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

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

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

[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.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q No one is suggesting that migrants should be exploited or paid less than they deserve, but there is also a concern in Wales that the average salary for the whole of Wales is below £30,000. Let us take the care sector, for example, which relies heavily on those coming to this country to work. If you are enforcing the £30,000 salary threshold, what on earth is the care sector in Wales supposed to do?

Professor Manning: Care is a very particular problem, as we singled out in our report. It faces very serious recruitment and retention problems. The root cause of the problem is that it does not pay enough. The root cause of why it does not pay its workers enough is because no one has sorted out the funding situation for social care, even though it has been known for many years that this is not a functional system. We understand that there is a real problem in social care, but it is important to focus on the root cause of the problem, and that will not be solved by immigration.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q No one would disagree that social care is in need of reform. Assuming that reform does not happen any time soon, I take it from your answer that the £30,000 will have an adverse threshold on the care sector.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Q We have already fallen into the trap that we fell into on Second Reading, which is to start discussing issues around the Government’s White Paper on immigration. Do you think that the Bill and the Government’s White Paper on immigration have set out a coherent position—a position that allows them to work together beautifully?

Professor Ryan: Because I work in immigration law, I see the Bill and the White Paper as quite separate from one another, and the discussion about future labour migration policy and other aspects of immigration policy as very much apart from the Bill. I see the Bill as providing a system for switching off EU rights and dealing with the particular case of Irish citizens. I see them as very separate from one another.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

Do you have any concerns, Professor Ryan, about British nationals living in the EU?

Professor Ryan: It is not something I have looked at, to be honest with you. Clearly, their protection requires an agreement between the two sides. It is far more secure with an agreement than without. The European states, the EU27, are now starting to take or announce measures to protect British citizens themselves in the event of no deal. That could be co-ordinated at the European Union level as well. I suppose that if we do end up without the withdrawal agreement, we cannot rule out a special agreement concerning citizens’ rights in the future as well. Even in a no deal situation, there are mechanisms by which British citizens in the rest of the EU could be protected.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The previous Government policy was to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, but the Home Secretary seems to be saying now that immigration should be at sustainable levels. Professor Ryan, what sort of factors do you think we should take into account to decide what sustainable levels are? Professor Manning, should the Migration Advisory Committee have some sort of role in assisting the Home Office to set what these sustainable levels are?

Professor Ryan: I would rather not answer that question. The question of what sustainable levels are is not really a legal question.

Professor Manning: We make our recommendations based on what we think is in the interests of the resident population. The Migration Advisory Committee has never focused on numerical targets for net migration. We have always been more interested in actual migration policy. We think of the net migration target more as a statement of political intent that might influence policy. It is not, in itself, a policy. We do not see ourselves as making recommendations to meet that particular target. We always make recommendations on what we think is in the interests of the resident population.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q My question is slightly different though. I was referring to “sustainable levels”. Would you ever express—or wish to express—a view on what that might be in a given year?

Professor Manning: I do not think that is a phrase that we would particularly use. I go back to what I said earlier: the right system is one in which you make sure—as best you can—that migrants coming to the UK on work systems are providing benefits to the resident population. The word “sustainable” does not seem to fit into that sentence very easily.

[The Chair]

If no other colleagues wish to ask questions, I will bring in the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q I became an MP in 2015, as it happens, but I remember the history you are setting out. Surely it is not the case that the needs of the economy in the 2020s will be the same as they were in the 1990s.

Lord Green: No, but I agree with almost everything that Professor Manning said. The needs of the economy change, but we also need to make sure that there is an incentive or pressure on employers to use their labour more efficiently, to increase productivity and so on. If you look at a graph, you will see that productivity in the UK, apart from being well below France and Germany, has been flat for 10 years, and immigration has been several million in that period. You cannot possibly argue that immigration on its present scale is improving productivity or anything else.

It is also a key point that there is no evidence for the UK that immigration adds to GDP per head. I think there are one or two studies in the United States about Mexicans providing home assistance for computer experts, or something, but in the UK there is no such evidence. The basic pressure for large-scale immigration comes from employers who make money out of it. They are there to make money if they are able to do so.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Q The right level of migration for the 2020s will be very different from what it was in the 1990s.

Lord Green: Not necessarily. We would settle for the Government’s policy until very recently at 100,000. I think that is a reasonable number. While we are on the general point, if we go on as we are, we will continue to add 1 million to our population every three years by reason of immigration. This has enormous effects, starting with housing, and they cannot just be put aside.

[Tracey Crouch]

Q Once we have left the EU, can you envisage any scenario in which EU citizens should be given preference in a future immigration system?

Lord Green: I do not see any need for it.

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

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

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

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Q Thank you. You mentioned concern with the low take-up in relation to the settled status scheme. Do you worry about the implications of that if staff members do not make the deadline put in place by the Government and would you support any moves to scrap that deadline or make the system a declaratory one?

Vivienne Stern: We have not called for the deadline to be extended or scrapped. We feel that there is time for us to get the message out that these individuals need to apply for settled status and we are certainly working on that front.

