Migration

Debate between Dan Carden and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policies on migration.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this area of policy, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time and granting this debate. Few policy areas generate as much unwanted noise as migration, and my aim in securing this debate is to have a reasonable, rational, evidence-informed discussion on the impact of the Government’s migration policies. Those policies are also looked at individually, whether that is Brexit and the impact of the end of freedom of movement, asylum, or other areas of immigration. I am grateful to the Father of the House and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for co-sponsoring this debate. They both bring considerable expertise to this area, and I am looking forward to their contributions.

We are living in a world that is characterised by increased, near-constant movement. Goods, capital and services are increasingly unburdened by borders. One central pillar of the globalisation that we have been living through over the past 40 years or so is that human beings have to some extent also become units that can be moved around the world to enable profit. For decades, cheap labour and trained labour has been used here to lower costs and keep things going, and while we withdrew almost entirely from vocational training, we have seen increased immigration. For many working-class communities, their experience of immigration has been a form of wage suppression.

This is one of the most complex areas of policy that we encounter, cutting across several Departments and dividing public opinion. Specifically, we must begin to take a more focused look at the evidence of policy impact. Why has net migration hit a record high, and what will its impact be? According to the Office for National Statistics, net migration stood at 606,000 people in 2022, with 1.2 million people arriving. Of that number, 925,000 were non-EU nationals. Those numbers include refugees under the respective Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, but that growth has slowed over the past few quarters as the impact of those two schemes decreased. Despite that record number, the Government continue to say that net migration will decrease. That is what successive Conservative Governments have said since 2010, but despite such promises, no decrease has ever been achieved. That huge gap between rhetoric and reality is borne out by the figures. Net migration stood at 256,000 in 2010, and is now 606,000. That is the reality of the situation.

The Minister will stand up and try to say that the Labour party voted against all the Bills that claim to address those increases, but the reality is that none of that legislation has achieved the Government’s stated aims. Net migration has increased, small boat crossings have increased, and the asylum backlog has increased, and all that is because the increased movement of people, and increased migration, is a reality of the modern world.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the increase in boat crossings, but overall the number of people coming over the channel, not just in boats but in trucks and through other irregular forms, has actually decreased over time, has it not? The problem, partly, is that other regular forms of entry into this country are being tightened and people are prevented from them, which forces many people into dangerous forms of migration.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point and share his view on the need for legal and safe crossing routes to this country. I look forward to hearing other contributions on that point.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are displaced from their homes because of climate, poverty, famine, drought and conflict. Many more seek a better life as economic migrants. We must acknowledge that reality and engage with communities here at home that have understandable concerns about the effects of that increase on their ability to buy a house and access health and education services as well as what those increases mean for the public purse.

It is impossible to understand the ruptures in our politics over the last decade without thinking seriously about immigration as a social, political and economic issue. One of the biggest causes of the Brexit vote was a response in many working-class committees to being told that nothing could be done about the forces of globalisation. The mass migration of people around the world will continue, but our immigration system can be managed more effectively, can be more efficient and can be more humane. I believe that our politics needs to put more emphasis on addressing the root cause of some of the concerns that people have about the impact of immigration on suppressing wages and placing pressure on housing stock in local communities, if we are to continue to live in the open, tolerant society that we all wish to have.

There are some areas that we can address to improve the migration system for all involved. I want to use my time to discuss three such areas: visa costs, labour shortages and backlogs at the Home Office. On visa costs, the total minimum cost of the current 10-year settlement route for an adult with indefinite leave to remain stands at £12,836.50. For families, that is extortionate, with fees paid for each individual, including children. Those punishingly high fees force many applicants into debt. While there is a clear need for the visa system to pay for itself, in some cases the cost of visas stands many times higher than the administrative costs of processing them. To take one example, the fee for in- country naturalisation stands at £1,330, yet Home Office figures show that the unit cost for facilitating naturalisation stands at just £372. While those eligible to apply for a fee waiver may do so, applicants cannot apply for a fee waiver for indefinite leave. That makes little sense, especially for those who come to work in our NHS or social care. I would appreciate the Minister’s views on that. Will he look at giving them the opportunity to apply for a fee waiver? The substantial visa cost does not include ancillary costs such as legal advice, translation services and the enrolment of biometric data.

