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March 9, 2006
Welcoming immigrants
A government official writes about the process of immigration in the UK
This week, the UK government will unveil its new points system for immigrants, designed to smooth the flow of those coming here to work or study. Like every immigration initiative, it will excite the usual comments from the usual suspects. There is a need for a more thoughtful debate. Yet any attempt to raise the tone of the debate is hampered by the extraordinary lack of basic facts and figures.
Immigration is a big political issue for millions of people, yet in recent times, the Conservative party has been pilloried for raising it. Maybe the tone has been too harsh. So let me make our position clear. We welcome immigration. It has enriched the British society and widened the horizons of the whole British people to the rest of the world. It brings economic benefits and cultural diversity.
There are problems, too, but our ability to cope with them even in the face of brutal sectarian terrorism is one of the positive factors about modern Britain which should make us all proud.
We also believe that firm and fair control of immigration is essential, both to see good race and community relations and for the orderly provision of public services.
Many people are concerned about the numbers of people wishing to come to live in Britain and for politicians to ignore this would be a betrayal. We must ask why so many see this as the biggest problem facing Britain today and how we can start defusing the tensions.
Yet there is an extraordinary lack of information and basic facts and figures on immigration, and its small subset, asylum, which accounts for seven per cent of those arriving in this country. The government is ignorant of some of the facts and figures on which policy should be based. In two months of investigation as shadow immigration minister, I am appalled at what we can’t be told.
Here are a few things the government does not know. It cannot say how many people are living here illegally. It comes up with a figure of somewhere between 310,000 and 570,000. If the Chancellor told us he was taking somewhere between 31p and 57p in the pound in taxation and couldn’t be more accurate than that, he would be out on his ear.
What about figures which must be available to the authorities, because they involve those receiving a public service? How many children of temporary migrants are currently in state schools? How many temporary migrants are receiving NHS treatment?
The answer to these questions from the Home Office is that they don’t know. As I was told in reply to a parliamentary question: “The information is not collated centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.”
There would be direct benefits in publishing these facts. One of the fears of those most hostile to people coming to Britain is a feeling that they are doing so to benefit from the welfare state. In the vast majority of cases, this is unfair and untrue. The way to demonstrate this is to have the figures available.
Another thing we don’t know is how many have entered from the new member states of the EU. The government introduced a registration scheme for those coming here to work from central and eastern Europe, but many evade it and it does not apply to the self-employed or those with a job lasting fewer than 30 days, such as many construction jobs. So, to quote Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister: “There are therefore no figures or estimates available as to the numbers of accession nationals who have entered the UK and are working without registration.”
Ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds suspicion. If we want a civilised debate about immigration and asylum, and if we want a credible policy on each of these issues, we need to know the essential facts. At present, the government is spending £1.7bn on the immigration and nationality directorate and not even collecting the facts.
This cannot be allowed to continue. — Dawn/Guardian Service
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