Immigration Bill (First sitting)

Rebecca Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

Q 38 Your hope was that the director would be able to set established minimum standards with employers. However, in parts of the Bill, the criminal aspect has shifted from the employer to the employee. What impact do you think that is likely to have?

Professor Metcalf: You mean on illegal working? I try, as chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, to stick to my knitting and do what we have done. Frankly, I have not thought about that very much. It is a matter for you, as the Committee, and for other people to decide what they think about illegal working.

Your point about employers is really important. I hope that the CBI, which is an excellent organisation— I know from my time on the Low Pay Commission how important the CBI was in ensuring that the minimum wage worked properly—buys into this. Occasionally, the CBI is rather hostile to regulation. In a sense, that rather surprises me, because the regulation that has been proposed here will help its members. It takes away the cowboys, as it were, and the people who do the undercutting. Therefore, your point about the effect on employers is very important. I hope that the CBI buys into this.

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

Q 39 What impact more generally do you feel illegal or poorly regulated workers’ protections have on the domestic, legal workforce?

Professor Metcalf: We went into that in some detail in the low-skilled report last year. It is interesting. When we went out to Wisbech and Peterborough and so on, the concerns were about the exploitation of the migrants. However, the people we spoke to were well seized of the consequences for British workers: possibly some displacement, although lots of times they would not actually want to do the jobs; and, for certain, downward pressure on the wages at the bottom end of the labour market. By properly regulating this aspect of the labour market—including immigrants and the British workforce—this will go a long way towards raising the welfare of British residents. I would have thought that this is something that we should all welcome. Our report was about immigrants, but it went into what the issue was doing to British residents. We did find evidence that it was undercutting wages. The measures will be very important to stop that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Rebecca Harris wants to come in on that point.

[Rebecca Harris]

Q 51 We know migrants are quite knowledgeable—they are good about communication and about the details—so do you think that the knowledge that working in Britain would be illegal and a criminal offence might deter people and make it less likely that they would allow themselves to be trafficked in the first place? With that knowledge, they are less likely to come to this country.

Caroline Robinson: The question of whether migrants are knowledgeable about the different offence structures in the UK is an interesting one. I think a lot of myths circulate. There is a perception of marginalisation and that people are not on a par with British citizens in terms of rights. As for individual offences, and the fact that this offence is 51 weeks but the offence under the Immigration and Asylum Act is six months, I do not think that people are aware of that distinction. When you talk about imprisonment versus removal, there is certainly a fear of imprisonment among the trafficked persons that I talk to, and a real fear of officials. However, in terms of the level of detail, and this extra detail when going to countries outside the EEA area, and how that would have an impact, I think there is a distinction—

[Rebecca Harris]

Q 52 You do not think that it might make people less vulnerable to being trafficked if they knew in advance that this was the legal situation in Britain?

Caroline Robinson: I have been working on the field of human trafficking for 11 years now. At international policy forums, the first thing that Governments are prepared to do is put money into awareness raising and huge prevention campaigns. This Government put £2 million into a widespread awareness campaign about the modern slavery hotline, which was great, and about modern slavery. A lot of effort goes into awareness raising about the threats and the dangers that people face, yet they still come.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

That is very helpful. Rebecca Harris, did you have anything more to say on this?

[Rebecca Harris]

No.

[The Chair]

We will go back to Keir Starmer, but I would like to hear from the other two witnesses as well.