Further, it is not just the substantial financial cost that presents a challenge. Repeat applications, which take an increasingly long time, must be made. Such applications are not subject to a service standard, and applicants are also subject to a default “no recourse to public funds” condition. That has an obvious detrimental impact on applicants, causing them stress and placing them in a form of bureaucratic purgatory. Surely it does not have to be this way.

A joint report by Praxis, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, which are all organisations that do hugely valuable work in this area, highlights that if applicants had the option to apply for longer blocks of leave—for example, five years instead of two-and-a-half years—applicants’ stress and anxiety and Home Office caseworkers’ workloads would decrease. That would go a considerable way towards guaranteeing security for those who may have already lived and worked in the UK for a long period of time.

On costs, the Home Office could cap them at the administrative cost only, or grant an automatic fee waiver to those who have had their “no recourse to public funds” condition lifted. These are all little measures that could make a big difference.

I have heard the Immigration Minister say in this House on several occasions that the UK visa service is now meeting or exceeding every one of its service standards, but that means nothing if, as we currently see, many applications are not subject to those service standards. Will the Minister commit to introducing a service standard for all applications to improve performance? Will he also indicate what recent steps his Department has taken to simplify the visa application system and lessen the administrative burden on both applicants and caseworkers? It is clear that there is so much to be done in this area.

Labour shortages in areas such as health, social care and hospitality can only be described as hellish across the UK. Sector after sector tell us that they need more access to skilled staff and they simply do not have that access at the moment. The impact of the shortages is obvious. They act as a drag on our whole economy, holding back prosperity and reducing the quality of life for people across the country. Shortages affect productivity and public services and neither can be improved if we do not fill vacancies. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation estimates that, if labour shortages are not addressed, they will cost the UK economy a staggering £39 billion a year. That is a catastrophe and the Government must not allow their rhetoric on reducing net migration to act as a barrier in addressing that huge fiscal black hole.

Increasing access to skills training and education will go some way over the years to improving labour shortages, but we must also look to migration. Employers have long decried the onerous, bureaucratic and time-consuming nature of recruiting staff from abroad. While employers should make every effort to recruit locally, the Government should not act as a roadblock, stopping local businesses such as restaurants and other businesses across the hospitality sector, the NHS or social care from recruiting the staff they need from further afield.

Local businesses tell me of their frustration. They do not understand why, after Brexit, after leaving the EU and the end of freedom of movement, now we are in control of our own borders, we are not using that control to allow UK businesses to recruit to prosper and grow. It is clearly in the public interest to have a thriving visitor economy. For Liverpool, it makes up more than 50% of our economy. It is a matter of life and death that we have a properly staffed national health service and address shortages in social care. As it stands, the Government are sticking to their line that they must keep net migration down, but I think they should shift to look at how we can use migration policy to address the labour shortages. Many measures have been introduced in the form of a temporary exception to the skilled worker criteria under the points-based system and the introduction of a specific visa for seasonal agricultural workers, but workforce challenges are clearly not being solved. The Government must go further. I am aware that the Migration Advisory Committee recently launched a call for evidence on reform of the shortage occupation list. I urge the Government to heed its calls when they arrive.

Finally on labour shortages, why have the Government not moved to allow asylum seekers the right to work? There is support from both sides of the House for this policy change. Refugee Action highlights that the ban currently costs the public purse around £500 million a year. All available evidence, including the Home Office’s own leaked report from September 2020, refutes the Government’s argument that enabling asylum seekers to work is a pull factor. I have met many people residing in my constituency seeking asylum who also want to contribute to their new communities and are desperate for the right to work and to earn a living.

All these issues are made much worse by delays in the Home Office’s decision making. My caseworkers frequently encounter cases with almost indeterminate delay. Although they try to make progress through the UK Visas and Immigration hotline, often responses are non-specific, unhelpful and sometimes contradictory.

To give just one example, one of my constituents applied for asylum in January 2019. She completed her interview in the same month and was referred to the national referral mechanism, as she was identified as a potential victim of trafficking. In November 2021, a positive conclusive grounds decision was reached on the case—in other words, she was identified as a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking. The nearly three years of waiting for a decision were difficult for her and her children, not knowing where their future may lie.

