Chris Bryant MP: 'Go Home' vans show ministers have no ideas on immigration
The “Go Home” vans which are trundling around London boroughs this summer symbolises how this Government has run out of meaningful ideas on immigration.
The 'Go Home' vans which are trundling around London
boroughs this summer symbolises how this Government has run out of meaningful
ideas on immigration, says Labour's Chris Bryant MP Photo: RICK FINDLER
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10219288/Chris-Bryant-MP-Go-Home-vans-show-ministers-have-no-ideas-on-immigration.html
Immigration to the UK: facts and figures
Overview: Net immigration has added 1.5 million people to the population over the last 10 years. Two-thirds of them have come from the continents of Asia and Africa. In 2006 the total UK population was 60.6m. If net immigration continues at its current rate, as the government actuary's department calculates, the total population in 2031 will be 70m, and by 2081 it will be 85m.
The numbers: People born overseas account for about 10% of the population. This is up from just more than 6% in 1981 and just over 8% in 2001. This is compared with 24% in Australia, 23% in Switzerland, 19% in Canada and 13% in America. In France that figure is 8%, and 7% in Denmark.
The people: In 2006 the largest numbers of immigrants were born in Africa and the Middle East (3% of the working age population) and the Indian sub-continent (2.5%). Those born in the east and central European EU member states – the A8 - made up 1% of the working age population. Today A8 immigrants account for one in three of new immigrants since 2004.
Where do immigrants live and work: In the last three years, East Anglia had the greatest number of A8 workers registering with employers in the area (15% of the total), followed by the Midlands (13%) and London (12%). A8 immigrants are more concentrated in low-skilled jobs, with only 13% in high-skilled occupations. Overall, there are more foreign-born than UK-born workers in highly skilled jobs (49% vs 42%).
The three most popular sectors for all foreign-born workers in the UK are public administration, education and health (32%), distribution, hotels and restaurants (21%) and banking, finance and insurance (20%). Immigrants are concentrated at the high and low skill end of the occupation distribution.
How easy is it to find work? The employment rate of A8 immigrants is more than 80%, while that of immigrants born in Bangladesh is only around 50%. When employed, the average immigrant worker worked one and a half hours a week more in 2006 than the average individual born in the UK. The average hourly wage of all immigrants in that year was £11.90 compared with £11.50 for UK-born workers. The earnings gap is partly explained by the fact that immigrants are more likely than UK-born persons to live in London where hourly rates are higher than in the rest of the UK.
How educated? Among new immigrants (those arrived up to two years ago), the proportion of persons with degrees is particularly high (46%) and the proportion of persons with only secondary schooling particularly low (48%), compared to the UK-born population. Two-thirds of the UK-born population has only completed secondary school while 17% have a degree, Labour Force Survey data suggest. But 51% of all migrants have secondary school qualifications and 37% have degrees.
Britain drifts into another migration muddle
Migrant bond symbolises incoherence of immigration policy, writes John McDermott
Ilike gorillas. So, last month, I travelled to Rwanda. When I arrived at Kigali airport I received a visa. My entry details were logged and my passport was stamped. Ten days later, after some time in the mist, I crossed the southern border into Burundi. At the crossing, I completed an exit form.
Rwanda therefore has two things Britain could do with: huge wild apes and comprehensive data on when official visa visitors leave the country. “The Home Office does not currently record the exit of most visa holders”, concludes a recentHouse of Commons public administration committee report. “This means there are no statistics showing the number of visa holders with valid leave to remain in the UK, or the number of those that overstay their leave to remain.”
Into this vacuum of information arrives the idea for a migrant bond, which was twice proposed and rejected by the previous Labour government. In March, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the coalition government would try the policy. Theresa May, the home secretary, is working on the details. A pilot of the scheme is due to go ahead later this year, much to the annoyance of Vince Cable, the business secretary, who as the FT reports is upset that it sends the “wrong message” to would-be visitors to Blighty.
The details are still being fought over but the Home Office suggests that the tourist bond proposal will work as follows: individuals from six countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana) who are deemed to be at “high risk” of overstaying their UK visa will be asked to pay a £3,000 deposit before entering the country. If they overstay their allowed time, the government keeps the money.
