aim.

Windrush

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I apologise to the noble Lord; I did not write that bit down. It is the first day back—I am just getting into the flow of it. On whether it will ever happen again, the “lessons learned” review will teach us a lot, and the independent assurance review of the whole process will be very helpful. All these things have taught all political parties why this whole process, which took place over successive generations, should never happen again. It also teaches us something about identity assurance and the importance of getting that right, certainly as we leave the EU and in the future, so that people are not caught out by these unintended consequences of what was originally a welcoming approach to our Windrush community, whose work over the years we value.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the new Home Secretary is to be congratulated on getting a grip on this issue so quickly and effectively? Does she also agree that this episode has very little to do with current immigration policy and that it should not be used to undermine measures that are necessary to protect our borders?

Immigration: “Right to Rent” Scheme

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said to the noble Baroness, an evaluation by the Home Office found no evidence of discrimination. We have found no levels of discrimination to date but we intend to reconvene the panel and monitor the effects of the scheme, as we do with any legislation.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, given the difficulties of removing what might be up to 1 million illegal immigrants, it makes good sense to try to bring in measures that would encourage them to leave of their own accord? Is she aware that recent opinion polls have shown that between 70% and 80% of the public agree with the measures that the Government are taking?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Lord that if someone is here illegally, they should leave of their own accord. He is absolutely right that the public support that approach. It is also important to note that in 1997, as part of the “compliant environment” measures, the then Labour Government introduced the right-to-work proposals. To date those have worked well. Nobody should be in this country if they are not legally entitled to be.