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

Jack Brereton Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

As I have said on more than one occasion, we have already had a people’s vote and the people voted to leave the EU. My constituents in Stoke-on-Trent South were particularly clear when they voted by 70% to leave. One of the key reasons for doing so was a desire to take back control of our own borders.

Last year, Parliament passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, under which the same rules and laws apply on the day after we leave the EU. That currently includes the EU’s rules on free movement, and Parliament must legislate to bring free movement to an end. Without this Bill, the EU’s free movement rules would continue to have effect after we leave. Were that to happen, it would be completely unacceptable and we would have failed to address our constituents’ legitimate concerns about EU immigration. We need to pass this Bill to deliver the firm but fair and efficient system that my constituents want, regaining control of our own borders.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Brereton]

No. I have to make some progress.

I know from the many conversations I have had with my constituents on the doorstep that a significant number voted to leave primarily to take back control of our borders and to secure the chance to reform our immigration system. People in regional towns and cities felt that Brussels was far too remote and technocratic to realise the practical local consequences of continent-wide free movement, especially the impact of increased pressures on local services, school places and housing. That was squared against a feeling that the EU had delivered very few beneficial improvements in local residents’ quality of life, particularly outside the M25.

There has been a feeling that my constituents were not allowed to talk about their genuine concern about the impacts of immigration and that, if they did talk about it, they would be ignored, pilloried or shunned. They certainly do not feel there is anything wrong in believing, given our unique history with Ireland, that Irish citizens should enjoy more rights here than, say, citizens from south-east Europe. People voted to end free movement for EU citizens outside the common travel area because it did not work for them and they wanted to regain control.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jack Brereton]

No. I want to make some progress.

Freedom of movement did not result in tangible improvements to my constituents’ own quality of life and future prospects, even as it improved the quality of life and future prospects of those who found themselves entitled to move freely here. Free movement in practice worked instead as a mop for clearing up the EU’s chronic unemployment problem, suppressing wages here in exactly the kind of communities that I and other hon. Members were elected to represent.

[Sir John Hayes]

The chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee has made exactly that point—

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Gentleman listen? The chairman made exactly that point. He said that the policy of free movement tends to perpetuate a low-skill, low-wage economy. That is precisely what we have ended up with, with a consequent displacement of investment in skills, in automation, in technology and in recruitment.

[Jack Brereton]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend.

Certainly, Stoke-on-Trent South has some of the lowest average wage levels in the country, and we need to continue to build on the work we have been doing in government to ensure people take home more.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Brereton]

No, I am making some progress.

My constituents want London-based policy makers to focus on doing what it takes, across every nation and region of the United Kingdom, to prioritise the employment and lifelong employability of the British people. Of course, where there are clear and urgent shortages of British candidates, such as in our NHS, rightly migrant workers can add skills to our economy and make a significant contribution. It is positive to see the caps for non-EU migrants coming to work in the NHS lifted. The Home Office has always been clear that the future immigration system will be based on engagement and evidence, and that by putting the skills and talents of migrant workers at the heart of the future system, the UK can continue to attract the brightest and the best from across the world when it is necessary for us so to do.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about skills, but in fact, with salary thresholds, we are talking not about skills but about salaries, and the two things do not connect, particularly where wages are far lower—outside the south-east. A skilled or university-qualified person in Scotland can easily earn under £30,000, which is the threshold that has been set.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. Although I do not totally agree with what she has said, some parts of the country, including my own—

[Carol Monaghan]

It’s a fact.

[Jack Brereton]

Will the hon. Lady let me finish my response? Some parts of the country, and certainly my own, do see differential wage levels, and having lower skills certainly does have an impact on that.

We need to ensure that there is more of a commitment in the longer term that any such shortages will be addressed by properly equipping the British people for such roles, particularly in traditional, proud manufacturing employment. This is exactly what our industrial strategy is designed to address, and we need the right immigration and social security co-ordination to work alongside it. Delivering on that rebalancing of our economy will be hugely important in ensuring that traditional working-class communities, as in Stoke-on-Trent and across the country, are no longer ignored.

[Anna Soubry]

Could my hon. Friend tell us what percentage of people in Stoke are migrant workers and, when free movement from the European Union ends, which countries people will come from to replace those EU workers? Will they come from Bangladesh, and is that what his constituents voted for?

[Jack Brereton]

I think what we in this House are saying is that we want to regain control and ensure that we have a fair system, whereby anybody coming to this country is in the same system and is judged on merit, not on which country they come from. At the moment, the current system is not a fair one. It prioritises some European countries within the EU, and places such as the Commonwealth, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and America are not receiving the same priority.