Our bigger concern is about the possible difficulties created by the no-deal Brexit scenario and by the regime that the Government have set out for an interim arrangement, between the point of a no-deal Brexit and the implementation of the new immigration system, which is currently being consulted on. There is a very significant concern about the time limits that will apply to those individuals who, having arrived in the UK after 29 March or whatever the date of Brexit is, have to apply for the European temporary leave to remain. That will only be valid for three years. A student who is planning to arrive in the UK after 29 March can come for three months—they don’t need anything for that three-month period. After that, we need something that gives people certainty that, if they are embarking on a programme that lasts longer than three years, they will not find they get towards their final year and, somehow, are not able to switch into a category that would allow them to remain in the UK.

It is that inability to say with certainty “Don’t worry, you come, you’ve got a status that will see you through this programme, you can stay to the end” that is tripping people up. Also, we need to be able to say to people “This is a registration scheme. It is not something you apply for and maybe you get and maybe you don’t.” If you have arrived in the UK, and you have started a programme—maybe a Scottish programme that lasts four years—you need to know that you are not going to be kicked out halfway through. If the Government could give some attention to that, we would be grateful. It’s not that we don’t appreciate that three years is longer than the period that would be covered by the withdrawal agreement—we do—but it is a kink and it could be ironed out.

Rosa Crawford: May I add a concern that we have about the settled status programme from those who have already been through the process? Some people are finding that they do not have sufficient evidence from their national insurance records to prove that they have had five years’ continuous residence in the country. Rather than settled status, they are receiving pre-settled status. The Government said that the intention is for pre-settled status to lead to indefinite leave to remain, but it is not a legally watertight guarantee, and we know from the Windrush scandal that any time there is a question mark over immigration status, it can, in the hands of the wrong employer, be used as a means to threaten or dismiss workers.

That is already a problem in the university and health sectors, and now we know that the third phase of the pilot is being rolled out across the economy. As I said, in many parts of the private sector, in distribution and hospitality, people often do not receive any employment contracts at all, so they struggle to provide evidence that they have five years of continuous residence. We worry that they might fall into a legal limbo in which they are unable to demonstrate their legal status, and potentially cannot claim their employment rights and are subject to further exploitation. We want that entire scheme looked at, and for the burden of proof to be taken away from the worker having to prove their five years’ continuous residence, in a more all-encompassing process.

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

Q Professor Kinnair, going back to the issue of the £30,000 threshold, I remember your “Scrap the cap” campaign very well, which I and many colleagues supported. You have done a great deal of work trying to raise nurses’ salaries, and I would be fully in favour of that. Is not the reality that at the moment there are 90,000 to 120,000 nurses from overseas in our NHS?

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: EU and EEA.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Yes, collectively. But if there was ever a measure that restricted the number of nurses coming from overseas, such as the £30,000 threshold, clearly that would have a detrimental effect on the NHS. It is as simple as that.

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: It is as simple as that, given that one of our major policies is that we recruit from overseas rather than growing our own.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

Q Professor Kinnair, I have a question on shortage occupation lists and the removal of doctors and nurses from the tier 2 cap. Notwithstanding the £30,000 threshold, do you see the shortage occupation list and a lower salary threshold as a potential solution to that?

Professor Dame Donna Kinnair: I think it possibly would be a solution to that; I think you are right. But we have “Agenda for Change” for a reason: so that we have a national approach to salaries. Why would we then treat people coming in from overseas differently? We know that our salaries are not high enough to live on in this country. Why would we be starting to think that it is okay to lower it to £20,000, £18,000 or some arbitrary sum that people cannot live on in this country?

Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Alison McGovern]

I join colleagues in thanking the Clerks and the team for the work they have done. I will make a few remarks, particularly about the economic arguments sometimes made for clause 1. I have no doubt that we will spend much time debating some of these points, but let us start as we mean to go on.

On the timing of the Bill, I profoundly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston. It seems bizarre that anyone would think it acceptable to remove, with one clause of this Bill, an entire set of rights that all citizens in this country enjoy by reciprocity with the European Union, and that European Union citizens enjoy in this country, and to replace them with nothing but the promise of a White Paper. There is no set timescale for the introduction of any new immigration system, so we are saying to people, “All your current rights will be removed and will be replaced at some point in the future. We don’t know when, and we don’t know what the new rights will be, but bear with us while we sort it out.”

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

Can my hon. Friend think of any realistic argument why, given that the Government say they want to guarantee the rights of EU nationals, they would not simply do so now, in clause 1?

[Alison McGovern]

I can think of a reason: because they want to take decisions on these rights based on negotiating interests and the potential gain they might get for their agenda. It seems clear that that has always been the manner in which the rights of EU nationals would be treated. I am afraid warm words are not enough. It is perfectly reasonable—and something I would expect every member of the Committee to be able to do—to say that we personally feel no animus towards EU nationals and that people are welcome in this country. However, it is one thing to say those words and another to do what is necessary to guarantee that they are true. I can think of no reason why the Government would not do as my hon. Friend has suggested.