In February 2022, my office was told by the Home Office that my constituent would receive a decision on the asylum part of her claim within six months. That created an obvious expectation from my constituent. But when six months had passed, she informed me that no decision had been forthcoming. After my office notified the Home Office of that, we were told there was no timeframe for a decision, despite the previous commitment. My constituent’s solicitor then issued the Home Office with a pre-action protocol. The Home Office committed to an asylum decision by 1 May. No decision came on 1 May. We wrote again to the Home Office, and I am still awaiting a response. Four and a half years have passed since the initial application, and nearly a year since the Home Office committed to making a decision. That case is not an anomaly; it is one of many I could have chosen to illustrate the point. I would appreciate it if the Minister’s office could reach out to mine to discuss just a few such cases that would greatly benefit from his intervention.

More widely, backlogs are now a well-known aspect of our migration system. They are a feature, not a bug. The Minister has hinted that a quick decision-making process would act as a pull factor again. However, among other issues, that ignores the huge cost of asylum accommodation in the meantime. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide clarity on this point in his closing remarks.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The cost of housing asylum seekers is huge. There is no ability for local communities who might believe they could do it cheaper and better in alternative forms of accommodation to draw down money. The Home Office has paid huge amounts, often to corporate organisations, even though local organisations would be able to do it better. Giving asylum seekers the ability to draw down that money on an individual or a community basis, and allowing communities and councils to organise accommodation, would at least help to alleviate some of the trauma that people face in Home Office hotels.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s point, and I hope that this debate is a space for exactly those kinds of ideas so that we start to see improvements in the system.

Delays seem to be worse in the asylum system, even as the Home Office chooses to be selective, applying service standards to other types of application, such as for naturalisation or further leave to remain. The backlog on so-called legacy cases has started to fall very slightly. However, the Prime Minister’s commitment to clearing the backlog will not be met at the “current pace”—not my words but those of the Home Secretary.

There have been smart moves to address the huge backlog. For instance, last week, the Government quietly dropped the two-tier refugee system introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. That is a perfect example of the Government very quietly replacing a noisy, reactionary policy with one that has more chance of being workable. It is also illustrative of the desperate need for a coherent and honest long-term strategy in this area.

We all want a migration system that works for all our constituents, those seeking asylum and those wanting to work or visit our country. I am grateful for the time to put some of my thoughts on the record.

Sustainable Development Goals

Debate between Dan Carden and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Secretary of State, who I think has an important engagement in around two hours’ time—perhaps talking about saving the world is a pretty good warm-up act for talking about how to save the Tory party in his meeting later today.

The sustainable development goals set out an ambitious vision for the world: a world that is free from hunger and poverty, where men and women have equality, where everyone, regardless of income, can realise their right to health, education, water, energy and decent work and where peace, justice and climate action are top of the agenda. It is a vision that no one could disagree with. The crucial thing about the SDGs is that they are universal. Unlike their predecessors, the millennium development goals, the SDGs have to be realised by all countries, including our own.

I want to raise one concern. In last Thursday’s business statement, the Leader of the House announced a

“general debate on the UK voluntary national review on the sustainable development goals.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2019; Vol. 661, c. 271.]

Today’s debate was meant to focus on the UK’s own voluntary national review process. I accept that the Secretary of State did his best to talk about the UK’s report, but let us bear in mind that the report is meant to go to the UN in less than three days.

A further question to be answered is why responsibility for the UK’s voluntary national review should sit with DFID: an entirely outward, international-facing Department. It is clear, and has been stated on the record, that the domestic delivery of the SDGs is a function for the whole Government. The Cabinet Office should be co-ordinating the process.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Government did a VNR only at the end of the cycle? The Netherlands has already done one and is embarking on a second. The Government should consider doing a domestic VNR and an international VNR as separate processes. Donor countries do only a domestic VNR, but we are a country that both gives and has to look at what we are doing ourselves. We should probably do that as two separate processes involving different stake- holders and people.

[Dan Carden]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I will come to some of the criticisms of the Government’s handling of the process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

My hon. Friend is right. The previous International Development Secretary looked at ways to water down the 0.7% commitment, although this Secretary of State committed to it at International Development questions last week. I asked whether he would call on his opponents in the Tory leadership race to make the same commitment, but I do not think we have heard much from them. It is certainly a worry throughout the sector.