Immigration policy is often presented to the public as a viscerally simple issue but, with its various entry routes, exit routes, visas, caps, income thresholds and skill shortages, it is fiendishly complex in practice. The agencies responsible are often incompetent. Migration statistics are incomplete and subject to manipulation.
Politicians worry about seeming out of touch with one of the issues people tell pollsters they care most about. Different departments have competing interests – see for example the tension between business and home affairs.
All of which leads to confusion and incoherent policy, which in turn lead politicians to seek clarity and “toughness” – the case of the migrant bond being a typical example. Within government there is no agreement on what problem it is meant to solve, quite how a migrant bond is meant to solve it and whether anyone will know whether it has been solved once the pilot has finished.
Let’s start near the beginning. As the typical question at the border implies, migrants generally come to a country for business (work) or for pleasure. The migrant bond is not meant to deal with any of the “problems” related to migrant workers. It is meant to apply to six-month “general visitor” or “family visitor” visas. It will not affect the government’s target to limit net inward migration to the tens of thousands, as that data cover only people who stay for more than a year.
So what is it supposed to do? That depends on who you ask. The original thinking among Liberal Democrats was that it would offer an alternative for people who have been wrongly turned down for family visas. (Many MPs can tell you of constituents whose relatives cannot enter the country because they fall at a bureaucratic hurdle.) If the individual or a sponsor puts down a deposit, so the argument goes, this would act as a sign of their trustworthiness and could provide “an additional route for people who have been turned down”, as Mr Cable explains. At the very least it would be a nice little earner to pay for some more border enforcement.
The other motive for the migrant bond is the one you hear about: to reduce the number of people who remain in the UK illegally beyond the expiry date of their visa. Because Britain is not Rwanda, and the government abolished exit checks in the 1980s, we have no idea how many people actually overstay. Nevertheless, experts say overstaying visas is the main means by which people become irregular migrants.
If you make it harder for people to arrive, or offer an incentive to leave on time, that logically should reduce the number of overstays. This second argument is the one almost exclusively used by the government, although it cannot tell us the extent of the problem. Ah, but we will have a pilot, it says.
In case you were wondering, the six countries involved were chosen because their citizens feature high up in tables of visa applicants and (commensurately) of those who are removed or leave voluntarily. So does China, but funnily enough its citizens won’t be inconvenienced by the pilot.
There are some structural questions to answer before this pilot bond visa scheme goes ahead. First, will it apply both to family and general visitor visas? Judging by some of the responses of luxury retailers, the idea that it is for the more widely used general visas risks an admission price for shoppers – call it a “how to spend it” visa.
Second, how will individuals be identified as “high risk”? It seems as if it will be those who have had applications turned down before and/or those who consular officers consider to be a risk.
Third, why would the fee for a bond be £3,000? Will this simply be accepted as a sunk cost by those who would want to overstay while deterring poorer travellers who have every intention of returning on time?
Fourth, how will the programme be measured when there is currently no system of visa exit checks?
The migrant bond is a symbol of the incoherence of Britain’s immigration policy.David Cameron talks of a “global race” but has made it harder for further education students to come to Britain. The migrant bond is a potentially practical (even liberal) idea to improve the family visa system but in substance and in presentation that element is being eroded.
It is also proved symbolically toxic. The as yet unfinished proposals have already annoyed allies and their citizens, while doing nothing to meet the government’s net inward migration target. And did I mention that we still don’t know how many people are actually overstaying their visas?
Whatever one’s views on migration, it is surely a point of agreement that competence breeds confidence. Without that, it makes it harder for politicians to have an honest conversation about the difficult trade-offs involved in migration policy. The case of the migrant bond is another telling example.
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Immigration: Know your rights
Immigration checks are not permitted on a speculative basis, meaning Border Agency staff and police must have a valid reason to believe a person is an immigration offender before they can be stopped and questioned.
A person’s race alone is not sufficient reason to perform a spot-check, according to the Equality Act of 2010.
A person who is stopped is not compelled to answer questions and can simply walk away.
Immigration officers must also identify themselves and show a warrant card, explain why they wish to question a suspect, disclose to the suspect that they are not obliged to answer any questions, and inform them they are free to leave at any time.
