Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee, The EU’s Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (8th Report, Session 2012-13, HL Paper 91).

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, the report of the European Union Committee, The EU’s Global Approach to Migration and Mobility, otherwise known as “the GAMM”, which is how I shall refer to it during this debate, was published as long ago as 18 December 2012. It would be normal to deplore the long delay in bringing this report forward for debate and, indeed, it is deplorable as a general proposition, but in this case the overall context of the public discussion of migration issues has changed so much in the intervening period that one could regard a debate now as of greater topicality and value that it would have been earlier. I am bringing the report to your Lordships’ House for debate in my capacity as chair of the EU Sub-Committee on Home Affairs, Health and Education which conducted the inquiry.

The debates taking place in this country and across Europe on illegal and legal immigration, the global competition for talent and access to social welfare and other benefits by migrants are, rather like migration itself, not new. They have been taking place for decades, if not centuries, and Europe in the early 21st century is no exception. But recently, the tone has sharpened and there is a risk that a rational and measured discussion of complex issues will be drowned out by cries of populist outrage riding on the back of the stress caused by recession.

Our report highlighted that the EU today is home to approximately 23% of the world’s estimated 214 million international migrants. This makes it second only to North America as a destination region. Within the EU, however, there is a mixed picture. More than 75% of non-EU nationals living in the EU are in one of the five largest member states: Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the UK. What proportion of these migration flows is made up of illegal migrants is, of course, difficult to determine. Estimates in 2008 placed the figure at between 1.9 million and 3.8 million in the EU 27.

The catalyst for our report was the publication by the European Commission in September 2011 of a communication setting out the EU’s general approach to migration and mobility in the period ahead and proposing four pillars of activity: on legal migration; on irregular migration; on asylum; and on development. Our report emphasised that the EU has limited legal competence to act in this area, although many of the decisions continue to be the responsibility of member states. The treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon and the incorporation of the border-control-free Schengen area into the EU framework support this shared responsibility. None of the witnesses—I emphasise “none”—nor our report itself pressed for any change in that division of responsibility. The committee’s view was that, given the current and prospective demographic challenges facing Europe—and they are really quite severe—EU member states, particularly those with skills shortages, need to be flexible in the operation of legal migration from third countries in order to secure economic growth and competitiveness. For the EU, or for any of its member states, to lock itself into a long-term, restrictive posture on immigration could be a costly error.

I emphasise the role of the member states here because, as I said a moment ago and as the report says, they,

“should continue to have the right to choose the number of migrants from third countries they wish to admit to their labour markets, depending on their needs”.

Transfer of responsibility to the EU of the management of the scale of legal migration is beyond any political horizon I can envisage. It was interesting that neither the Commission officials from whom the committee took evidence nor the members of the relevant committee of the European Parliament had a different view. This conclusion is borne out by the current varied situation, with very high levels of unemployment in some member states, but signs of skills shortages in the EU’s largest economy, Germany.

Perhaps the biggest preoccupation in the UK is with stopping irregular migrants from reaching these shores in the first place. Although the UK, as an island nation, has opted out of the Schengen area and many aspects of its legislation, it plays an active role in the work of FRONTEX, the EU’s external borders agency, and in the development of EUROSUR, a networked border surveillance system. Our report concluded that it is in the UK’s national interest that these operations are efficient, effective and well resourced; that was, in fact, the conclusion of the national security strategy that the coalition Government brought forward shortly after they took office.

