Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Afzal Khan and Maria Caulfield

Thursday 14th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan]

Q Does anybody disagree with that position—that the Government could use the powers in that way?

Steve Valdez-Symonds: No. It is explicit in clause 4(4) that it can be used for precisely the people you are referring to.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Q I have a question to Bella Sankey on your concern about removing indefinite detention. I do not necessarily disagree with that, but I am interested in why you are supporting a 28-day limit. What is the rationale behind 28 days?

Bella Sankey: Thank you very much for the question. A limit of 28 days has been put forward as a principled, practical cumulative backstop for immigration detention. It reflects what the Home Office says its policy on detaining people is. Home Office guidance is clear that detention should happen only as a last resort, when there is the prospect of removal within a reasonable time, and when the prospect of removal is imminent. Imminence is defined as three to four weeks, so we are proposing a time limit that would reflect what the Government say their policy is on detention.

Through our casework, we see that that is not how detention is currently used. Detention Action has clients who have been detained for months or years—coming up to two years in some cases. Those are not unusual cases. Under our present system, the longest period that someone has been detained for is four and a half years. That makes the case for why a time limit is crucial.

We are proposing a 28-day backstop that would be accompanied by early judicial oversight of decisions to detain. That would mean that, after a period of days, the Home Office would need to go before a judge and the immigration tribunal. The tribunal would be able to decide whether to grant bail by looking at whether the decision to detain was really necessary and whether removal is genuinely imminent. That important safeguard should accompany any time limit to safeguard against the risk that, if 28 days is introduced as a statutory backstop, that becomes the norm. We would not want to see that.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Afzal Khan and Maria Caulfield

Thursday 14th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan]

Q What concerns do you have about the Henry VIII powers in this Bill? Do they potentially allow the Government to amend the rights of EU citizens in the UK by secondary legislation?

Professor Smismans: The provisions given here for secondary legislation are very broad. The process for applying for status is not in primary legislation, so that is a starting problem. The rights we currently have can broadly be revised by the powers given in this Bill, so the status that we once had can be undermined gradually over time. That is why we propose that if a delegation remains in the Bill, there should be a sunset clause on it, so it is only for tweaking technical issues in current rules. In particular, there should be a clause that stipulates that these provisions should not at any time undermine the existing rights of the people already here.

We understand that one wants to regulate free movement for the future, abolish it and create new rules, and we understand that that might require Henry VIII powers. That is a choice. But it is a very different thing to remove the existing rights of people who have been here for decades. That should be set out in primary legislation, and it should not be possible to play with that in secondary legislation.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Q I just want to clarify something. You seemed to suggest that EU citizens who are living here now do not have to apply for any settled status, but that is not the case, is it?

Professor Smismans: No, our proposal is that there should be a registration system. If there is no registration system, these people will not be able to distinguish themselves from future immigrants, so there has to be some registration.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Afzal Khan and Maria Caulfield

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan]

Q Can I ask the other two witnesses to comment on the effect that the £30,000 minimum would have on their sectors and members?

Rosa Crawford: The TUC is very concerned about the impact of the £30,000 threshold. We are concerned about it now—it applies to non-EU workers—and applying it to EU workers would have a devastating impact on many sectors. The Government estimate that 80% of EU workers would fall below the threshold. It is not only nursing and other parts of the health service, but distribution, hospitality and many parts of industry, that are heavily dependent on EU workers. There would be a really negative impact on those workers if that threshold was introduced.

The TUC is saying that, in the long term, there needs to be action on pay so that more workers receive a better settlement. The Migration Advisory Committee has suggested that this threshold would be an incentive to improve pay, but unfortunately that is not what we have seen. The pay cap has been in place for seven years, and we are only just moving out of that. The TUC is still calling for a fully funded settlement to ensure that workers are decently paid and that their wages keep up where they have fallen behind for the last seven years. We have not yet seen that.

