Immigration Bill (Third sitting)

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Six Members are trying to get in, so just bear that in mind—we have 35 minutes to go.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Q 223 I have two questions, the first of which is on the Bill’s evidence base. I sent the Minister a number of questions, one of which Mr Gill referenced earlier, on the evidence base that the Minister was unable to answer. For example, one was about evidence relating to the size of businesses employing illegal migrants, as the Bill focuses largely on small and medium-sized enterprises. How strong does the panel feel that the evidence base is in the Bill?

Don Flynn: Perhaps I could help with that one. I think the answer is that the evidence base is not strong. Certainly in areas such as the position of migrants in the workforce, for example, it seems to be predicated on a whole series of assertions about migrants contributing to exploitation, unfair business practices and things of that nature. There has been a fair bit of research, and a new book has been published just in the last week or so looking at the relationship between forced labour and a whole range of issues. The position seems to be that as far as the UK is concerned, there is not a particularly strong relationship between immigration and those practices. Immigrants with insecure immigration status are not concentrated in workforces that only consist of illegal migrants. What is far more typical is that they are working alongside all sorts of other vulnerable types of workers and insecure workers.

The problem with this is that there is a point at which the illegal worker—the undocumented worker—actually tips over from being the criminal, as it is being phrased in the Bill, to being the victim of crime, the person whose situation is being taken advantage of. That requires a very different response from the one that seems to be being imposed—the requirement for strong policing and draconian threats of expropriation of earnings and whatever assets have been acquired. As I say, there are huge amounts of evidence at the moment—there is an industry as far as academia is concerned—looking at the situation of migrants in the labour force. It is very hard to see whether that sustains the sort of claims that underpin at least a couple of key sections in the Bill.

[Gavin Newlands]

Would the rest of panel like to comment?

Adrian Berry: If we look at the landlord and tenant regime and the right to rent that was introduced for a civil penalty regime under the Immigration Act 2014, there has only been a very modest pilot of that programme in the west midlands. It has not been expanded nationally and here we are, post-general election, with an augmentation of that regime to impose criminal sanctions on landlords and to provide for summary eviction of people who lack a right to rent without protection of the court. We struggle to see what evidence base there is for strengthening a regime that has barely been born. Perhaps business was left undone in the last Act because of an inability to secure political consent, but the innovations in this Bill that look at that particular regime cannot really have a base in evidence, because we do not know how the existing regime is going to work—it is just being brought in at the moment.

Jerome Phelps: On detention, there is certainly a real lack of evidence base. Reducing access to section 4—to a bail address—would clearly save a certain amount of money from the asylum support budget. What does not seem to have been considered is the extra spending on detention costs or long-term detention; the extra spending on unlawful detention compensation pay-outs, which goes to the High Court; and, potentially, the long-term extra spending of the Home Office on trying to track down people who have absconded because they have nowhere to live and they can no longer be traced.

Colin Yeo: If legislation is about solving problems, if we look at the appeals provisions and the immigration bail provisions, it is hard to see anything other than that the problems being addressed are the Home Office’s losing too many appeals and the Home Office’s losing too many bail applications, or not getting the conditions it wants. Those are not the right problems to be addressing, in my view, and it is not the right way to address them. We should be looking at the quality of decision making instead.

[Gavin Newlands]

Q 224 My second question is about enforcement. What concerns do you have about the new enforcement powers that immigration officers will be given, particularly in relation to their lack of training compared with police officers, and the lack of judicial oversight?

Colin Yeo: Very concerned. The best evidence base on this is the work of the chief inspector of borders and immigration, formerly John Vine and now David Bolt. In the reports that the chief inspector has put together, he has been very critical of the exercise of enforcement powers by immigration officers. In a couple of reports from March 2014, for example, he found that immigration officers were granted the power to enter business premises without a warrant in two thirds of cases, without justification; he also found unlawful use of power, ineffective management oversight, major variations in local practice and inadequate staff training across all grades—really serious concerns are being raised. Reports on removals and emergency travel documents are, again, very critical of Home Office management of the process and training. The idea that more powers should be given to people who are already exercising them in a very questionable way is somewhat dubious, in my view.

[Craig Whittaker]

Q 225 I want to clarify a couple of things that were said a little earlier. Mr Flynn and Mr Berry, you were talking about migrants in general, and I presume you were not talking about the vast majority of migrants who come to this country in a legal position. I just want to clarify that you were talking about potentially illegal immigrants, rather than the vast majority of immigrants, who are legal.

Don Flynn: I was talking about the general effect of migrants in the labour force, which is often cited as having a role in making conditions worse for UK workers. That has been particularly accentuated by what are called illegal migrant workers—there is an added emphasis there that it is causing wages to be forced down and exploitation to flourish.