Oral evidence: The Works of the Immigration Directorates (Q1 2016), HC 151Tuesday 7 June 2016

Oral evidence, 7 June 2016.

Witnesses

Lord Green of Deddington, Chairman, Migration Watch UK, and Alp Mehmet MVO, Vice-Chairman, Migration Watch UK, gave evidence.

Chair

Lord Green and Mr Mehmet, thank you very much for coming in. My apologies for keeping you waiting. The first session lasted slightly longer than anticipated. I would like to start with Lord Green. The Archbishop of Canterbury has just told us that he does not believe that Britain is full. Do you believe that Britain is full?

Lord Green

I am quite sure that Britain is very crowded, and that is the view of 75% of the population. Is it full? No, but there is a very strong feeling among the public that they would like to reduce the rate of increase of the population.

Chair

Mr Mehmet, are we full? What is the limit to the number of people we can have entering the country? Migration Watch has of course been very keen to draw attention to net migration figures since its foundation. Do you think that more should be done to try to explain why we have reached a limit, or do you think that there is no limit to the number of people we can have in our country?

Alp Mehmet

There have always been limits. I think it is foolish to suggest that there aren’t limits. We simply can’t say that anyone who wants to set up in this country and who wants a better life can do so. That is inviting trouble. Clearly, we have got to control it. We can’t ignore the fact that, as Lord Green said, the vast majority of people in this country would like to see greater control than seems to be the case at the moment.

Chair

Lord Green, you were quite critical of the net migration figure in respect of the numbers, because obviously the Government have not met their target. Do you think it is time that this net migration figure was scrapped?

Lord Green

No, absolutely not. I think that that would be an extremely unwise step. Though of course there are doubts about its accuracy and so on, it is a broad measure of the number of people who are coming minus those who are going. I just add that that of itself does not tell you what is going to happen to our population, because of course migrants have children. It is an incredibly obvious point, but it means that we are talking about a very considerable and rapid increase in our population, greater than we have experienced for nearly 100 years. I don’t think that anyone thinks that that should continue for ever.

Chair

Let me put to you the question I put to the Archbishop and the Bishop on EU membership. Just to be clear, are you in favour of the United Kingdom staying in or coming out of the EU?

Lord Green

As an organisation, we are not taking a view on that. What we are trying to do—

Chair

What is your view personally, because you are separate from the organisation, aren’t you? You are not the only two people in the organisation.

Lord Green

Not quite, but I have been careful not to reveal my personal view because what we want to do in this particular field, which is very important to many of those who will be voting, is ensure that they understand what the facts are. There are many other factors and it is a very difficult decision for a lot of people. All we can do is try to cast some light on this issue that is so important to so many.

Chair

Mr Mehmet, let me put to you what I put to the Archbishop about Nigel Farage’s recent statement in which he said that if Britain stayed in the EU it could lead to sexual attacks such as those we saw in Cologne. Do you think that is correct?

Alp Mehmet

It is not my view, no. I would not agree with that.

Chair

Do you think he is wrong to say that if we stay in the EU one of the consequences—

Alp Mehmet

Who am I to say that any politician is wrong? They have a view—you all have a view and it is for you to express it. I am not suggesting that it is wrong or it is right; it is not my view.

Chair

Lord Green?

Lord Green

I think it was a very mistaken thing to say. It risks generating suspicions that may not be there. If such incidents take place, we will have to react to them, but I do not think we should in any way encourage that line of thinking.

Chair

Lord Green, no one in this room knows more about Syria than you, as a former ambassador to Syria. You then went on to become ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Is this migration crisis of our making? Has the approach we have taken to Syria and Libya—I will also want your thoughts on our intervention in Libya—exacerbated a migration crisis that would have happened anyway, but maybe not on the scale that we have seen?

Lord Green

We carry a heavy responsibility for the policy that we have adopted in the last 15 years in respect of Iraq, Libya and Syria. Personally, I was very strongly opposed to all three of those military interventions. In Libya it is self-evident. In Syria it is less clear cut, but I am in no doubt that the approach that we took to Syria was such as to encourage the opposition to Assad to take to arms. Indeed, we supplied arms—we encouraged people to supply arms, and I think that was a very serious mistake. I think we completely failed to understand the strength of the Assad regime in its own territory.

