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Managed Migration

Of course, at the moment there is no such right to work; there used to be the right to work after six months, but that disappeared. I have always been of the view that we were far too restrictive in our approach. The argument is that such a right would act as a pull, but I have never seen hard evidence to support it. One issue that we really must address, but which we shy away from, is the position of those in this country who are working illegally. There is no doubt that in a big city such as London, there are a significant number of such people. We have always approached this issue purely in terms of penalties for employers, which have been difficult to enforce. In the past two or three years we have looked at several different schemes for regularising the immigration status of people who have been in this country for some time, the latest example being the family concession in respect of asylum seekers. One idea that we have never seriously considered, but which we should, is regularising the status of some of those who have worked here illegally for some time. Plenty of other European countries—Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain—have done that in the past seven or eight years, as has the USA. If we go down that road, we can get to grips with some of the exploitation that takes place. That would benefit people who come here legally as migrant workers, but it would also benefit the work force in general. I turn finally to the subject of appeals. The lack of a right of appeal is a problem. We have administrative reviews now, and very occasionally an entry clearance case gets turned over on administrative review. The idea of getting rid of appeal rights and ending up with purely administrative reviews always worries me. One inevitable consequence will be more work for me, and for any other Member whose constituency contains a significant number of migrants. Even if the person concerned is not in the country, relatives and potential employers will turn up and ask for help. I would much rather we had a clear system through which such decisions could be challenged. As I said at the beginning, I welcome the paper, which shows that we are making serious moves toward a system that makes sense, is clear and transparent and can work. There is a lot of detail to be filled in, however, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that issue. In particular, I hope that he will examine the lack of employment rights, which is a big gap in our approach to this problem.