THE KIRKHOPE COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION
BUILDING A FAIR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
September 2004
building a fair immigration system
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CONTENTS Foreword by the Chairman 4
Executive Summary 5
Preamble 7
Encouraging high-skilled economic 10 migration
Reinstating border controls and internal 17 reporting
Family reunions and chain migration 22
Additional proposals 28
Appendix 1: Membership 32
Appendix 2: Meeting dates 34
Appendix 3: Evidence 35
Appendix 4: Asylum Commission 39 Recommendations
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FOREWORD At the beginning of the year, I was asked by the Shadow Home Secretary, The Rt Hon David Davis by Timothy MP, to continue the work carried out by the Asylum Kirkhope MEP Commission in 2003 (see Appendix 4) by this time looking into Britain’s immigration policy. The members of the Commission are shown in the Appendix and I should like to thank all of them for their valuable contributions.
The Commission met on ten occasions in London and took oral and written evidence, as well as carrying out a thorough review of the present situation and the potential action required by an incoming Conservative Government.
This report attempts to provide some solutions to the present immigration crisis but it is not a complete overview of UK immigration – there are many books, pamphlets and other contributions that meet this objective. It is a set of recommendations which we believe would, if implemented, assist in improving Britain’s immigration system.
I should particularly like to thank Matthew Elliott who has acted as Special Adviser to the Commission. I am also grateful to those who have contributed in other ways to our work. I hope this report will form a significant part of the future immigration policy of the Conservative Party.
Timothy Kirkhope MEP September 2004
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EXECUTIVE The Commission recommends the following: SUMMARY Encouraging high-skilled economic migration
Recommendation 1 Simplify the current overcomplicated work permit schemes
Recommendation 2 Reinstate the higher skills threshold and introduce minimum salary requirement for work permits
Recommendation 3 Abolish in-work benefits for immigrant workers
Reinstating border controls and internal reporting
Recommendation 4 Biometric data, visa type and travel information must be recorded before embarkation to the UK
Recommendation 5 Internal reporting to be introduced
Recommendation 6 Embarkation controls to be reintroduced
Recommendation 7 Zero-tolerance approach to overstaying
Family reunions and chain migration
Recommendation 8 Minimum income requirements for sponsoring spouses
Recommendation 9 Citizenship requirement for sponsoring spouses
Recommendation 10 Higher age requirement for sponsoring spouses
Recommendation 11 Restriction of right to sponsor parents
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Additional proposals
Recommendation 12 A Cabinet-level Minister for Migration and Integration to coordinate policy
Recommendation 13 Compulsory medical examination before embarkation to UK
Recommendation 14 Language requirement for permanent residency
All the recommendations in Building a Fair Immigration System were unanimously agreed to by the Commission with the exception of Recommendation 9, which Philip Barth dissented from.
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PREAMBLE “Britain is full.”
This is the view of a growing number of people. Whether or not that assessment is completely fair, Britain is certainly one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It is twice as densely populated as France and three times as densely populated as Spain. Our island nation is not like America in the 1880s, with new frontiers and uninhabited land to settle. Britain is a small island with a large population and immigration to the UK is increasing (see graph below).
Density of population has a direct effect on quality of life. More people occupying a finite space can result in greater levels of anti-social behaviour and crime; deteriorating mental and physical health; overcrowded classrooms and expanding waiting lists; traffic jams and over-crowded buses. This overcrowding concerns not only the recipients of public services but also the providers – the front line staff who keep our public services running.
Immigration affects some areas more than others, with Greater London and the South East being particularly affected. This effect is most readily seen in the housing shortage, where the Government’s very own projections estimate that two million new homes will be needed by 2021 for immigrants alone (Browne 2002, page 38). Increasing property prices and overcrowding are caused by the growing demand for housing. Insufficient property and increased immigration have both contributed to this.
There is also a disproportionate effect on public services in London and the South East, for example, where water companies have voiced their
7 building a fair immigration system concern that the water supply and sewage disposal system cannot meet the growing demand from the Government’s house building programme in the region. With London absorbing a population the size of Leeds every three or four years (Harris 2003, page 25), the metropolis is rapidly becoming a city in severe crisis.
Immigration also has a cultural dimension. At low levels, immigrants are easily integrated into communities. But with high levels of immigration, as we have seen in recent years, cultural differences lead to divided communities. Of course, as Michael Howard rightly said in his Burnley Speech in February 2004, “We are a stronger and better country, rich in our cultural diversity, because of the immigrant communities that have settled here.” This is right, but for change to be comfortable, it must be progressive, not radical. Our culture must always develop through well managed integration. Rising immigration has not been matched by a corresponding emphasis on community cohesion.
