Migration Policy and the Economy

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to appear opposite the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan). I welcome him to his place. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for this important, topical and genuinely interesting debate. It is so important that we have this debate now. As we move towards leaving the EU, we begin to formulate ideas and plans for our future, not just in the European area but in the world as a whole. As a former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend’s expertise and experience precede him. He spoke with clear authority and eloquence—particularly about the issue of skills and productivity. I found his submissions about GDP per head very interesting. I hope those sorts of ideas will come to the fore as we debate the future of immigration in this country.

My right hon. Friend and a number of other hon. Members rightly mentioned students. The Government absolutely believe that our world-class educational establishments are a major success story for the United Kingdom. There is no limit on the number of international students who can visit. International students are included in the net migration figures because the independent Office for National Statistics follows the policy of Australia, the United States and other countries, which also include those figures in the net migration statistics. It is worth bearing in mind that when students leave the United Kingdom, they are taken out of the net migration figures.

[David Linden]

May I press the Minister on the point about the post-study work visa made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)? The Conservative education spokesperson in the Scottish Parliament, Liz Smith MSP, made comments about, and was hoping to see action on, this issue. Will the Minister give us an update on the post-study work visa before she moves on from education?

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman has pre-empted me; I was going to deal with that at the end, but I will deal with it now. We have no plans to reintroduce the post-study work visa. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) was quite right to talk about evidence, and I thank her for her kind comments, but evidence from previous schemes showed that large numbers of people were undertaking low-skilled work. We now have the much more targeted tier 2 scheme, so that when graduates leave UK universities we know that they go into highly skilled jobs, using the skills that they have developed at university. Indeed, the evidence goes even further: we found that in October 2010, three in five users of the post-study work visa were in unskilled work. A 2014 analysis of migrants who had switched from the tier 1 post-study work category to the tier 1 entrepreneurial category found that the majority had no declared economic activity or were working in breach of their conditions of stay. That is why we are focusing on skills and productivity— precisely because we hope that students who come to our universities will deliver those skills and will be able to contribute.

I am conscious of time, so I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate and I reassure them that the Government are clear that carefully controlled economic migration benefits our economy. It is vital for our country’s prosperity that we select and attract the right mix of skills to the UK, ensuring that we continue to support wealth creation, employment and productivity. We know that migration supports United Kingdom growth by allowing employers greater choice and enhancing the labour market’s ability to respond quickly to capacity constraints. I listened carefully to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) on the concerns of local employers. I hope that the independent Migration Advisory Committee report will draw on those views, so that in September 2018 we will have an evidenced-based report on what our migration system should look like.

Migrants do not just bring the skills needed but enhance our society and contribute to British life. However, we must strike a balance. We need to attract migrant labour, which boosts our economy, while ensuring that migration does not reach unmanageable levels to the detriment of domestic labour, skills and local communities. Our commitment to reducing net migration to sustainable levels must be balanced by our determination to ensure that UK businesses have the labour force that they need. Our immigration system must strike that balance.

I was most interested to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), particularly as she is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on migration. She mentioned skills; in setting in our immigration policy we have followed the advice of the independent Migration Advisory Committee, particularly when it comes to drawing up the shortage occupation list. Again, we will look at the evidence of the committee’s report in September 2018.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West both mentioned Scotland having its own immigration system. I make the simple point that the United Kingdom is united: there is free movement between England Wales and England and Scotland. The whole point of having a united immigration policy is to keep our kingdom united. I know that that does not play with the views of the—

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

Will the hon. and learned Lady forgive me if I do not, as I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean wants to speak for two minutes at the end? I just wanted to make the point that we have freedom of movement in the United Kingdom.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) for raising the issue of agricultural workers. That is being kept under review, and the Immigration Minister is visiting many members of the agricultural sector to discuss those concerns. We note in passing that the latest labour market statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that more EU nationals are coming to this country to work than ever before. That is why we have not implemented a seasonal agricultural workers scheme, but that is kept under review and we will listen carefully to the National Farmers Union and others.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned curry, students and fruit picking. We have already dealt with fruit picking, but I am delighted that she raised the subject of curry. Curry chefs are not subject to the freedom of movement rules that EU chefs enjoy. We do not want to discriminate between non-EU and EU migrants. There will be a system for all our international partners. I make no promises as to how that will impact curry chefs in particular, but the point is that we will be free of that current difference between EU and non-EU citizens because we are leaving the European Union.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West spoke about the post-study work visa issue; I have already answered that point by way of an intervention. We continue to review our immigration arrangements regularly, and we are committed to ensuring that the system continues to serve the national interest.

Very quickly, on the point about the immigration Bill and rules, which was raised by a number of hon. Members, the MAC report is due to report in September 2018. The immigration Bill will be drafted before then; it will be about dealing with the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill repealing freedom of movement. The detail of EU migration policy that will apply to EU nationals will be set out in immigration rules. The report is a very important part of creating those rules. I hope that the Bill will come next year; it will set out the framework within which those rules will work.

Mr Hosie, I want to give my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean time to make his closing remarks. It has been a pleasure to listen to this debate and to the informative contributions; they have made for a very interesting morning. Allow me to finish with this thought: we all know that successful businesses are essential to the success of our economy. It is through successful businesses that we have employment, pay packets and prosperity, which is precisely why the Government established its immigration policy, and measures such as its modern industrial strategy and flexible working arrangements, through universal credit for example. I hope that that will have an impact on bringing people into the job market. All those policies draw together to try to ensure that the United Kingdom remains a great place to do business. We welcome the contribution that migrants have made historically, and will make in future.