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

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I do not always agree with the Home Office, but I do commend the answers that the Minister has just given on these three amendments.

I want to make some brief comments on Amendment 79. As the Minister just pointed out, the present income threshold for a spousal visa is designed to ensure that those coming to the UK for family reunion have enough resources to play a full part in British life and do not become a burden on the taxpayer. That is surely a sensible approach. As she mentioned, this has been to the Supreme Court, which ruled the policy to be lawful. Indeed, far from removing the threshold, there are, in certain cases, strong arguments for raising it.

The Migration Advisory Committee has said that, on average, for the family income to cover the cost of all public services, a higher threshold is required: namely, £25,700, rather than the current level of £18,600—a difference of £7,100. Even that threshold would not be enough, it says, for a non-EU household to make a net contribution to public finances. For them, the figure would be £38,000 a year. We must have in mind the impact of changes to these rules on the taxpayer and the reaction that they may have to that.

Finally, it is perhaps important to note that a reduction in the threshold would run entirely contrary to the Government’s 2017 election manifesto, which promised to raise the level of the threshold. That, of course, has still not been done.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I pretty much agree with him on every point.

On the higher threshold, the MAC will not be passive in commenting on the various aspects of the new immigration system, and I am sure that the threshold will be one of them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendments 77 and 78 contain an interesting and potentially very valuable idea. I pay tribute to the original thinking that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, brings to so many of his contributions to this House. I warmly endorse the arguments that he made, ably supported by the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I particularly welcome the wider perspective that these amendments bring to the issues surrounding immigration. The detail is always important, but so is the wider perspective, especially when very significant changes are being proposed.

As noble Lords may be aware, I have been closely involved in immigration policy matters for nearly 20 years. I think I am now on my 10th Home Secretary and my 16th Minister of Immigration. An office for immigration and demographic change, which the noble Lord proposes, would bring together the study of the key elements that cross the boundaries of so many Whitehall departments, most of which have departmental interests in higher immigration, rather than lower.

As the noble Lord mentioned, we already have the OBR, which provides a wider framework for economic policy. The Migration Advisory Committee is focused on immigration but, as has been remarked on a number of times in these debates, it comprises mainly economists and is largely focused on economics. It does not, nor is it asked to, take the longer view of the wider impacts that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is advocating. The reality is that nobody in government is pulling together the demographic, economic, social and, perhaps, climatic elements that set the frame for the whole future development of our society.

Demography has its own uncertainties, of course. Death rates are fairly stable, but birth rates can change quite rapidly, especially for different groups in our society. But immigration has been, for some years, the key variable. Before the full impact of the Covid crisis became clear, immigration remained close to its highest level in our history. It is now the major factor in our demographic future. For the time being, the Covid crisis has distorted the impact of immigration but, if it were allowed to continue at recent levels, it would have huge consequences for education, health, housing and pensions. Nobody is considering that in an organised way. We need close and co-ordinated consideration of all these aspects, and where it is all leading to. We need to decide whether this is where we want to go and, whatever we decide, how best we can prepare for such a future.

So I commend the noble Lord’s valuable contribution to the immigration debate, and I support his amendments.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I concede that these amendments have a sincere purpose, but I am not sure that they really work. In Amendment 77, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, proposes that the Government issue a charter for EU immigration and demographic change, explaining the formulation of their policies on immigration. But the Government can already do this in other ways; indeed, they issued their White Paper on a points-based system a few months ago. The proposed charter would be laid before Parliament, but there is no description of what Parliament would then do. Would it approve, endorse or reject? I also query why the charter would set out demographic objectives only in relation to immigration when other factors are mentioned elsewhere in the two amendments. Of course, the other major factor in demographic change is the birth rate.

Amendment 78 aims to set up a new quango called the office of EU immigration and demographic change. Again, I am not sure why the Government cannot do this work, because it is the Government who issue the charter. It is proposed that the office should report on the impact of the Government’s demographic objectives for EU immigration, but it would be barred from considering the impact of any alternative policies. The noble Lord sought to explain, or justify, that constraint, but it seems to take away something—critiquing the Government’s policy and suggesting alternatives—which could be valuable. Again, no role is specified for Parliament as regards reports from this new office. I cannot in all honesty see the added value of such a body to the duo that we already have—the Migration Advisory Committee and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, mentioned, the Office for National Statistics, which already does population projections. I had a quick look and saw that it did one in October 2019; I do not know when the next one is due. And then there are surely academics on whose work either the MAC or the ONS could draw.

So I will not make the point that these amendments relate to immigration only from the EU, since such an objection would be disingenuous, given that I recognise the constraint imposed by the scope of the Bill. We have been a round that circuit several times in the last few days. I can do no more than say that these amendments, while interesting, do not really fly, for the reasons that I have given.