Brexit: UK-EU Movement of People (EUC Report)

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I read the excellent and informative report of the committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, with both interest and despondency but very little surprise. What is clear from the report, and is becoming increasingly clear in every aspect of Brexit, is how little clarity the Government have about what they are trying to achieve or how they will achieve it.

Ministers have been keen to tell the public that this issue is all about sovereignty. The Prime Minister tells us that, after Brexit, we will have control of our borders—although, as my noble friend Lady Janke noted, the then Immigration Minister, Robert Goodwill, told the sub-committee that we have always had control of our borders. Likewise, the Government state that immigration control will be solely a matter for the UK Government post Brexit. Yet the then Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union, David Jones, told the sub-committee that,

“the issue of migration will figure strongly in the negotiations and the ultimate treaty”.

The clear implication is reciprocal agreements and treaty obligations, which will necessarily constrain the hand of the British Government and the ability of Parliament to determine policy. Nowhere is sovereignty absolute, and this will become increasingly evident as we proceed with negotiations.

If we want reciprocal agreements and treaty guarantees for our citizens, we will inevitably have to make trade-offs. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, made clear, our ability to access markets, particularly for services, will depend on our willingness to accept elements of freedom of movement. The Government need to recognise that fact and start telling the public the truth. If they do not, the public will be in for a rude awakening when the realities become clear, and the disillusion and anger will only grow.

There is a massive deceit at the heart of Brexit, and nowhere more so than over free movement. The Conservative Party has repeatedly promised the British public that it will reduce net immigration to “tens of thousands”. It promised that in its 2010 manifesto; it promised that in its 2015 manifesto; and it promised that just a few months ago in its 2017 manifesto. It was a promise that the Conservative Party failed to deliver in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. It failed again to deliver it in 2016 and it will fail once more in 2017. Yet, like an addict unable to kick the habit, it keeps repeating the mantra. As a member of a party that has paid a heavy price for failing to deliver on one of its pledges, I gently suggest to the Conservative Party that this is not a good strategy to pursue. Either it will continue to fail to deliver that pledge and cause a world of pain for itself, or, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that it achieves that pledge, it will cause a world of pain for the country and the economy.

The truth is that the Conservative Party made this pledge to the British people even though it knew that it was not achievable. In the first instance, that is because free movement meant that no such guarantee could be upheld, and in the second, because the area of immigration that the Government did have control of—non-EU migration—continued to run at hundreds of thousands throughout the period the Conservatives were in government and the current Prime Minister was in charge of the Home Office. This reckless approach fuelled disillusion and public dissatisfaction, and not once did the Conservative Party make any meaningful attempt to explain the huge contribution that EU workers were making to our economy and society.

More than that, it was clear from within the coalition Government that the figure on which the Conservatives based their pledge had been plucked out of the air and had a statistical base that made absolutely no sense. As the sub-committee report notes, the statistics include overseas students on courses of over 12 months who are bringing money into our economy and who almost everyone thinks should be welcome. It excludes seasonal workers, who, in the argument of opponents of free movement, are either taking the jobs or driving down the wages of British workers.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, rightly made the point that even these figures are highly questionable. They are based on a small sample and are subject to a margin of error of tens of thousands. Indeed, the point is made throughout the report that the data on migration and the evidence of its impact on the labour market that is available to the Government are extremely patchy. Yet, on this basis, the Government will have to make critical decisions about migration that will have a major impact on our economy and our country for many years ahead.

There is an assumption in some quarters that EU migration displaces British workers from jobs they would otherwise have, reduces the incentive on companies to train workers and suppresses the wages of unskilled workers. However, as noble Lords have noted, the report found that the evidence for this is scant. One only needs to look at figure 2 on page 13 of the report on long-term international migration to the UK from 1970 to 2015 to see that the periods of lowest immigration to the UK were those of highest unemployment and greatest relative economic decline. All the evidence points to immigration boosting our economy and improving the chances of British people being in employment.

It is clear from the report that there are areas of economic activity that British workers are highly unlikely to fill and constraints on migration will simply lead to such activity moving abroad—a fact particularly true in the agricultural sector. As my noble friend Lord Stunell set out so clearly, the impact on sectors such as the construction industry of major constraints on labour could be absolutely dire—and not only for that industry but for our economy as a whole.

As for the impact on wages and training, witnesses to the committee made the telling point that the biggest factor in the suppression of wages was the public sector pay policy of the UK Government, not least in the health and other public services. As to training, Professor Manning of the Migration Advisory Committee highlighted the fact that the Government have made cuts in training places for nurses even though courses were oversubscribed by residents, helping to push the demand for migration from the EU to fill the gap in our health services.

We need to be honest about these facts. If we want decent public services, we have to pay decent wages and fund sufficient training places for British people. We have to invest in our education sector, particularly in the FE sector. Even then, we will still need skills from the EU and elsewhere. We always have and we always will.

I have a few questions for the Minister. A range of questions are raised in the report but, in particular, I want to ask what the Government intend to do to tackle the absence of data, as highlighted in the report. Will they not look again at the crazy way in which overseas students are included in the statistics, an issue that has been raised in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions? Secondly, on the point raised by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, can the Government give a more adequate explanation of how they believe they can maintain a common travel area across our only land border when Ireland is within the EU and we are without it? Thirdly, do the Government intend to introduce a preferential system for EU migrants post-Brexit, or do they intend to embroil them in the existing bureaucratic system for non-EU residents, to which other noble Lords have referred?

I note the statement in paragraph 6 of the report supporting a unilateral guarantee to safeguard the rights of all EU nationals in the UK, which has already been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I salute the noble Lord for his steadfast support of this cause. The Government’s vindictive response to the fact that he chose to put the rights of millions of people above petty partisan considerations symbolises everything that is wrong with their approach to this issue and to Brexit as a whole. Given such an approach, it is no wonder that they cannot unite their Government let alone this country.