Unfortunately, there are not enough employers in the private sector paying workers decently, so many million workers are still in insecure contracts and are not being paid a living wage. We want action on pay alongside action to ensure that the workers we need now to fill the critical shortages that Donna has talked about can come in. We need not to have the £30,000 threshold, and we need serious action on pay in the public sector and key parts of the private sector to ensure that everybody is treated decently and that migrant workers and UK workers receive decent pay for their work.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Q Professor Kinnair, the chair of the Migration Advisory Committee gave evidence to us this morning, and he said that he did not feel that immigration should be used to deal with staff shortages. He argued that we should be paying people significantly higher wages. Is it not true that the RCN should be lobbying for nurses’ pay, rather than trying to keep wages down by promoting immigration to fill the gaps?

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: You will have seen that the RCN has been lobbying for an increase—we lobbied long and hard on “Scrap the Cap” for nurses—but we are where we are. We have a shortage of 42,000 nurses at the moment, and it is predicted that it will rise to about 100,000 in the next 10 years. Those are people who look after our patients. We are where we are.

Of course we need to increase the domestic supply of nurses, and that includes paying them appropriately. We fully support that, and we have been lobbying on that basis. However, the people who gave evidence to the Select Committee about the Government’s plans talked about three areas: international recruitment, return to practice and retention. We know that you cannot have a nursing workforce fit for the needs of the population of this country unless you increase the domestic supply. As you will have heard, we have been lobbying up and down the country. Unless we get the right staff in the right organisations, we will also seek legislation on staffing. We know that if we do not have the right number of people, care falls, and that is damaging to our patients.

In summary, we are lobbying. We do not understand the proposal about low-skilled workers, because who in nursing is a low-skilled worker? What does that mean? The 12-month visa does not allow continuity of care, because by the time someone has got to grips with the culture of this country, they are ready to go. It is also contrary to people being able to bring their dependants into the country. Many nurses have families. Are we going to split up families? Are we asking them to leave their children while they come and provide care for the UK population?

[Maria Caulfield]

Q I have a follow-up question on that. This Bill is about ending freedom of movement for EU workers—EU nurses and midwives. The latest figures from the Nursing & Midwifery Council show that the greatest increase in the number of nurses registering with it has come from non-EU nurses—2,808—so there is clearly a group of nurses from outside the EU who want to register and work here, but it is difficult for them to do so because of the restrictions in place. Do you welcome the level playing field that would enable nurses from outside the EU to come and work in the NHS as easily as EU nurses and midwives can do currently?

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: We welcome the fact that there is one system. The less complex a system is, the better it is, because people can navigate it. It has been a particular Government intention to turn to non-EU nurses, and once we knew that we were coming out of Europe, they sought to draw in nurses from outside the EU. We have concerns because we believe in ethical recruitment. We do not believe that we should be raiding countries that require their nurses, despite the risk of not increasing our domestic supply.

[Afzal Khan]

Q May I ask Universities UK to comment on the £30,000 minimum income threshold?

Vivienne Stern: For the university sector this is primarily a question of access to specific sorts of skills, and competitiveness. Overall, almost a quarter of academic staff in the university sector come from outside the UK, and in some disciplines and roles the reliance is much greater. EEA nationals make up 11% of all staff in universities, and they comprise 17% of academic staff. For staff on research-only contracts, that figure is 27%. In particular subject areas the concentration of EEA nationals can be even higher, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as areas such as economics, where more than 30% of academic staff come from outside the UK.

Universities require specific skills, sometimes at relatively short notice, and the pool of talent is geographically distributed in some funny way. For example, the University of Cambridge has a world-leading strength in Arctic and Antarctic research, and it requires a pool of technicians who are able to analyse certain sorts of geological data. Quite often, those teams of individuals are deployed at relatively short notice when the climate conditions are right and boats are available, and it all comes together at the last minute. A group of individuals in Italy possess those skills, and historically Cambridge has called on them, and recruited from Italy to staff up those teams when they need those skills. That does not mean that over time we could not generate our own labour force with those specific skills, but in the short term if we moved from one regime to another, would institutions simply be unable to access the specific skillsets they need for one reason or another? Would they be less able to compete effectively and perform their research because they are constrained in that regard?

