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

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Jack Brereton

Thursday 14th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Jack Brereton]

Q Would you agree that the simplicity of having the same system for new migrants as people coming from other parts of the world is advantageous?

Jurga McCluskey: Correct. Yes, I do.

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

Q My question is principally directed to the Children’s Society. Obviously, at the moment, the Government have set about waiving the charge for the EU settlement scheme, but there is still a power in clause 4(5) of the Bill that allows the modification of provisions on the imposition of fees and charges. I am interested in how that relates to vulnerable children, especially looked-after children. First, what are the barriers to those children being able to register? Secondly, what can the Home Office do to assist with those children to ensure that they are registered under the scheme as they are entitled to be?

Ilona Pinter: As I mentioned before, and as Steve mentioned, we are concerned about the significant fees, not just in relation to citizenship registration but more broadly. However, as the Bill is focused on EEA nationals, there is an opportunity here to tackle citizenship registration fees, which are more than £1,000 per child. That makes it prohibitive for many families to be able to acquire those rights, which may be in the child’s best interests. The EU settlement scheme will apply to many children, but it may not be in the child’s best interests to have EU settled status because citizenship provides for greater protection.

We really welcome the Government waiving the fees for the EU settlement scheme. That will help a lot of families for sure, particularly given the levels of poverty among EEA nationals and families, but the risk is that the costs will then be shifted on to other areas. I think there is a real concern in the sector about what happens come April, when the fees normally go up. That is one of the issues that is highlighted with the fees—that there is very little scrutiny and oversight around fee regulation, which is one of our concerns going forward with this kind of approach. For instance, there was no children’s rights impact assessment on fees, including for looked-after children, which you asked about.

There is not currently a waiver for citizenship fees, so local authorities are having to pick up the bill. Interestingly, the issue of the EU settlement scheme came up at the Home Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday. One of the things that was flagged up in that session and in the beta testing review report is that, for the local authorities involved in that second phase of testing, quite a lot of them—although the numbers are not given, and we would urge the Committee to ask questions about that—said that in many cases, children did not have their original passports, which would be the first stumbling block for the EU settlement scheme. Of course, local authorities are going to have to think about not only settling children’s status but settling their citizenship, because as corporate parents, they have to act in the best interests of the child, as any other parent would. That will often mean for that child to apply for citizenship rather than for the EU settlement scheme.

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

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Jack Brereton

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.

--- 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.

Leaving the EU: Future Trade Remedies

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Jack Brereton

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered future trade remedies after the UK leaves the EU.

It is a pleasure to introduce this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. If our future trade proves as free and fair as I know you will be, we will be making progress.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the hugely important and wide-ranging issue of the trade remedies that will be employed by global Britain after we leave the European Union. To bring focus to the debate, I will mainly address the position faced by the modern ceramics industry and other advanced manufacturing businesses in Stoke-on-Trent, but I am sure that other Members will be able to draw parallels with relevant trading sectors in their constituencies.

In 2017, the UK’s total trade in goods and services deficit was 1.4% of GDP. Importantly, that looks to be the lowest annual deficit this century. Indeed, I checked the Office for National Statistics historical data series, and it looks to me to be the lowest deficit as a percentage of GDP since 1998 and less than half what it was in Labour’s economic meltdown of 2008. I am not sure whether the Department for International Trade has made much of that fact, but perhaps it should. That, combined with the record foreign direct investment into the UK in 2017, shows that something in our trade policy is strengthening our international position. It is imperative that we identify what that something is—what works in our trade policy while we are an EU member state—and look to continue what works after we leave the EU or replace it with something at least as effective, and preferably even more so.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that we need transparency about how we calculate duties, not least in the steel industry, where we could do with great transparency about how we calculate the level of dumping, for example?

[Jack Brereton]

I agree that it is important that we have a transparent and open approach. It is certainly important to ensure that there is transparency through an independent trade remedies authority.

Most pressingly, I seek assurances from the Minister that we will have effective anti-dumping measures which ensure that there is a level and fair playing field on which free trade can be played out. Our job is to embrace the opportunities of Brexit and use Britain’s position as a leading member of the World Trade Organisation to push for free and fair trade globally. We need the same level and fair playing field globally that we pushed for on the regional stage of the single market as a member of the European Union.

Thanks to this Government, global Britain starts from a solid economic base, underpinned by a world-renowned and hugely attractive legal system with sound governance rules that has been hard built over centuries. The UK is a great place to do business. In a competitive world, it needs to be. I do not argue that we should reinvent the corn laws—far from it. British industry must continue its efforts to be more productive and innovative. Although our modern industrial strategy will create an environment from which winners can emerge, it will not pick winners, and it will not prop up or bail out those who fail to satisfy their customer base, diversify their product range or provide the right value for money with products that are worth every penny of their competitive price.

I am hugely encouraged that manufacturing productivity increased by 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017, not just because that might be a signal that we are finally resolving the productivity puzzle but because it shows that the renaissance of British manufacturing and export success is, unlike what some people claim, built on more than the current low trading range of the pound. It is true that the lower pound helps with finding new markets in the short term, but achieving longer-term competitiveness will be key to keeping those markets and expanding them when exchange rates change again. Getting domestic policies right, keeping taxes and the regulatory burden down and getting skills and the entrepreneurial spirit high is every bit as important to our future trade as the adoption of remedial measures sanctioned by the WTO.

By getting both domestic policies and international rules right, and having free and fair rules-based markets guiding both, we can continue to boost the number of UK firms that engage in export markets. That is not just theory; it is happening in practice. City A.M. reported only yesterday that, according to Lloyds bank’s latest business barometer, two in five businesses in the UK are planning to export for the first time or enter a new market within six months. The prospect of increased profits and turnover is the main reason why firms are looking to expand their business abroad. Almost one fifth explained that they were looking to export due to existing demand overseas, while only 13% were driven by exchange rates. There are big growth markets out there, and the Prime Minister is right to highlight and drive the amazing opportunities for trade across the Commonwealth.