Chair

Has that political mistake led to the migration crisis that we are seeing? This is a bigger crisis than any of us has ever experienced in our lifetime, with a million people entering the EU and so many people dying in the Mediterranean trying to flee Libya. This did not happen when Gaddafi and Berlusconi were there and made their famous deal. Do you think that foreign policy intervention and the conflict that is created results in this migration crisis?

Lord Green

Yes. I think the migration crisis is the outcome of a number of events, one of which was our policy, which I believe to have been seriously mistaken.

Chair

Mr Mehmet?

Alp Mehmet

It would be wrong to suggest that the migration crisis is simply because of what has happened in Syria and Iraq. The scale of migration at the moment is about much more than just Iraq and in particular Syria. That is a fact. Certainly, it exacerbated an existing problem, and that is why in my view it is a mistake to think that this is some sort of problem that is there to be solved now and we can do something overnight that will bring us into the migration nirvana that we are looking for. It will not happen that way.

Chair

Lord Green, what are the solutions? We all have identified the problems. We have looked at the numbers. We know there are a million people entering the EU and many still come to our country illegally. We know that boats are crossing the Mediterranean every single day. People are dying there. Some people are getting to Italy. What is the solution to this problem? I think organisations like Migration Watch are very good at analysing. Do you have a solution? How do we deal with this as a country?

Lord Green

I would sketch a way forward. It is certainly not a solution. First, we should maximise what we do on the ground in order to keep people in reasonable safety and living conditions close to the country of origin. That has worked moderately well in places such as Afghanistan. The problem is that in those countries around Syria, conditions are getting increasingly difficult and the refugees themselves are losing hope that there will ever be a chance to get back to a reasonably peaceful Syria. That is not a reason for not focusing on the area, and I think the Government are right to spend substantial sums to do it, and other Governments should do the same. The second element of that, however, was the decision taken in Germany effectively to open the doors. That is what destabilised Europe. It led to massive numbers that may or may not be manageable in Germany but are probably not manageable in other European countries. That was a very serious mistake, from which Europe needs to recover. It will be extremely difficult to do so unless and until some form of civil order can be restored in Libya. I think the Government can see that and are trying to do it, but it is going to be extraordinarily difficult. It will also require the co-operation of Turkey, for which there will be a very heavy price. But we are where we are.

Alp Mehmet

Chairman, earlier you referred to integration. I think Mr Umunna suggested that one of the difficulties with why we have perhaps not got as much integration now as we should have is the fact that the Government have not done enough. In my view, the real reason is the fact that the problem is not one that is going away. We are constantly adding to the numbers that need to be integrated. With what is going on in the middle east, north Africa and Asia at the moment, while we think we can somehow take in every single one of those who are looking for refuge or a better life, we are not going to get the integration that we all want.

Chair

Do you think the prophecy of Enoch Powell was right then?

Alp Mehmet

Enoch Powell said a lot of things. People focus just on his 1968 speech. I think it would be foolish to suggest that we have not had problems with regard to integration. My point is that if we are going to solve that particular problem we need to think more carefully about the numbers and the scale of immigration that we allow at the moment.

Mr Burrowes

You refer in your paper about the refugee and migrant crisis to secondary movement. Will you draw out some of the analysis and how realistic it is? You say that between 5% and 10% of those who have been or will be granted refugee status move on from European Union countries to the UK. You estimate that, with children, that could be up to 480,000 individuals coming over to the UK. Do you have a timescale in that analysis? Is that a conservative estimate or a realistic one? Could you perhaps draw further on the call from Angela Merkel for eastern European countries to take their share? Would you move that figure upwards if those in eastern European countries wanted to come to this country once they had gained their refugee status and would be subject to free movement?

Lord Green

First, we were very careful not to put a timescale on it because it is five or six years before people get EU citizenship. It would be some years before they may take a decision for their family to join them. There is no timescale, except a start date of the order of 2021. We looked at the number of people who have already been granted asylum in Europe; we looked at the number who have applied but not yet been decided, and we got an approval rate—the pass rate, as it were—of about 56%. That gives you the number of people who are already in Europe and who would get asylum in Europe. You then consider how many of those might move on and you mentioned 5% or 10%. These were illustrative numbers, but they are intended to cope with people who had been sent to countries they didn’t want to go to or had arrived in countries where they weren’t very welcome or who had family here or who hadn’t got the language in Germany but have English. All these things could give you a motive to move when you have a right to move which is five or six years away. If you do the arithmetic, as you will see in the paper, you get this very broad number. That’s all it is intended to be—an indication. Of course, it doesn’t say anything about those who have not yet applied for asylum in Europe. They would be additional if there are more.

