Immigration Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Craig Whittaker

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 253 So the cases that you are primarily dealing with do not apply to the Bill, because the Bill talks about removing support for those who have gone through the process and are deemed to be unlawful immigrants.

Henry St Clair Miller: It is both. Sorry—I will try again and then I will give up. It is both, because you are also looking at measures to tackle illegal migration in the UK such as landlord checking and the rest, which might give rise to more of those.

Paul Greenhalgh: Our concern is about families who have been given that status in terms of how the Bill is currently drafted. The onus will be on the families to leave rather than there being an enforcement to their departure. While they are still in this country, local authorities still have legal duties to them under the legislation that we have previously cited.

Councillor Simmonds: It is probably worth giving you some figures. When we look at the numbers for local authority responsibilities in providing support to irregular migrants, around 80% of those who are supported are those under the section 17 Children Act responsibilities. The remaining group tend to be with care needs under the Mental Health Act and the Care Act, so the vast majority will be entitled to support through their status as families with children, and there will always be further legal avenues by which they can regain that entitlement should one avenue be closed off.

[Sarah Champion]

Q 254 I have just a small question. Currently, when someone has failed their last appeal, what is the average time before they actually get deported? I just want an idea of the timescale in which they would be destitute.

Henry St Clair Miller: I have not learnt of that particular statistic, so I do not have an answer.

Immigration Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Craig Whittaker

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 34 In your 2014 report, “Migrants in low-skilled work”, which we have quoted several times, you talk about countries that use the International Labour Organisation labour inspection convention 81 of 1947, which seemed to be particularly effective. Will this new director bring us much closer to that working model?

Professor Metcalf: If I may say so, that is a really good question, because in some senses, what we were feeling our way towards in the “low-skilled” report was the notion of having an overall labour market inspectorate, which that ILO convention is about. What happened was the Prime Minister took up the issue of enforcement in the speech immediately after the election and set up an immigration taskforce, but on the immigration taskforce, you have different Departments who have different interests—the Treasury, with HMRC, and now the Home Office, with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and so on. I think it is quite understandable that the immigration taskforce—the ministerial taskforce—and probably, the Cabinet Office and so on, did not want to disrupt the machinery of Government completely and start with a blank sheet of paper and set up a new labour market inspectorate. They wanted people to get on with the job but have much more joined-up thinking and overall strategy.

We are where we are, and it may well have been that we would almost have had no labour market enforcement for the two years while we were trying to set the inspectorate up. It would be very difficult. Some of the people are not civil servants and some are, and they are located all over the place. Sticking with what we have got and trying to approach it in probably an incremental way is actually very sensible.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Q 35 Mr Bone, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I have a couple of questions. I am a big fan of the anti-slavery commissioner. I think that in six months, he has had a big impact, precisely because he is independent and has a remit that goes across different Departments and organisations. You said that it was key that the post of director is able to work harmoniously with other Departments, but you mentioned the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities, and a lack of clarity about what the relationship would be. Do you think that ought to be fleshed out on the face of the Bill for this post to have the maximum impact?

Professor Metcalf: No, I do not think so at this stage. Doing it incrementally is really a rather good idea. The main enforcement people currently are the three in the Bill—the employment agencies, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and HMRC, with the minimum wage. In a sense, the new director, whoever he or she is, will have a major task to get those agencies to work in a bit more of a joined-up way. There may well be a case in the future for trying to bring in, under the same strategic role, health and safety, local authorities and on occasions, possibly the Department for Work and Pensions as well, which deal with national insurance, for example. For me, it is a major task to do what is being done, and I do not think that at this stage, it is necessary to do that, but it is possible that we might even think, three or four years down the line, when we have seen how it works, “This is three quarters of the way to a fully-fledged labour market inspectorate. Perhaps we could transform it into a labour market inspectorate and bring the other bodies in as well.” But I think this is very good—it is not a halfway house; it is a three-quarter-way house.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 57 You do not think that the UK has been a light touch, then.

Caroline Robinson: We have had a raft of immigration legislation over many years, with controls and responses. I am not sure whether that means that people think the more immigration legislation that we have, the more of a light touch people perceive us to be. Then perhaps there is a problem with the legislation, I do not know.

[Sarah Champion]

Q 58 Leading on from Mr Whittaker’s question, do any of the panel believe that clause 8, the offence of illegal working, will have any impact on people illegally coming to this country?

John Miley: I am not sure. In terms of licensing, I am not sure there would be any particular effect at all, I have to say. I am not sure that there is a major problem in licensed premises; maybe more so in late-night takeaways and off-licences. I do not perceive that to affect it at all.

Immigration Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Craig Whittaker

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

Q 83 Finally, do you believe that the director has the remit and the resources to prevent this from being a box-ticking exercise? Would they have the authority to make the necessary changes?

Neil Carberry: That remains to be seen. The director clearly has to develop an enforcement plan, which has to be approved by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I would hope that that enforcement plan was well grounded in the effective work that some of the agencies are currently doing and would therefore be resourceable from within that. I had discussions last week with the HMRC team who are looking at non-compliance with the minimum wage; they feel that they currently have the resources to continue the good work they are doing.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q 84 I want to turn back to the evidence given to us this morning by Professor Sir David Metcalf. When he was discussing the CBI, he said that the regulation of the labour market proposed in the Bill would take away the cowboys and help your sector. He went on to say that it would go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. Do you think he has applied a risk-based, intelligent approach to his assessment?

Neil Carberry: I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating when it comes to the director. On the existence of a labour market director to do this work, his assessment could well be the case. What worries us is less what is in the Bill as introduced than some of the discussion in the Government’s consultation paper last week, which seems to suggest a broadening of a licensing approach. I think that would ultimately be a doubling up regulation on the compliant and would draw away from kicking down the doors of the non-compliant. From our perspective, there is every chance that the labour market director’s role could be very beneficial to lawful companies and workers.