It is important to note that the majority of irregular migrants in the EU actually enter with authorisation—that is to say, they enter legally—and they then overstay their visas. With this in mind, EU member states should consider, we believe, a more balanced and comprehensive approach to overstayers, including the selective encouragement of legal migration channels. One example is that of EU mobility partnerships. These are voluntary agreements where the third countries in question discourage irregular migration and improve their border controls in exchange for EU financial and technical assistance. Another example is that of EU readmission agreements. These are also voluntary agreements where third countries help to facilitate the orderly return of irregular migrants in exchange for assistance and possibly better visa facilitation arrangements for their nationals. In the committee’s view, it is regrettable that the Government, in their response to our recommendation that they should opt in to all these EU readmission agreements, stated that they prefer to,

“weigh up the benefits of participation in each EU Readmission Agreement (EURA)”,

on a case-by-case basis. However, if bilateral nations were ever to weaken between the UK and a particular third country, and thus to undermine any bilateral readmission arrangements we might have, an EU readmission agreement could well provide a useful safety net. We therefore call on the Minister to consider joining the EU readmission agreements with Belarus and Armenia and all the subsequent ones that may be negotiated—there are quite a few under negotiation now.

The GAMM is not just about stopping economic migrants from coming to the EU; it is also about improving the economies in the source countries of migration. As one of the witnesses in our inquiry put it, “It is about buying more Tunisian tomatoes”; and reducing the EU’s trade barriers against non-EU countries could assist the EU’s aims in the migration context. Furthermore, the EU could use the GAMM as a framework to carry out projects and programmes to promote development and mitigate the effects of the brain drain on countries of origin—for example, by facilitating the cheaper, more secure and more rapid transfer of remittances from the diaspora, by supporting microfinance schemes and by engaging with and assisting diasporas to transfer skills to their country of origin. To carry out the activities that I have just mentioned, our report suggested that a more integrated approach to migration should be adopted, both at national and at EU levels. Migration policy cannot and should not be the sole responsibility of an interior ministry, or the Home Secretary in this country, or of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Home Affairs. A more holistic approach is highly desirable.

Previous and current British Governments have chosen to exercise the British opt-out with regard to the majority of both legal and irregular migration measures brought forward by the Commission in recent years. So while the GAMM had its genesis in a UK initiative, frequently forgotten, and enjoyed a lot of early support, the UK’s participation is looking increasingly patchy. For example, the UK participated in the first phase of measures to create a Common European Asylum System, but participated in only two of the five measures proposed in the second phase. We believe that this partial participation risks undermining the UK’s influence in shaping these important areas of EU policy without bringing any commensurate benefit.

Looking to the future, our report called for a full and detailed evaluation of the GAMM’s different pillars and the EU funding instruments that support their objectives as part of any continuing effort. Over time, the committee believes that the GAMM will need to adopt a more focused approach, concentrating on the EU’s geographical and strategic priorities, as well as focusing on a smaller number of key objectives and instruments, which have a sound evidence base. We believe Turkey to be one of these priorities, especially in terms of tackling irregular migration, but also alongside more general engagement in tackling terrorism, transnational organised crime and promoting judicial co-operation on civil and criminal matters. The recent signs of a cautious thaw in the EU’s often troubled relationship with Turkey could provide a mutually beneficial opportunity to make progress.

The final chapter of our GAMM report focused on a specifically UK policy choice, the Government’s inclusion of international students in their current policy objective of reducing net migration to the UK to the tens of thousands per year. My committee was one of the five Select Committees of this House and the other place that have now concluded that that policy is mistaken and whose chairs wrote to the Prime Minister last January to argue that this has created the perception that overseas students are not welcome in the UK and risks serious damage to what is, after all, one of the UK’s most valuable and successful invisible exports. The latest figures from Universities UK for 2011-12 admissions validate that concern, with sharp drops in figures from undergraduates coming from one of Britain’s main higher education markets, the Indian sub-continent, and a major overall drop in postgraduate overseas enrolments, one of the most lucrative features of our industry. I could not put it better than it was put in a letter recently written by an academic leader in this country, Professor Malcolm Grant of UCL, who said:

“The flow of overseas students and highly talented staff has been the life blood of British universities, which are one of the great success stories still of the UK, and that is a matter which we all hope to be able to continue to foster”.