If we do not deliver immigration reforms as we take back control through Brexit, there is a real danger that some people will, in exasperation, turn to those who have demonstrably exploited their grievances before. It is concerning that we see a rise of extremist views, stirred by populists on both the far left and the far right. As I have stressed in the House previously, it was not easy to see off the British National party in Stoke-on-Trent, as we have had to do, and I will not be cavalier in assuming that the threat has gone away. We must ensure that our democracy remains relevant and responsive to all our communities if we are to see off future extremist threats.

Ending free movement is a major change in our immigration law. It is a change that people voted for and we must deliver it, just as we must deliver Brexit itself. Inevitably, given the scale of the task enabled by this Bill, much of the delivery will take the form of consequential amendments to be made by secondary legislation. It is work that must be done. The Bill contains the necessary powers to get the process under way, and I will very happily support it tonight.

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

Jack Brereton Excerpts

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

[Afzal Khan]

Q Professor Manning, in the White Paper the Government proposed a temporary 12-month work visa to help businesses to transition. What do you think are the possible problems with the proposed route?

Professor Manning: The first potential problem is that an employer-driven system can lead to workers being extremely vulnerable. They are here only for short periods and do not really understand the system, and so on. We would need quite extensive regulation to prevent potential abuse of those workers.

Secondly, if you are concerned about the social integration of migrants, it will not help with that. Inevitably, there is no point in people who are here only for a short period investing in building a life here, and links to the wider community.

Thirdly, historically it has been the case that, because it is quite artificial—at the end of 12 months a worker has to leave, perhaps to be replaced by another—it generally sets up some kind of pressure for employers to extend the 12 months. It may start off in that form, but there is a risk of drift into a more permanent migration route.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Q How do you see the changes to free movement affecting the economy? Do you think they will have a positive or negative impact, or do you have more detailed concerns?

Professor Manning: The view in the report that we published in September is that EEA migration has not had very big costs. It has not had very big benefits either. The technical analysis in the White Paper indicated that. There would be impacts here and there. The general point is that after 2004 free movement, more by accident than design, was a system for primarily lower-skilled migration. Most countries have a preference for higher-skilled migrants. The proposals that we made, and that were taken forward in the White Paper, were essentially to alter the balance towards more higher-skilled migrants.

[Jack Brereton]

Q Do you think that lower-skilled labour has had any impact on wage levels?

Professor Manning: Not to any great extent—we are fairly confident about that. There is some evidence of a small effect but, because of the minimum wage, there has been quite a substantial protection against that at the bottom end of the labour market. It has certainly not had a positive effect on wages—the evidence there is neutral to negative. I would not say that any of that effect has been very big.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Q Professor Manning, you may have seen the CBI Wales analysis showing that 58% of workers in the manufacturing sector in Wales, over one quarter of whom are EU nationals, earn below the £30,000 threshold. There is real concern about how this would impact on manufacturing, in Wales in particular and across the country. What analysis have you done about the potential adverse impact on the manufacturing sector?

Professor Manning: Our proposal was to maintain the existing system of salary thresholds, of which £30,000 is one but not the only one. A lot of commentary omits that important detail. If you take that number, we think that the argument for having migrants is normally that there is a shortage of workers in the domestic labour market to do that job. Our proposal is that you should be able to employ migrants, but you have to be paying above the going rate for wages; you must not be employing migrants to undercut the domestic labour market. The absolute minimum salary threshold that you would consider would be something like the average, which is about 50% of workers. When you say it is 58% of workers, I think it is entirely reasonable to think that there is some upward pressure on wages in the manufacturing sector. I understand that the CBI is not very keen on that, because to the CBI wages are a cost, but to other people it is their income.

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[The Chair]

Lord Green, the Clerk has taken careful note of your remarks about the balance of witnesses. I did not have any hand in it, and we will reflect on the issue.

Lord Green: It is not a criticism. This is life—we are the only body in the UK that makes these points.

[Jack Brereton]

Q Would you agree that delivering on free movement and on the control of free movement, which the Bill would achieve, would be a key part of delivering on the 2016 referendum result?

Lord Green: Yes, I certainly would, and I think the public would certainly take the same view. As we have mentioned before, the Bill is only a framework. I think the Scottish National party and the Lords have pointed out that it has enormous secondary powers, which I am sure you will consider. In effect, it opens the door to whatever the Government might later decide. Reading the White Paper, I think we will all be in difficulty.

[Jack Brereton]

Q What do you think would be the consequences of not delivering on the control of free movement?

Lord Green: That is a political question and your Members will know better than I do, but I think they will be serious.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q I think you have been very firm in your views on levels of migration being too high. What is the right level of migration?