As I have said, the Cabinet Office should be co-ordinating the process. We heard the Secretary of State try to talk about some of the domestic issues, but they go far further than those he could elaborate on. In particular, following numerous complaints from UK charities that the Government are not taking the SDGs or the voluntary national review seriously, it is remarkable that there does not seem to be even a basic understanding of who is responsible for what. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see on the Order Paper yesterday that the focus of this debate had changed, shifting unannounced away from the UK’s own performance to the much broader topic of the SDGs in general. The scope of the debate now covers the whole world—quite an extension.

There could not be a bigger agenda out there than changing the world by 2030, yet there is little or no leadership in the UK. There appears to be poor co-ordination and zero vision. The Secretary of State may be very good at talking to people in the streets and on Twitter at the moment, but the truth is his Government and Departments have given up talking to one another.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The UN Secretary-General has said that the process in a voluntary national review should be for the Government to consult Parliament and the Opposition, as well as members of the Government and civil society. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have been pretty lacking in real, detailed consultation during this process, particularly in Parliament? We have had one or two informal sessions and an inquiry by the International Development Committee, but there has been no proactive, issue-by-issue engagement on the Government’s part.

[Dan Carden]

Both the International Development Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee have expressed concern about a lack of co-ordination and a lack of discussion of these issues in Parliament. The Secretary of State was not able to address that in his speech, but I hope that the Minister will do so later. Our VNR report is due to be with the United Nations in just three days’ time. It is a blatant attempt to sweep under the carpet the UK’s failure to make any progress towards meeting the global goals for its own citizens—its failure to tackle poverty, hunger and homelessness in our own country, the fifth richest on the planet. There is a total lack of leadership, and I have to ask what on earth is going on, because we have been given no satisfactory details about the process today.

In the meantime, let me set out what I do know about how we, as a country, are doing on the SDGs. I do not need to be shadow Secretary of State to make these judgments; I can talk about my own constituency in north Liverpool and the poverty that I see there.

The first and most crucial goal is the ending of poverty. In that regard, sadly, we have little to be proud of here in the UK. Under this Tory leadership, one fifth of the population are currently living in poverty. In the past year alone, the Trussell Trust issued 1.6 million emergency food packages across the country, more than half of which went to children. Rough sleeping has risen by 165% since the Tory party took power in 2010, and child homelessness has surged by 80% in the same period.

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights was damning of poverty in the UK. He said that it was

“patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty.”

His report warned that on current trends, child poverty rates could hit 40% by 2021. He said:

“The results? 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are more than 50% below the poverty line, and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials. The widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a 7% rise in child poverty between 2015 and 2022, and various sources predict child poverty rates of as high as 40%. For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.”

What was the Government’s response to that damning report? They tried to smear it. However, I can tell the House that I see poverty day in, day out, with my own eyes, in my constituency, where 40% of children are already growing up in poverty. A study by the Centre for Cities revealed Liverpool to be the city hardest hit by austerity, with a cut of £816 per head in day-to-day spending since 2010. A staggering 64% has been slashed from our local authority budget; 3,000 council staff have been lost; and local services are stretched to the limit. Liverpool now has the second highest levels of destitution in the UK, and that means a lack of basic essentials, including food and shelter. According to the Office for National Statistics, even life expectancy is starting to creep backwards in Liverpool. Austerity is literally cutting lives short.

The stark reality faced by so many of the people I represent could not be further from the rosy picture painted by Ministers at the Dispatch Box. That is exactly what Philip Alston meant when he described an “almost complete disconnect” between what Ministers and the public see, and it is why so many people were outraged when our multimillionaire Chancellor said that he does not accept that large numbers of British people are living in poverty; he really should take a step outside Downing Street.

Hunger is addressed as one of the global goals, and I have with me the “Agenda 2030” paper, which explains the UK Government’s approach to delivering the global goals for sustainable development at home and abroad. Goal 2 of “zero hunger” does not even mention food banks in this country; it talks about secure farming and childhood obesity, but it is incredible that a report on how we are delivering on the global goals in this country does not even mention food banks. I hope that the Secretary of State will take this opportunity to finally break with the state of denial that has shamefully typified his Government when it comes to the scale of poverty here in the UK.

Far from eradicating poverty, this Government have exacerbated it. It is no wonder that they decided to shift the focus of today’s debate at the last minute rather than face up to these realities at home, because what an embarrassment it is that this country will go tail between our legs to the UN high-level meeting in July. With our global reputation already smashed to pieces, this Government have only two choices: double down on their attacks on the special rapporteur or admit that our own record on poverty is, despite our being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, utterly shameful. With such an appalling domestic picture, how can this Government seriously be trusted to lead on work eradicating poverty globally?