For these reasons, we believe that the unquantified migration of low-skilled, low-paid workers and family members, encouraged by this Labour government, must now stop. The business community may benefit from cheap labour, especially in the short term, but low paid, low-skilled British workers, many of whom are British-born from settled immigrant communities, lose out from fresh immigration. According to migration expert Anthony Browne, who gave evidence to the Commission: “The unskilled are four times as likely to be unemployed as the skilled. Ethnic minorities in Britain are twice as likely to be unemployed as white people, with some communities such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis suffering unemployment of around 50 per cent.”
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We agree with him.
Britain should not need more low-skilled workers when there is a more than adequate supply to meet the requirements of our business community in the combined labour markets of the European Union.
UK immigration policy must balance the interests of immigrants, would-be immigrants, the host country and the taxpayer. At present, this policy is disproportionately weighted against Britain’s low- skilled workers. It must be changed – and quickly.
Entry clearance applications granted, 1992-2002
1800000 1600000 1400000 1200000 1000000 800000 600000 400000 200000 0 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Source: Home Office (November 2003) ‘Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2002’
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ENCOURAGING Immigration policy should be predominately an economic question. The British economy needs HIGH-SKILLED and has always benefited from the work of highly ECONOMIC skilled immigrants. However, it does not need to import low-skilled workers when people from MIGRATION across the 25 member states of the European
Union are now freely able to work here.
David Blunkett asserted in November 2003 that
there was “no obvious limit” on the number of
immigrants who could settle in the UK. The Home
Secretary believes that large scale immigration of
both low and high skilled workers is economically
beneficial to the UK.
Having looked thoroughly at the economic
consequences of immigration the Commission
concludes that whereas high-skilled, high-income
immigrants should be welcomed, low-skilled, low-
wage immigration should be discouraged. This is
in line with Chancellor Gordon Brown’s continued
emphasis on making Britain a high-skilled, high-
productivity economy.
Doesn’t Britain have a declining workforce?
Supporters of mass low-skilled immigration often
assert that Britain has a declining workforce and
that the economy needs extra workers of all skill
levels. This is patently not true. The Government’s
very own Actuary Service predicts that, with zero
net immigration, the workforce will grow by 1.2m
by 2020, as the data below illustrates.
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UK workforce with zero net immigration (millions)
Year 2000 2010 2020 2031 Workforce (millions of people of working age) 36.89 37.39 38.13 36.82 Workforce as % of total population61.7% 62.2% 63.2%
61.2%
Source: Government Actuary Service, 2000-based projections, natural change only variant.
Britain is not suffering a shortage of low-skilled workers. With over four million people in the UK wanting to find a job, and with freedom of movement within the newly expanded EU, we do not need any more low-skilled immigrants.
Isn’t Britain facing a demographic time-bomb?
Supporters of mass immigration also assert that Britain faces a demographic time bomb with ever fewer workers having to support ever more dependents. Again, this is incorrect. The Government Actuary Service predicts that the number of children and pensioners per thousand people of working age will fall from 620 in 2000 to 583 in 2020. As David Goodhart, Editor of the centre left monthly magazine Prospect argues: “Managing an ageing society requires a package of later retirement, rising productivity and limited immigration” (2004, page 34; emphasis added).
Low-skilled, low paid workers lose out from immigration
The vociferous proponents of mass low-skilled immigration are some members of the business community together with the Confederation of British Industry. They support mass immigration
11 building a fair immigration system because they say they want a large pool of cheap workers. Increasing the supply of labour in this way drives down wages, benefiting businesses in the short term at the expense of the low-skilled.
As Labour Peer Lord Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, has written: “there is a huge amount of evidence that any increase in the number of unskilled workers lowers unskilled wages and increases the unskilled unemployment rate.” Low-skilled, low- paid workers are definitely not best served by mass immigration.
David Goodhart (2004, page 35) backs this up: “Large-scale immigration of unskilled workers does allow native workers to bypass the dirtiest and least rewarding jobs but it also increases inequality, does little for per capita growth, and skews benefits in the host population to employers and the better-off.” We agree.
If mass low-skilled migration was restricted, the wages paid to low-skilled workers would increase and the differential between high-skilled and low- skilled workers would diminish. Without a ready access to cheap labour, businesses would be forced to increase competitiveness in other ways, such as increasing mechanisation, providing more training and improving quality. This would be good for Britain’s economy.
Two good examples of the consequences of mass low-skilled immigration are: