Immigration Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the position put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and other noble Lords. The Government were pleased to be able to provide further details about the immigration skills charge in the statement made at the Report stage by my noble friend Lord Bates. In addition, a Written Ministerial Statement covering reforms to the tier 2 visa route was laid in the other place on 24 March, but unfortunately it could not be laid in your Lordships’ House because we were not sitting on that day.

As promised at the Report stage, the Government have considered when Clause 87 will come into effect. The first point to make, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is that while the clause commences two months after Royal Assent, it is clear in the Bill that secondary legislation will be needed before the charge can be introduced, and that will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Bates said on Report, we will publish a draft of the regulations before they are laid, enabling noble Lords and other interested parties to comment; I would just emphasise that opportunity.

As regards the date of introduction, the Government have announced details about the rate and the scope of the charge, including the exemptions that will apply, a year before it is to be introduced. The Written Ministerial Statement confirmed that the charge will be introduced from April 2017 and not before. We consider that that gives employers, including those in the public sector, sufficient time to plan how best to manage the introduction of the charge without delaying until after April 2018, as suggested in this amendment—and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Green, for his comments on that point. I would argue strongly that there is no need for transitional provision to be made for institutions in the public sector, which is the other purpose of the amendment. I would just say that, on Report, my noble friend Lord Bates did not commit to consider a phased approach to implementation for the public sector. We made a commitment to consider when the clause comes into effect and, as I have indicated, we stated that we will not introduce the charge before April 2017.

As the independent Migration Advisory Committee stated, public sector organisations are employers, like any other, and should be incentivised to consider the UK labour market first before recruiting from outside Europe. On that particular point, it is worth noting that the MAC took evidence from a full range of stakeholders, including the public sector, before making its recommendations. From my time as a health Minister I recognise the important role that tier 2 plays in recruiting doctors to fill vacancies in hard-to-recruit medical specialties and areas, as the British Medical Association has flagged. I also understand its concern that the charge might take funds away from training in the health service.

Let me be clear about this. Staffing in the NHS is a government priority. That is why there are already more than 29,600 extra clinical staff, including more than 10,600 additional doctors and more than 11,500 additional nurses on our wards since May 2010. That is why Health Education England has increased nurse training places by 14% over the last two years and is forecasting that more than 40,000 additional nurses will be available by 2020. There are already 50,000 nurses currently in training.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked me what plans there were to incentivise individuals into nursing and to encourage retention. It would perhaps be helpful if I mentioned that the Come Back to Nursing campaign, launched by Health Education England in September 2014, reports that 2,188 nurses have registered on a return-to-practice programme, 927 have completed the programme and, of those, 700 have successfully completed their retraining and are now back on the front line providing care and support for patients. We have invested £40 million in leadership training to create a new generation of senior nurses and we are running a campaign to get experienced nurses who have left the profession back to work.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the pressure on schools, and I understand the points that he made. I hope that he will take some reassurance from the fact that many schools will benefit from the reduced rate of £364 by virtue of being either small businesses or charities. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about ring-fencing the fund and whether the charge will just go, as it were, into general revenue. Let me be clear about that. The Prime Minister was emphatic that this measure will help train up the resident workforce to address skills shortages. I cannot, of course, tell him how much the skills charge will raise. The amount of funding generated will very much depend on employer demand. The Migration Advisory Committee estimated that the charge could raise as much as £250 million a year. The MAC’s estimates did not take account of the reductions and exemptions the Government have announced or the expected impact on behaviour. The Government are still finalising the policy detail, as will be obvious. We have not, therefore, produced a firm estimate. However, we estimate that once the exemptions and reductions are taken into account, the sums raised will be significantly lower than the MAC’s estimate.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

With respect to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and those of the Minister, the Science and Technology Committee had a special session here at the House of Lords in March, and we heard that the funding available for training teachers who are not advanced in mathematics or science to become better trained is actually decreasing. I wonder whether the Minister’s remarks are implying that there will be more money for this training, which is absolutely essential if we are to raise the skills and educational levels in science and technology.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, a great deal is being done to encourage students into science and technology, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware. What I cannot tell him is whether and to what extent the money raised by the skills charge will be directed into particular vocational areas. That is still being worked through. As regards teaching, it has been recognised that public sector pay restraint and specific recruitment challenges in certain occupations present problems for the National Health Service and the education sector in particular. On the new salary threshold, we announced that we will exempt nurses, paramedics and medical radiographers; and in the education sector we will exempt secondary-school teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science—

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

Primary schools as well are a particular area.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I heard what the noble Lord said. Perhaps he will allow me to continue. We will exempt secondary-school teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science and Mandarin from that new salary threshold. The point has been recognised by the MAC and we took its advice on that.

The exemption we have announced for students switching from tier 4 to tier 2 to take up a graduate-level position in the UK will benefit doctors following completion of their foundation training. I am pleased that the BMA has welcomed this exemption. However, if we are to meet our objective of reducing reliance on overseas workers, we simply must reverse the trend of increasing numbers of workers coming through tier 2, including in the public sector. In 2015, sponsored visa applications for skilled workers in the human health and social work activities sector alone, which includes a number of public sector occupations, increased by 13% to more than 3,500 places. For those reasons, we consider that delaying or phasing in the introduction of the charge, or indeed an exemption, for the NHS or wider public sector would overlook the key aim of the charge: to influence employer behaviour. The Migration Advisory Committee was clear that it did not believe the health sector should be exempt from the charge.

I note that the BMA said it is highly unlikely that the NHS would benefit from the proceeds of the charge because apprenticeships are not relevant to or will not benefit the NHS. With great respect to the BMA, there is currently no basis for saying that. Decisions on where the charge income will be spent are not yet finalised, as I said. The priority will be to spend the charge on training the resident workforce to address skills gaps in the UK. Apprenticeships are only one government-supported programme designed to address the long-running trend of underinvestment in skills by UK employers that might be supported. I can assure noble Lords that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is already engaging with stakeholders, including the Department of Health and the Department for Education, to ensure that their skills and workforce planning needs are fully considered. It cannot possibly do otherwise given the key importance of those sectors. I can also assure the House that the Home Office will continue to consult with stakeholders on how best to address skills gaps in advance of the introduction of the charge to inform decisions on how the income is spent.

I hope that noble Lords—in particular the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—will be reassured from what I have said today and from the totality of the announcements we have made about the skills charge, that the Government are committed to implement it in a balanced way, ensuring that the UK remains open for business and can continue to attract the best and brightest to our workforce. I hope, too, that noble Lords are reassured by our confirmation that we will not seek to impose the charge before April 2017, and only after we lay regulations.

In the light of those points, I very much hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw Amendment 9.