Mr Burrowes

And that would be an upward figure, would it, if the European Commission gets through its proposal that eastern European countries should be required to resettle a quarter of refugees granted asylum in the European Union? That is their proposal, as I understand it. You say that it is likely that under these circumstances an even larger number would consider a secondary movement to Britain.

Lord Green

I think so. In some eastern European countries they would be deeply unwelcome. If they eventually get their EU passport in Hungary, or somewhere, they are bound to consider moving if they feel that they are in an unfriendly environment. It is worth mentioning—as the paper does, I think—that, of the Somali community in Holland, one third to a half have moved into the UK for these kinds of cultural reasons.

Mr Burrowes

What is the alternative if there’s going to be a secondary movement of sorts over years to come? If it’s Sweden, it’s only three years away, with others, it’s further years away. If we stay in and retain our membership of the European Union, how much pulling power will we have to avoid, for example, the secondary movement of what would be migrants rather than refugees?

Lord Green

If we remain in the European Union, we will not have any powers to prevent someone with European Union citizenship from entering the UK.

Mr Burrowes

Plainly, if we were out, we would?

Lord Green

If we left, there is a negotiation to be had with Europe as to what the immigration regime should be. I am happy to talk about that in a moment, if you’d like to. We would envisage that there would not normally be a requirement for visas for movement within Europe. It would be possible, if it became a serious problem, to require visas of EU citizens who are not born in the EU. That would be a possibility, but I doubt that it would be a terribly good idea.

Mr Burrowes

In terms of in or a version of what we would do if we were out—the Dublin regulations—do you think this secondary movement will have any impact on other types of agreement we have in relation to family reunion and those processes?

Lord Green

As you know, the Dublin regulations are being renegotiated now. I don’t think we can answer that question for the time being.

Mr Jayawardena

Lord Green, can you outline a little about how the Australian system differs from the current UK system in attracting skilled immigrants from non-EU countries?

Lord Green

It might help the Committee if I mention that there are three broad approaches to the method of immigration control. One is the Australian points-based system you have just mentioned. The second is a points-based system that is not Australian, it is adapted to our own circumstances. The third is just work permits, without a points-based background. I won’t go into detail about Australia, if you don’t mind, because we don’t think it is relevant.

Mr Jayawardena

But could you explain the differences, so that we can understand?

Lord Green

Yes. First, the circumstances are entirely different. Obviously, they are an empty continent and we are a crowded island. The whole purpose of their immigration system is to increase immigration, not to reduce it. Their points-based system does not apply to those who have a job offer; it is only for people who are looking for a job. I rather suspect that the Australian points-based system is so popular because it plays well in focus groups. That is what it comes down to, I think. From the point of view of the UK, it would be better to put it aside. If you want more detail, I can give it to you.

Mr Jayawardena

It is interesting that you said that the Australian system is designed to increase immigration, yet at the same time they have offshore processing for asylum seekers, so they are also trying to control immigration appropriately. Would you agree with that? If you do, what is your assessment of offshore processing for asylum seekers?

Lord Green

I think it is absolutely essential in all these discussions to keep asylum entirely separate from immigration.

Mr Jayawardena

Which I have.

Lord Green

Which you have. I am just making it clear that asylum is a completely different issue. It may play into why the Australian system is so lauded, because it does seem that they have prevented or deterred very large numbers of people who might be moving from south Asia towards Australia, and they do it in a very tough manner. Could we do it? No, for a whole host of reasons. It would be unacceptable to Parliament for a start, and we do not have anywhere to put them. We went through this with Michael Howard 10 years ago. You may remember “fantasy island”. He was not able to say where this place was that they would be sent to, so that rather weakened his policy.

Mr Jayawardena

May I turn to Turkey? Your website lists the prospect of Turkish accession to the EU as a key immigration issue and warns of an additional 79 million citizens being able to move to the UK. Clearly, Turkey is a way off joining the EU, but it is, I am sure you will agree, the long-settled position of the British Government that they would welcome that and would therefore not use their veto. Can we be clear and seek your expertise? If Turkey were to join the EU, there would be free movement for 79 million citizens to the United Kingdom.

