Cuts to English education services for migrants are self defeating

Jonathan Lindsell, 12 August 2015

In July the government’s Skills Funding Agency announced the ‘Esol (English for speakers of other languages) Plus Mandation’ will be completely cut. Esol Plus was introduced to push jobseeker’s allowance claimants with poor spoken English to improve their skills. This comes after years of cuts to Esol since 2010 amounting to about 40%.

The vast majority on ESOL courses are legal migrants or successful asylum seekers. The Association of Colleges suggests around 16,000 learners will be affected for a saving of only £45m. Such a paltry sum is difficult to reconcile with the government’s own rhetoric on migrant integration and tackling radicalism. David Cameron specifically mentioned the need to learn English in his July counter-extremism speech, yet on the same day his government jettisoned the structure that provides English education to the most needy.  Such courses are already oversubscribed. In or out of the EU, Britain will continue to accept refugees and some economic migrants whose language skills are lacking: this is a long-term policy issue.

Plentiful research shows language skills are vital to an individual’s ability to contribute positively to their community and to join the labour market at their appropriate skill level. Workers with weak language skills are easier to exploit and are disproportionately found in low-skilled jobs, competing with low-skilled Britons, when they may have high skills they are unable to use. This was explored in last week’s blog. Poor language promotion contributes to the isolation of migrant groups and makes it difficult for women to gain financial independence from traffickers or escape abusive relationships. As explored in The Norwegian Way, more proactive language and cultural aid for migrants is also important to keep up labour standards and wages.

In the face of these cuts, Ian Wybron from Demos suggested several bottom-up initiatives in which ordinary citizens ‘fill the gap in delivering some form of Esol’, organised through housing associations or large corporates. These ideas are promising but too small-scale, and too unformed, to meet the immediate and urgent need for integrating current migrants. Public opinion is already heavily against migration, and that is on the basis of migrants already here, many of whom benefitted from Esol courses when they were better funded.

Future migrants will not have this advantage, meaning they will as a group be worse integrated, have lower wages, and need more emergency benefits. Their social ostracism is likely to be worse and the possibility that some develop radical sentiments, higher. This will in turn reinforce negative public impressions of migrants and pile pressure on the government to get tough on. Getting tough on immigration often includes reducing what the government assumes to be pull factors such as benefits and integration measures – leading to an ever greater gap between migrant and native prospects.

In short, cutting Esol funding undermines the aims of the last government’s anti-slavery legislation, this government’s counter-extremism goals, and the economic and social contributions legitimate migrants might bring to Britain. Leaving the EU or changing free movement rules cannot  solve this alone.