Immigration

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I join those who have thanked the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, for having introduced the debate today and for the thoughtful way in which she set off our deliberations. The richness of humanity— of creation, some would say—is obviously its diversity. Any civilised objective for our society would get to the point where we were celebrating diversity rather than seeing it as a threat to be managed. Probably most of us, if we were to look at our own genes, owe something to immigration at some stage in our family life, however far back, and each wave of immigration can be seen in a historic perspective to have added to the quality of our society. It is hard to see any contradiction of that observation.

The quality of our academic and research institutions, as we have heard powerfully expressed in this debate, owes a great deal to migration and to the processes of learning, because learning has nothing to do with national barriers. The very presence of an international community of scholars adds to the quality of the scholarship itself. I make only one qualifying remark in all this: as a responsible society that, in the present economic situation, has ring-fenced our overseas aid and development budget because we feel so strongly about these issues, we should think hard about any inadvertent drain on scarce and invaluable resources of the developing countries themselves that may be generated by our own needs.

We must, however, be realistic. We are told that the market is the way forward. I am one of those who believe that the market has an important part to play but it is far from the whole story. There is a fundamental flaw here: if we talk about the free movement of goods, investment and finance but put a bar on the free movement of people, where is the market? People will follow the money, investments and so on. If we accept that reality, it has important lessons for us in our contribution to international institutions that are concerned with the economic and social management of world affairs. We must accept that we are not operating a global market in any meaningful sense.

The pressures of migration in our society have so often fallen most severely on those communities least prepared to handle them, where the schools, housing, hospitals, general social provision and jobs are not so good. If we want to make a success of our own immigration policy, we cannot separate it from our own economic and social priorities in areas of disadvantage and deprivation. There will be some acute challenges in the context of current economic policy.

Integrated society cannot be forced on people. It has to grow. I do not know whether other noble Lords share my anxiety about the process of the oath of citizenship, with all the qualifications, learning and exams necessary. I wonder how many of our own citizens would be able to acquit themselves satisfactorily in those exams. If we are to be a success in this, some kind of transparent consistency in what we say is terribly important.

We must again face up to our inconsistencies with this business of the imperfect market. Our society applauds the father who, faced with unemployment or community decline, goes off to some other part of the country to get a job. We are told that we live in an international market, yet we deplore the responsible father from the other side of the world who goes off to seek a job and ends up here. We talk about him in almost disparaging terms, as an “economic migrant”, as though there is something wrong with that. That is an absolutely clear contradiction in our approach to what we believe is responsible citizenship and parenthood.

All this means that we must show great sensitivity and respect in our handling of the immigrant community. That is why the kinds of things that we discussed at Question time yesterday are so alarming. It is not good enough that we do not have the kind of leadership which means that everyone operating in our border agencies, and related activities, inherently understands that they are dealing with people under acute pressure. The inadequacies, failures and contractions in our own society lead to the predicaments in which people find themselves. We must therefore treat them with respect, sensitivity, care and concern. It is worrying when that does not happen.

What I am saying is closely related to security. We know that militants and extremists are recruiting from areas of alienation and disaffection. If we do not get our handling of migration right, and do not have the right culture at every point, we are playing into the hands of the militant and extremist recruiters, who will play on the alienation and disillusionment that so often occur.

All of this requires two things. We will not be able to solve it all on our own and must therefore have an intelligent and committed role in European and global institutions to get it right. Most importantly, however, we must have consistency in our political leadership. It is no good playing to the gallery and to prejudice in the search for votes one day—I am not making a partisan point here, but one that goes right across politics—and the next day blaming the chap in the migration service who mishandles the case. Where, then, are the leadership and context for the culture that matters?