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European Union (Accessions) Bill

I thank noble Lords for this debate. I recall in the opening speech at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said:"““In a way it is a pity that we cannot offer these new arrivals a better welcome and a better ambiance to join””.—[Official Report, 20/12/05; col. 1688.]" It seems to me that these two amendments, and also Amendment No. 3, would not add to the ambiance for Bulgaria and Romania. I fear that were we to adopt those amendments, we would be indicating that as a country we were nervous, that we felt that enlargement should cause us greater anxiety, and that we were hesitant about welcoming those states to the European Union. I know that that is not the intention, but that is how it could be felt. We would also be going against the entire tenor of the Second Reading debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, also suggested, when the Chamber as a whole was united in its support for enlargement, as it has historically been. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has struck the right note and the right balance, as has the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, in this debate. This is a matter of taking sensible steps, with all the knowledge that we will need as we take them but without taking them in a way that imposes such burdens so as to make it clear to those two countries that we have very little confidence that they will ever arrive at the right point, as we are looking for a regime of inspection that goes well beyond anything that we have seen before. I understand the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, put during the Second Reading debate, when he raised questions about the adequacy of the data. I said in response to him on that occasion that the figures came from a paper and research that was done by University College London, which was conducted on the best basis possible, but was plainly not wholly adequate. That must mean that we need to be sure precisely what the position is as we get closer to the point of accession on this occasion. I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining his amendments because, like him, the Government take very seriously our obligation to monitor the impact of any regulations made under Clause 2 of the Bill. However, I believe that the amendments are unnecessary. In response to a particular point that he made, I believe that worker registration in the current circumstances has worked well, but I do not believe that it is the only possible way in which to do it—and as we get closer to the time, for reasons that I shall come to, we shall want to see what mechanism might be the right one. It is true that it has not been decided yet. As I said at Second Reading, no decision has been taken on what level of access to grant Bulgarian and Romanian workers. I make that point to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, who asked the question in the earlier debate. Clause 2 gives the Government a wide degree of flexibility in deciding those terms. For those reasons, I confirm what my right honourable friend Dr Kim Howells said in the other place. We could decide to retain the current work permit arrangements; we could use worker registration; or we could decide to open up our labour market fully. Those are all possible decisions. Or we could allow more lightly regulated access, along similar lines to the regulation put in place for the eight new member states that joined in May 2004. What is most important to note tonight is that any decision will be subject to the affirmative procedure in both Houses, so there is bound to be full parliamentary scrutiny of the Government’s decision at the appropriate time. That is built in to the legislative framework. In short, the decisions will be taken when they are most relevant, when they will count to the greatest possible extent. The Government have undertaken, as a Minister said in Committee in the other place, to carry out research into the potential impact of opening up the UK’s labour market before any decision is taken. That research will of course be shared with Parliament to ensure that the discussion is as well articulated as it can be. That was the point on which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, was asking for a direct assurance with regard to quality of detail. In addition, were we to open up our labour market, we would be bound at that stage to continue to monitor the impact of any such policy and publish the findings on that as well. That is the approach we have adopted for workers from central and eastern Europe. Indeed, we are publishing the relevant data on a quarterly basis for those countries—more regularly than the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has asked us for and envisages in these amendments in respect of Bulgaria and Romania. Against this background, and given these reassurances, the Government do not see a need to introduce the changes envisaged in these amendments. I have read through the Hansard transcript of the debate over the last accession Bill, when several noble Lords spoke against a similar amendment—again, moved at that time by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said on that occasion:"““We welcome regular reporting, but regular reporting is already provided by a range of functions. We do not think that we should be concerned about the ‘dangers’ of emigration from the countries that are about to join””." That is echoed by what the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said about having a more cumbersome mechanism: it would be inappropriate. My noble friend Lord Dubs agreed:"““I am pretty confident that this Government—or any British government . . . would provide the sort of information that the amendment seeks. I should have thought that it is not necessary to have this on the face of the Bill””.—[Official Report, 27/10/03; col. 15.]" I agree with the noble Lords, because we can achieve the outcome in an effective way. I should also point out that the second amendment is misleading—and I have no doubt that this is unintentional—in that it implies that the transitional period, before Community rules on the free movement of workers come into force, is for a full seven years. As the treaty makes clear, derogation can be invoked by a member state for a maximum of seven years, but access can only be restricted for the last two of that seven-year period if there are, and I quote the legislation,"““serious disturbances of that member state’s labour market or threat thereof””." We could only speculate about that now. But given our experience of previous enlargements, the noble Lord’s amendments would quite possibly oblige a future government to produce reports in six or seven years’ time that could have no operational impact. The Government have argued consistently that managed migration makes a significant contribution to economic growth in the UK, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said a few moments ago. The approach adopted for the last wave of enlargement brought us tremendous benefits, even if the numbers were, as has been pointed out, miscalculated. The nightmare scenarios that dominated our media last time have failed to materialise. None the less, as I said on Second Reading, we need to work with considerable caution because of the risk of arms, drugs or people-trafficking, but those are decisions we will take by affirmative action at the appropriate moment. The Government are well aware of the importance of the decision to grant Bulgarian and Romanian workers access to the UK market during the transitional period after they joined. This decision, then, will be taken at the appropriate time, on the basis of appropriate data and subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.