Whatever the statistical rights and wrongs of treating university students as economic migrants, and this debate is not principally about statistics, it surely makes no sense for the Government to be handicapping what should be a major growth industry for us—and it is globally a rapidly expanding market—in comparison with our main competitors. Again, the latest figures point towards us losing market share to our major competitors, in particular to the US. The Government frequently remind us that we are competing in a global race. Why then are they entering the British education sector for the sack race?

The committee’s report contains a number of other pertinent conclusions and recommendations. We hope that the Government will continue to give appropriate consideration to those recommendations. We look forward to comparing our report’s findings with those of the Government’s review of the balance of competences regarding asylum and immigration, for which a call for evidence was published by the Home Office recently. The Home Office at the same time published a call for evidence on the free movement of persons. While this concerns migration from within rather than from outside the EU, it is touched upon in our GAMM report, which notes the ending of transitional controls on migration from Romania and Bulgaria at the end of this year. We concluded that the free movement of persons is fundamental to the structure of the EU and an integral part of the single market. We also concluded that it would be neither desirable nor feasible to seek to revise its terms. However, we did support efforts by the Government to tackle benefit fraud as long as they comply with our obligations under the treaties. I note that, in part, the immigration Bill announced in the gracious Speech will aim to achieve this. No doubt this House will scrutinise that Bill carefully in due course.

I conclude with one plea to the Government. In drawing up the detail of that immigration Bill, particular care surely needs to be taken to not accentuate further the chilling effects on the recruitment of university students. This cannot be an empty risk, frankly, since the sort of issues that will be addressed—access to health provision and housing—are just the ones that concern students, researchers, academic staff and their parents in the countries of origin. I hope that the Government will take very careful steps to avoid any further damage to the higher education sector. I beg to move.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, it would be invidious to mention by name any who have contributed to this valuable debate. It is late enough on a Thursday to make that an extremely unpopular thing to do and I will not do it.

I thank the Minister. I often think that in debates on this subject he resembles St Sebastian, riddled with arrows which come from all directions. However, like St Sebastian in the best Renaissance paintings, he continues to smile as the arrows go through. I was grateful to him the last time for the comprehensive letter that he wrote, and I am grateful to him for his commitment to that now.

Perhaps I may leave the debate with two or three short points on student matters. It was a little unwise of the Minister to suggest that the universities are bringing this down on themselves by making such a fuss. I do not think that the Economist is normally considered to be the mouthpiece for special interests, yet it contained an extremely powerful leader some months ago saying that the Government’s policies were completely misconceived. That paper is read all around the world and so it is not sensible to blame the universities. After all, they need to speak up to the Government if they think that a vital British interest—the health of our higher education establishment—is being damaged.

Secondly, this is an expanding world market, both in undergraduates and, above all, postgraduates. So if we are only in a holding level, which is what the statistics show—although some of them show very sharp drops—it is, frankly, nothing like good enough. We are the second in the world in this market and we have got to maintain our market share. If it is an expanding market, that means an expanding figure, and we are not getting that at the moment.

Mark Harper was very patient when we had a lengthy meeting some time back at the noble Lord’s initiative, for which I am very grateful, and I hope that the noble Lord and his colleagues will think yet again about this issue. This is not a matter of statistics. We all understand the point being made about the statistics and we are not asking the Government to change them—although I have noticed that the Government have been a little less emphatic in their support of United Nations rulings of a non-binding nature in many other fields and seem to be clutching on to this one as though they are drowning in the middle of a sea. This is a substantive problem of public policy.

We will come later this year to the immigration Bill. I repeat my plea: will the Government, when considering that Bill, be careful not to introduce measures which will cause a further chilling in the atmosphere surrounding the recruitment and enrolment of students, postgraduates and researchers?

I thank all who have participated in the debate. I would like to place on record my committee’s thanks to our special adviser, Dr James Hampshire of Sussex University, who provided us with a mass of useful work and research and from whom all the statistical material was derived.

Motion agreed.