Lord Green

Yes is the short answer. What you say is entirely right. The British Government have consistently favoured, or said that they favour, and have told the Turks that they favour, the accession of Turkey to the European Union. The European Union has said the same. There is a political will that they should join. Not only that, but as we were discussing earlier, the Turks have now acquired substantial leverage over Germany in particular and the European Union also, which will make it a lot more difficult to resist a desire to join the Union if they so wish. We have looked at this. We have looked at the numbers and we have done an estimate that is to the effect that if and when they join—we are talking maybe 10 years and then maybe a transition period, another seven years—at that point we would expect something of the order of 100,000 a year on the pattern of what we saw from eastern Europe. There is a surprising degree of similarities between, say, Poland and Romania in terms of the numbers, the difference in economic level and poverty in the countryside. In Turkey you have the additional factor of the Kurdish problem and the fact that one in seven people in Turkey believes that they are being oppressed. There is no question in my mind but that if and when Turkey joins the European Union, there will be another significant wave of immigration into the UK.

Chair

Let me stop you there to remind colleagues that we will be voting at a quarter past. Be very quick.

Mr Jayawardena

A quick clarification: in your view as experts, it is a question of when, not if, Turkey joins and that population is able to access the UK.

Lord Green

The “when” is a matter of foreign policy. What we are saying is that when it does happen, this is very likely to occur. Whether it will happen is a political issue that I leave to you.

Chair

Or the Prime Minister.

Mr Umunna

I want to ask you about the points-based system, but on the Turkey issue, is it your understanding that the UK has a veto on any new members joining the European Union?

Lord Green

There is no doubt about that. The question is whether they will use it.

Mr Umunna

Of course it is, but the fact is that there is a veto, and if the UK wants to stop Turkey joining, it can do so. I think we are agreed on that.

Lord Green

Yes.

Mr Umunna

Let me move on to the Australian points-based system. I know you are not terribly impressed by it, but it has nevertheless been put forward by Vote Leave in the EU referendum debate as the alternative that they wish to adopt. For the record, by way of clarification, is it right that your view is that the purpose of the Australian points-based system is to promote immigration, not limit it?

Lord Green

Broadly, yes.

Mr Umunna

According to Migration Watch documents, the Australian system currently covers only around 15% of all immigrants coming to Australia. Mr Mehmet’s nodding, so I am presuming that is right—perhaps because he wrote the document. Can I ask a third question? I am conscious of the time.

Lord Green

The part of the inflow that is covered by the points-based system is only something like 15%.

Mr Umunna

Relative to our population, is it right to say that, per head, immigration to Australia is three times higher than to the UK?

Lord Green

Yes.

Mr Umunna

To emigrate to Australia as a skilled worker, you are not required to have sponsorship by an employer. Is that correct?

Lord Green

If you go through their points-based system. If you have a job already, you don’t go through the points-based system.

Mr Umunna

Obviously you wish to reduce immigration per se.

Lord Green

You’ve got it.

Mr Umunna

With the Government’s target of getting migration down to the tens of thousands in mind, if we left the European Union, would that, per se, enable the UK to be more generous in terms of the number of non-EU immigrants who are admitted entry?

Lord Green

That is a question for those people who are campaigning on one side or the other.

Mr Umunna

But I’m asking you that question. If you want to bring it down per se, and if you want to bring it down to the tens of thousands, does leaving the European Union solve the problem?

Lord Green

I’ll give you my opinion, which is—

Mr Umunna

Can I have a yes-or-no answer?

Lord Green

No, you can’t. Sorry, but I’ll have to give you a couple of sentences.

Chair

You are here to give us your opinion, so it would be good to hear it.

Lord Green

If we were to leave the European Union, it would be possible to limit the inflow of people from Europe, obviously. If we were then to put in place a work permit system that applied to the European Union in the same or a very similar way as it did to the rest of the world, that would reduce the numbers from Europe by around 100,000 to 120,000 a year. That would give you some leeway, but if you wanted a net inflow of skilled people from Europe, you are still looking at something in the order of 50,000 or 60,000 from there.

Mr Umunna

So if we came out of the European Union, you would not, per se, be able to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.

Lord Green

Not in itself. It depends what you do with the other 180,000, of course.