Let me now say a few words about our work towards achieving the SDGs internationally. DFID staff work extremely hard to bring about meaningful change in people’s lives across the world, and we in the Labour party fully back the UK’s role as a global champion of international development. Although I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s confirmation just last week in the Chamber that he supports the continuation of the 0.7% spending targets, unlike some of his colleagues, I remain deeply concerned about the way that aid has been spent in recent years. Under this Government, aid has been diluted and diverted away from poverty reduction towards spending in the UK’s national interest, including for the benefit of UK commercial and business interests.

If we are serious about achieving the SDGs at a global level, we must prioritise supporting people across the world in seeking to build their own public services. We know from our own experience right here in the UK how essential free schooling—state schooling—and our national health service are in ensuring equality and that people can have a dignified life. That is why in government a Labour DFID would establish a dedicated unit for public services within the Department.

Another major barrier to achieving the SDGs both domestically and globally is this Government’s policy incoherence. I welcome the Secretary of State’s plans to prioritise the climate crisis, which is crucial to achieving goals 13 and 7 on climate action and on clean energy, but his colleagues do not appear to be on the same page. It is this Government who have shut down the dedicated Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is this Government who continue to promote fracking and support the growth of fossil fuels overseas; over 99% of all energy support provided by UK Export Finance goes to fossil fuels. And it is this Government who continue to spend our aid money on new oil and gas projects overseas through the prosperity fund and CDC investments.

The Government’s policy is not just incoherent in the area of climate; it is also fuelling conflict through arms sales. According to Christian Aid, while DFID allocates at least 50% of its development spending to conflict-affected regions, more than 50% of UK arms exports are now sold to countries within these same regions. Meanwhile, ongoing arms sales to Saudi Arabia fuel the conflict in Yemen, directly undermining goal 16 on peace.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend find it appalling, as I do, that British fighter jets using British ammunition and flown by people trained in Britain on routes that are set out in Saudi control centres where British personnel are based end up bombing British-paid-for aid in Yemen? That country is suffering one of the worst humanitarian disasters we have seen in 100 years, and something being done in the voluntary national review to change our policy on Saudi Arabia and Yemen would be one instance in which we could actually see progress. Does he agree that if that is not done, it will show the Government’s commitment to peace and international justice for the sham that it is?

[Dan Carden]

I am pleased to agree 100% with my hon. Friend, and I congratulate him on his tireless efforts to highlight these utterly disgraceful practices.

I should like to raise a final point relating to the SDG agenda. If we are to bring about the kind of world envisaged under the SDGs, we need to start talking about the structural causes of poverty. Debates about the sustainable development goals have become dominated by discussions on how to mobilise trillions in additional finance and, in particular, how we can mobilise private finance and philanthropic funds. This is not good enough; charity alone will not solve the world’s problems, especially if we are ignoring the reasons that these problems exist in the first place.

I have said before, and it really cannot be said enough, that poverty is not a technical problem. Poverty is man-made, and to solve it we need to change the unfair global economic order that is rigged in favour of the few at the expense of the many. I support efforts to increase funding, and I am a passionate believer in the continuation of our 0.7% aid spending, but we need to go further. We do not talk enough about the unfair structures and the imbalanced voting power within global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. We need to do more to tackle the tax avoidance that means developing countries losing out on trillions of pounds of revenue each year. The SDGs do not go far enough in preventing unjust debt burdens. Does the Secretary of State agree that poverty is not simply about a lack of funds and that the answer to global poverty does not lie in taking a begging bowl to the world’s billionaires? Will he instead use the UK’s moment at the high-level political forum in July to raise the questions on the structural causes of poverty that are missing from the current agenda?

To conclude, the UK’s voluntary national review, which is due to be with the United Nations this week, has been mishandled and botched by this Government. It has lacked leadership; it has not been taken seriously from the start; and today the Government have backtracked on their own decision to have a full parliamentary debate on it within days of announcing it. It is a total and utter embarrassment. If this process had been taken seriously, it would have allowed the Government to face up to their record in office over nine years and own up to the utter failure of austerity. I hope that this Secretary of State will therefore use this as a moment to take stock of his Government’s failure on poverty and inequality here at home in the UK.