Lord Green: Until 1998, the level of net migration had never been more than 50,000 a year, and on some occasions it had been negative. Times were different, but we did not really need large-scale migration until then. You probably remember—you may have been an MP at the time—that when the Labour Government eased the immigration system, the numbers trebled in a couple of years. You will also remember that when the points-based system was introduced in 2008, we found very soon that we had something like 40,000 bogus students arriving in one year, mainly from the Indian subcontinent. We also found that 1,000 bogus colleges had to be closed. I am not trying to criticise the Labour party in this matter. My point is more general: the pressures on our immigration system worldwide are very strong indeed. We have seen it twice and there is every risk that we are going to see it again.

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[The Chair]

Very brief questions and brief answers.

[Jack Brereton]

Q Following Brexit, do you think that there should be a preferential system for all EU citizens?

Chai Patel: I do not have any opinion on that, I am afraid. That is beyond our remit as a charity concerned with the human rights of immigrants going through the system.

[Afzal Khan]

Q You said the Bill is premature. Can you quickly give us your major concerns about the Bill?

Chai Patel: The Bill is premature because there is no plan for what follows. Our primary concern is the Henry VIII powers given to the Home Secretary to remove people’s rights, without the new system having been clearly set out. I know that there is the White Paper, but I also know that it is contested in Cabinet, and is still subject to intense debate.

The White Paper itself raises concerns about, for example, the one-year visas, which would cause exploitation and problems with integration. It also misses the opportunity to fix many of the problems that we saw with Windrush. There is nothing to address Home Office capacity, with so many new people coming through the system, or the problems with the hostile environment, which remain. We know that it causes discrimination, and we have not seen anything from the Government to roll back those provisions, or to thoroughly review them.

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

Jack Brereton Excerpts

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

[Afzal Khan]

Q The NHS and universities were both part of the pilot for EU settled status. What feedback have you had from your members on issues with that system so far?

Vivienne Stern: My concern right now is the low level of take-up of that scheme. I think the last I heard was that the Department for Education estimated that something like 20% of the staff who should have gone through that process had done that, so for us right now, there is a communication effort to make sure that staff are aware of the scheme and how to apply. There were some early glitches. There was a bit of frustration about the app in the very early days, but I think those problems were pretty swiftly resolved, and I am not aware of any significant concerns about the operation of the scheme.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Q I have a few questions, which I want to put first to the TUC representative. You talked about having a system that would allow EU citizens similar access to the UK as they enjoy now. How do you think that that would square with the referendum result in 2016, and the clear indication that people wanted to end freedom of movement?

Rosa Crawford: I think you can take many things from the referendum result in 2016. What is clear is that we need working people to not suffer as a result of that referendum result. As I have outlined, the provisions of the Bill make it easier for bad employers to use one group of workers to undercut other groups of workers, at the cost of everybody’s rights. We want a Brexit deal that ultimately delivers ongoing protections for UK workers at EU levels of rights, as well as tariff-free, barrier-free trade, and that ensures that there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. For us, probably the best way to achieve that at this stage would be ongoing membership of the single market and a customs union.

[Jack Brereton]

Q So your view is that free movement should continue.

Rosa Crawford: We want the provisions in place to make sure that we get that kind of Brexit deal. To have the deal that we think would be the best for working people, we would need to follow the rules of the single market, which needs rules that are very close to, if not approximating to, free movement.

[Jack Brereton]

Q My second question is to the professor. We heard evidence this morning that there is on average a lower proportion of EU workers in the NHS and the care sector than in other sectors, so do you think that ending free movement would have such a significant effect on the NHS and the care sector?

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: We have a large proportion of EU workers; 10% to 11% of nursing workers are from the EU currently, and with a backdrop of 42,000 vacancies in nursing, losing any nurse is a problem, so this does have unintended consequences, but what is more, we would be quite concerned about some of the powers that the Bill gives to Ministers. What we want is somebody scrutinising the unintended consequences of the Bill.

[Jack Brereton]

Q The key point that I was trying to understand was: would changing the ability of new nurses to come here from the EU have an impact on the NHS? I was not talking about the ones who are already here.

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: It has an impact, because actually that has been one of our policy planks, hasn’t it? Instead of growing our own domestic supply, we have relied on international recruitment, so whether we are talking about people from the EU or outside the EU, anything that inhibits that will impact on our ability to deliver care to the people of this country. It has been a major plank of policy that instead of growing our domestic supply, there has been reliance on that by successive Governments, so of course there will be unintended consequences for the care we are able to deliver to meet the needs of our population.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Q I have two or three questions, probably mainly for the TUC. Again, they are about the £30,000 threshold. In Greater Manchester, for which I am an MP, the average salary is quite a bit below £30,000, and that will be true in a number of other parts of the country, too. We also know that younger workers and women are likely to be on lower salaries. Does the TUC have a view on whether there should be different thresholds for different industry sectors, different workers or different geographies? Perhaps Vivienne and Donna would also like to reply.