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Britain is slamming its doors against the world
By Philip Stephens philip.stephens@ft.com August 1, 2013 4:15 pm
A champion of the liberal, open international system is redefining itself as a resentful victim
©Ingram PinnA year on, the nation’s politics echo to the sound of doors slamming shut. The message to foreigners is depressingly simple: stay away. David Cameron’s Conservatives promise a referendum that could lead to Britain breaking off engagement with Europe. There was a time when these Tory sceptics presented a choice: give up Europe and look to the world. No longer. The barricades are being thrown up against all and sundry. Tourists, students, business executives – all are would-be illegal immigrants.
The other day, the Home Office, the department responsible for border controls, gave a glimpse of the nasty populism driving government policy. Trucks with billboards were deployed to London’s ethnically diverse areas. The message? Illegal immigrants should “go home or face arrest”. The Liberal Democrats, the junior party in Mr Cameron’s coalition, protested that the initiative was stupid and offensive. Unmoved, the prime minister’s office said the campaign might well go nationwide.
The Home Office also plans to require visitors from “high risk” countries to pay a £3,000 cash bond to enter Britain. The aim, so it says, is to deter “overstaying” and to recover costs if visitors require healthcare. The countries chosen are India, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It has not escaped their attention that predominantly “white” nations such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are exempt.
Closer to home, the government is promising to restrict the access of Romanians and Bulgarians. Nationals from these EU states gain free movement across the union when transitional restrictions expire next year. Britain’s tabloid press is already full of horror stories about hordes of “benefit tourists”. Never mind that migrants are less likely to claim welfare than Brits.
The government is playing to the populist gallery. The prime minister has jettisoned the “big society” inclusiveness he once counted his trademark. The pinched nationalists of the United Kingdom Independence party have outflanked the Tories on the right. Economic stagnation and fiscal austerity have stirred public resentments. Mr Cameron once called Ukip supporters “closet racists”. Now he courts them.
The air of paranoia is stirred by pressure groups such as Migration Watch UK. Sir Andrew Green, the former diplomat who heads the organisation, holds up a study saying that “white British” (Sir Andrew’s phrase) could be a minority by the latter half of the century.
Some of us ask: “so what”? When Farah and Ennis – the one from Somalia, the other of partly Caribbean heritage – were cheered to the rooftops, it seemed a fair assumption that Britain had left behind skin colour as a marker of national identity. I do not recall complaints they were “brown British” when they collected their gold medals. Alas, such triumphs do not puncture saloon bar xenophobia in the English home counties.
Britain does need an intelligent and effective immigration policy. People want to see that the system is fair, efficient and not unduly disruptive of local communities. The last Labour government hopelessly underestimated the number of arrivals from former Communist states after their accession to the EU. An open-door policy combined with lax administration produced a widespread perception that immigration had run out of control.
For the present government, however, moral panic and populist gestures have become a distraction from its own failure to grip the system. And how much easier it is to blame immigrants for filling jobs than to tackle the failures of a domestic education system that turns out so many unmotivated and unqualified young people.
Only the other day, a committee of MPs said the official immigration count was anyway based on “guesses”. This is hardly surprising when there is no passport or visa check on departing visitors. These guesses say net immigration has fallen quite sharply. That is probably true. But the fall has been largely in response to a clampdown on the numbers of overseas students.
Nations such as Canada, the US and Australia do not count students as permanent immigrants for the obvious reason that most return home. Meanwhile, Britain’s visa system is in disarray, entry controls at London’s Heathrow airport are a shambles and 300,000 asylum and immigration cases are unresolved.
The official target to reduce net immigration to the low tens of thousands is riddled with contradictions. It assumes the number of entrants from Brazil or the US should rise and fall relative to how many Britons retire to the Spanish sunshine. If Polish plumbers go home, Britain can take more Indian engineers – and vice versa.
Beyond such idiocies lies a much bigger danger. Britain was once a champion of the liberal, open international system. Now it is redefining itself to the world as a resentful victim. Moves to get out of Europe and bar immigrants speak of collapsing national confidence. And the economic consequences would be catastrophic. Why should any right-thinking business leader from, say, China, India or Brazil, invest in a country that denies them access to the EU and says their compatriots are unwelcome guests?
Britain may be about to jump off, but the world will keep on turning.
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