Mr Umunna

Sure, but just as a factual point, by leaving the European Union we cannot, in and of itself, achieve a migration number in the tens of thousands.

Lord Green

“In and of itself” is the key expression there.

Mr Umunna

Yes. I am just asking whether it is a yes or a no. Thank you very much.

Stuart C. McDonald

Mr Umunna has largely covered the territory I was going to cover.

Mr Umunna

Sorry.

Stuart C. McDonald

It’s not a problem at all. You did it very well. I want to ask a little more about the paper on secondary movement that you were talking about earlier. You used 5% to 10% as illustrative figures, but we are talking about people who had obtained citizenship. I am not an expert on the citizenship rules of the different EU countries, but a lot of them would include requirements relating to language, and residency of at least five and sometimes seven or eight years, and so on. All those things are designed to attract people who have integrated into those countries and want to be part of them. Per se, they are very unlikely to then want to move on.

Lord Green

We are assuming that 90% or 95% won’t and 5% or 10% might. You had a discussion earlier about integration and so on. It is a very considerable task in any country. We have seen that even where integration is not too bad, such as in Holland, we still get a movement of Somalians here, so 5% or 10% is illustrative, but I do not think it is at all out of the way.

Stuart C. McDonald

But it is not scientific.

Lord Green

Of course not. I am a scientist, but that is not scientific.

Stuart C. McDonald

On the Somali community, you are talking about a very small group. Thinking scientifically, there are big dangers in extrapolating from that across to the total number of migrants coming to Europe.

Lord Green

We are talking about more than 1 million people, so that gives you a pretty wide spread of characters, I would have thought.

Stuart C. McDonald

For communities like the Dutch Somali—I cannot do it off the top of my head, but if I had done my preparation properly, I could have highlighted communities in different EU countries where the number that had come to the United Kingdom was zero or one person.

Lord Green

Sure.

Chair

A very quick question from me: do you think we have 100% exit checks? When we leave the United Kingdom, no one checks our passport. The Home Secretary keeps saying that because you book a ticket online and you have to present your passport to the agent when you clock in for your flight, that is an exit check. Do you think we have 100% exit checks?

Lord Green

I don’t think it is 100%, and I don’t think the Home Office is claiming 100%.

Chair

They are.

Lord Green

Are they? Much of the information will come from advance passenger information, but there are quite a lot of movements from ports and in private boats and so on, as we were learning last week. We will never get to 100%, but I think the main question at the moment is the reliability of what they do have, and they are still working on that. They have had two lots of six months, and for some reason they have postponed any public comment on it.

Chair

Indeed. Would you like to see the report come out sooner?

Lord Green

It certainly should have done. In all circumstances, it is extremely unwise for the Government to appear to be reluctant to let the facts be known.

Tim Loughton

Lord Green, do you agree with the premise that the current way that unlimited migration from the EU works effectively discriminates against skilled people from non-EU countries coming to the UK?

Lord Green

As long as you are a member of the European Union, there is no alternative, unless you open your borders completely to the entire world. We cannot have it both ways. If we want to have the same system for everyone, we have to leave the European Union, if that is what you want to do.

Tim Loughton

On that basis, if there is a highly skilled electrical engineer from India or a medic from the Philippines, effectively they are second in preference to a less qualified person from the EU who could be recruited. It is more difficult to recruit from outside the EU, though that person might be more suited for a job post in the UK.

Lord Green

Clearly, an agricultural labourer from Poland can get a job, whereas the person you are describing cannot. That said, as you well know, there is the tier 2 system for selecting skilled people, and that limit has practically never been reached. It was reached for a month or two last summer, I think, but year on year, 500 or 600 are rolled over to the next year. At the moment, your candidate is a bit mythical. If he was what he is and had an employer who wanted him, the employer could have him.

Tim Loughton

Why is that not happening?

Lord Green

It is. A skilled person from outside the European Union who has a job offer and who is being paid £20,800—there are some elementary basic requirements, and if they are met, he gets his work permit. It is a non-issue. The CBI have been rabbiting on for years. They rabbited on for four years before a single refusal took place.

Chair

I think we might write to you on that point so that you can give us further information. Lord Green and Alp Mehmet, I thank you again for coming in and for all the excellent information that you send to this Committee whenever we ask for your views, which we are very grateful for. Thank you. Oral evidence: The Work of the Immigration Directorates, HC 151 25