Rosa Crawford: It is important to highlight the vulnerable groups that would be particularly negatively affected by the £30,000 threshold. Of course, women and other groups that are already marginalised are likely to become more marginalised by that threshold, and caught in it.

Regarding your question about the specific thresholds that we would want to set, as I hope my earlier question suggested, the TUC is calling for a future immigration policy that sits with an overall Brexit deal that delivers for working people. For us, that would mean a policy that does not introduce additional restrictions, but rather promotes the rights of all workers. It would have stronger domestic enforcement and stronger regulation of the labour market, which is an important point to highlight, because undercutting is taking place right now. We are well aware of that, and we feel it fuelled some of the insecurities that were taken advantage of during the Brexit referendum. However, it is about domestic labour market reforms and enforcing additional rights, rather than a differentiated migration regime.

We want to address the problems with the current regime, such as the thresholds that are limiting recruitment from outside the EU, and where there are insecurities or certain visas for non-EU workers, such as overseas domestic workers. We would not want anything that narrows down EU citizens’ ability to come into the country, because of what that would mean for overall rights and our overall prospects for a Brexit deal.

Vivienne Stern: There is an argument for differentiating by occupation and by geography, but the problem is that if we introduce a system that is so nuanced, it becomes difficult to explain to people and operationalise. We are really quite concerned about the bureaucracy that will be associated with moving from a system in which, frankly, we do not have to worry about these individuals from a compliance point of view, and they do not have to worry too much about the requirements of applying for a visa, to one in which we have to explain to EU nationals what this all means and help them through the process, just as we do for non-EU nationals.

There is an argument for simplicity, which is why we decided that our position would be to suggest a lower threshold overall. However, the point you make about the potential for this system to be unintentionally discriminatory by gender is an important one. I imagine that we will come on to talk about the impact that this will have on students. One of the arguments we have made in relation to those students who want to stay and work in the UK on the tier 2 regime is that if you are in the north of England and you happen to be a woman, you quite often do not meet the minimum required salary threshold. It is not a policy that is intended to be discriminatory by gender, and you can say that it is not the Government’s fault that there continues to be a gender pay gap—it is a wider issue—but none the less, if this policy does not address that issue, that is its effect.

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[Afzal Khan]

Q Do you have concerns about the settled status system and the requirement on employers to check the immigration status of their employees if the UK leaves the EU with or without a deal?

Matthew Fell: I think I am right in saying, but I am happy to take a little more detail on this, that the Government have confirmed that even in the event of a no-deal scenario there would be no, or no significant, changes to the administrative burdens on employers before the proposed new immigration system came into play. Clearly, if that situation changed, the administrative burden would be a bigger headache for business.

[Jack Brereton]

Q I recognise the views you have expressed about having a cap of about £30,000, but do you recognise the impact that immigration potentially has had on suppressing wage levels in certain sectors and certain parts of the country?

Matthew Fell: The Migration Advisory Committee looked at that heavily in terms of any potential impact on the rest of the economy, society and so on. I think the conclusion it drew was that there was no major evidence of an impact on either jobs availability or wages. I think it highlighted some impacts on public services, and a bit on house prices and so on in certain areas, but I do not think it identified any real evidence of that.

[Jack Brereton]

Q Conversely, would having a reduction of free movement see wage levels rise, or changes in the availability of lower-paid work?

Matthew Fell: This is not primarily an issue that we are looking at as an impact on wage levels; it is purely about skills availability. The issue for many sectors of the economy and for many parts of the country that are currently looking at a situation of at or close to full employment, even in parts of the country, is primarily about the availability of the skills and the talent that they need to fulfil orders and so on. It is not in any way, shape or form about wage levels or undercutting wages; it is about having the people to do a job.

[Jack Brereton]

Q In terms of productivity, do you think that immigration has any bearing on the levels of productivity in this country?

Matthew Fell: In the UK, there are quite clearly issues around needing to raise productivity. I do not think there is any evidence—I think the Migration Advisory Committee confirmed this too—that that is explained in any way by current approaches to immigration and levels of immigration in the country.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Q We heard the argument this morning from the Migration Advisory Committee, which was supported to some extent by Migration Watch UK, that the threshold approach would encourage employers to push up wages and that would solve the problem. What is your response to that argument, which was consistently played back to us this morning?

Matthew Fell: I am not sure I agree with that. I will paint you a picture of the current situation in a number of sectors. If you take the construction industry, with two thirds of migrant workers, the median salary is currently under £30,000. If you look at the logistics sector, with about 10% or 20% of HGV drivers, or at the warehousing sector, with about a quarter of all fork-lift truck drivers, the wages for EU workers are quite significantly lower than that. I do not think that just changing a threshold level as a way of driving up wages is a helpful thing to happen in the economy.