UK immigration policy is chaotic
Jonathan Lindsell, 14 October 2013
This week the European Commission will publish a report on EU migration, labour and welfare access. It comes just as the government proposes its new Immigration Bill, and as EU Commissioner László Andor takes the Department of Work and Pensions to the Court of Justice for Britain’s ‘right to reside’ test on certain migrant benefits.
The immigration debate is important to a lot of British voters, hence Jo Swinson’s upset in the Lib Dems and tension in UKIP. It’s important that the electorate have access to all the facts to evaluate how the government’s doing, but (as I moaned back in June) the quality of debate is dreadful.
Case in point is Douglas Carswell MP and The Telegraph’s analysis of the new Commission report, which has apparently been leaked. Robert Mendick and Claire Duffin report, for example, that 600,000 ‘unemployed’ EU migrants are living in Britain. Later in the article (£) they explain the figure actually refers to ‘non-active’ EU migrants, i.e. children, pensioners and people so ill or wealthy that they are not seeking work (nor claiming JSA). ‘Unemployed’ typically refers only to the actual labour force – if the Telegraph was discussing native Britons, it would be unlikely to include GCSE students and coma patients in its non-working population calculation.
Such needless hyperbole obscures what is an already confusing topic. Back in 2006, then Home Secretary John Reid called the UK Border Agency ‘not fit for purpose’. Since then it has gone through scandal, funding cuts, criticism and confusion, along with the Coalition’s commitment to cutting net migration. UKBA is woefully underfunded and understaffed. The in-flow figures it produces use a 1960s mechanism for estimating tourism, the International Passenger Survey, which samples only about 5,000 migrants per year. The Public Accounts Committee estimates this has a margin of error of +/- 35,000 migrants per year, or 22% of net immigration (2013). There have been criticisms that the border staff have no means of ‘counting-out’.
In the wake of the Home Office’s ‘Go Home’ van, which was designed to create a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal migrants, the message the UK is sending to the world is garbled. Just today, George Osborne announced a relaxation of Chinese business visa rules in his charm offensive to encourage the right type of applicant. Despite heady rhetoric on Syria, and a vote on military action, the government has made no commitment to help refugees from Bashir al-Assad’s depredations – there are now over 1.5 million displaced Syrians. Sweden, however, has opened its borders to Syrians, meaning many could find their way to Britain thanks to EU free movement rules.
Meanwhile the Immigration Bill raises numerous questions. Landlords, now liable for checking tenants’ legality, will receive no training or help whilst facing larger penalties. Doctors, who will also be expected to investigate patients’ migration status, are already overstretched. There is a border problem, but this seems a superficial solution.
Update: The EU’s report is now available here.