Overall, our particular concern relates to staff in technician roles, 63% of whom earn below the £30,000 threshold. That is why we propose that the Government should consider a lower threshold. We would like to suggest £21,000 as the level at which the majority of staff—particularly in those technician roles—will be able to continue to come to the UK. That would be a compromise. We also suggest that for staff whose jobs fall under the shortage occupation list there should be no salary threshold. As others have argued, a salary threshold is not a good proxy for skill level.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Afzal Khan and Maria Caulfield

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Q Good morning, both of you. Let me start with two questions for Professor Ryan. You said in your written evidence that we need a legislative guarantee for EU citizens’ rights in the event of no deal. Why is that necessary?

Professor Ryan: I see the Bill as an historic measure. If you take a long view, it is one of the moments at which the basic categories of immigration law are being redefined. In relation to EU citizens, it is essentially just a framework for switching off the rights that exists, but what about the people who are here already? If it is such a fundamental change, should provision not be made for them? Particularly in a no-deal scenario, which of course we have to look at, there is clearly a question about the people who are here now. If we get a withdrawal agreement, there will be implementing legislation for that, but there is no clear plan to have implementing legislation or equivalent legislation in the absence of an agreement. That would leave the people who are already here exercising rights without legislative protection.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Q Professor Ryan, may I ask you about clause 2, which relates to Irish citizens? Obviously, the rights of Irish citizens and the common travel area were outlined in the Immigration Act 1971. What does the Bill do to that? Does it add to it? Is clause 2 necessary?

Professor Ryan: I welcome clause 2. Some of us have been arguing for a long time, particularly since the referendum in 2016, that there is not full provision for Irish citizens in immigration law. There is, in a somewhat obscure manner, recognition of Irish citizens coming from other parts of the common travel area—that, in practice, means coming from the Republic—but, of course, that does not give protection or recognition to the position of Irish citizens who might simply enter the United Kingdom from elsewhere, or indeed who are born in the United Kingdom. That is the gap in legislative terms. Of course, the policy in practice is not to require of Irish citizens leave to enter or remain. That has always been the position, but it has never been clearly expressed in legislation. Clearly, this is the time to do it.

[Maria Caulfield]

Q Am I understanding you correctly? You feel that clause 2 is necessary to add to the existing rights.

Professor Ryan: In terms of legislation, Irish citizens are protected only when they enter the United Kingdom from elsewhere in the common travel area; they are not exempt from immigration law when they enter the United Kingdom from the rest of the world. That is the large gap that clause 2 addresses.

[Afzal Khan]

Q Where do you see the risks of the Government rolling back their promises to EU citizens?

Professor Ryan: I would not want to be specific about what might happen in future. I am conscious that the Bill will potentially define a framework for decades regarding EU citizens. We just have to look at the Windrush story. The way in which Commonwealth citizens of that generation still rely on the Immigration Act 1971 to protect them is not fully understood. Section 34 conferred upon them automatic indefinite leave to remain. That is more than 40 years ago. What was put in place then is still being used. We have to think in that kind of timescale. I do not want to be specific about what might change in the future regarding public policy for EU citizens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

Q You have both said in your evidence that the scope of the Bill does not cover future immigration policy, but do you have a view on how quickly that future immigration policy should follow the Bill?

Professor Ryan: Only that they should go together, I suppose, at the commencement of the switch-off, the moment it happens. I am thinking particularly about a no-deal scenario; that has to be in step with the arrangements for the future.

[Afzal Khan]

Q Professor Ryan, you said earlier that there was not enough in the Bill. Is the Bill’s lack of detail a problem?

Professor Ryan: I was focusing particularly on the question of guarantees for people who are exercising rights already—prior residents, as it were. That is the key detail that is left out. Apart from that, it is understandable that it is a framework and that details will be filled in later, particularly as regards timing.