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

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

We have seen a number of problems. Representatives from the3million have highlighted to me today their concern that the application process for settled status is not as simple as was promised. Too many—16%, I understand—of those who have engaged with it so far have faced demands for extra evidence, beyond the initial application, if no Revenue and Customs or Department for Work and Pensions data was available. Too many—30%, I understand—have been given not settled status but pre-settled status, although some of them have lived in the UK for more than five years.

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

My hon. Friend mentions that further evidence is being demanded. Is that not precisely what started to happen with the Windrush scandal, causing so many problems? Is that not why we need as many safeguards as possible in the scheme?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. With the history of the Windrush experience being so close, one would imagine that we would not yet have forgotten its lessons and would seek to apply them in this situation. We tabled the new clauses precisely because of that concern.

It is well known that other problems with the process include its inaccessibility to iPhone users. The Government talked about how easy this process would be—people would be able to do it on their phones—but that is not the case for half of the UK’s adults, who happen to use an iPhone. The inability to develop an app for use on an iPhone does not create a great deal of confidence in the rest of the process or the Home Office’s ability to handle it. People who already have proof of permanent residence are being asked to provide evidence of it, even though they were promised a simple swap to settled status. We need to have local support centres where people can apply offline, but they are not available.

The new clauses would remove the category of pre-settled status. This distinction, whereby an individual must be resident for five years to qualify for settled status, seems to be the result of a copy-and-paste exercise from the rules for permanent residence. A number of the stakeholders from whom the Committee took evidence do not see the rationale for it and believe that it serves no clear purpose. In fact, it creates more bureaucracy for individuals and the Home Office—this morning we discussed how difficult the Home Office sometimes finds it to deal with complicated or even simple procedures.

The Government have already admitted that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish easily between EU citizens who arrive before and after 29 March, which adds another layer of uncertainty. We can easily foresee the confusion for employers and landlords, who will wonder what different rights apply to the different categories, with detrimental effects for the holders of pre-settled status. I would welcome clarification from the Minister. If it is not simply to mirror the rules on permanent residence, can she explain the rationale for pre-settled status?

New clause 15 sets out other requirements, such as ensuring that applicants are issued with physical documentation of their proof of status. I acknowledge that this replicates new clause 35, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. It is another area where the Home Office will inevitably have to move. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and Professor Smismans vividly illustrated not only the administrative hassle of a digital system, but the potential implications for the treatment by what they describe as “private actors” and for

“equal access to work and housing.”

No other immigration status in this country operates exclusively digitally. The Government have said that they want this system to be more user-friendly than the current application process, but members of the3million group have made it absolutely clear that physical proof of their status would improve their experience of the system and provide some much-needed reassurance. I really do not understand why the Government are so resistant to that, and I urge the Minister to take the opportunity on this issue to work with, rather than against, EEA nationals and the people who speak for them. I imagine that this is an area that the Government will have to move on, as they did on the fee—many of us argued for it for a long time before the change was made.

New clause 15 would put on the face of the Bill the Government’s commitment not to levy a fee. For a long time, the Government were insistent on the need to charge £65 for an application. I am sure the Minister will embarrassingly recall that—in a written answer to me—she was not prepared to rule out the £65 fee for victims of modern slavery and trafficking at that stage. I am delighted that the Government moved on the issue. It might have been because of the embarrassment that, at one stage, the European Parliament was even considering covering the cost of the fees on behalf of EU nationals in this country. After campaigning by Opposition Members and other parties, along with the3million and trade unions, it was a good step that the Prime Minister conceded that the application should be free; therefore, the Government should have no issue putting that into the legislation.

New clause 16 details the rights of family members of EEA nationals who are eligible for settled status. New clause 18 would make it explicit that article 8 of schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998—the right to respect for private and family life—applied to holders of settled status and of the work visa for EEA and Swiss nationals dealt with in new clause 21.

On new clause 17, the Government have repeatedly stated that there would be only three criteria for settled status: nationality of a relevant country or a family member, residence in the UK and a criminality check. The rules in the appendix of the Immigration Rules go beyond that; they leave a loophole where someone who is not a serious criminal and otherwise eligible could be denied settled status on the basis of non-exercise of treaty rights. New clause 17 seeks to address this issue. Following legal action from the JCWI, from whom we took evidence, the Government narrowed the rules, but the power still remains. In written answers to me, the Minister has stated:

“the UK has decided, as a matter of domestic policy, to be more generous than the draft Withdrawal Agreement in certain respects. In particular, those applying under the scheme will not be required to show that they meet all the requirements of current free movement rules, such as any requirement to have held comprehensive sickness insurance or generally to detail the exercise of specific rights under EU law, such as the right to work.”

The new clause would enshrine that policy in law.

If the Government do not accept new clause 17, could the Minister explain why they are so intent on wishing to retain a power that they never intend to use?