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Economic Migration (EUC Report)

My Lords, as a free trader, I believe in the EU not only as a barrier against warring states but especially as a single market for goods, capital and services and the unhindered movement of people. However, the onus must be on the European Commission to demonstrate that its interventions are justified under the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. The Brussels bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, is tempted to invent jobs and empires for itself and cannot be trusted to apply the tests of necessity with any sort of rigour. Some months ago, Günter Verheugen, the German vice-president of the European Commission, told the EU Select Committee that, when attempting to control the bureaucracy that President Barroso had inherited from Mr Prodi, he had found that many senior Brussels bureaucrats saw their role as being to keep up the chauffage of the Commission. The demographic background to our report is dramatic.  Since 1960, the EU-25 share of the total world population has fallen from 12 per cent to 7 per cent The total fertility rate is among the lowest in the world. None the less, the EU-25 population grew by 77 million between 1960 and 2003, but since 1990, net migration has become the biggest component of that population growth. Throughout our history, Britain has enjoyed—I use the word deliberately—a significant exchange of population with other countries. That has been one of the secrets of our success. Our report refers primarily to migration to the EU, rather than within it, but I want to focus on the consequences of enlargement. On that, I want to salute Her Majesty’s Government and the Governments of Sweden and Ireland for being the only three who allowed free migration from the 10 from the word go. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, four more have joined that club: Spain, Portugal, Greece and Finland. The remaining eight have renewed barriers for a further two years. This week, I have spent two weeks in Brussels at a joint parliamentary meeting on the future of Europe and I can tell noble Lords that those barriers to movement are greatly resented. The UK open-door policy to immigrants from the new members of the EU demonstrates our credentials as real Europeans better than a decade of protectionist posturing by those countries of old Europe seeking to preserve a non-viable social model. For Britain, that migration has been almost entirely beneficial. Our construction industry would have become an economic bottleneck without the Poles, Lithuanians and others. None the less, immigration into this country still arouses strong and emotional unease. Two causes of that are, I believe, a fear of multiculturalism and a widespread perception that controls on illegal migrants are ineffective. First, there is multiculturalism. The UK is of course a multiracial and multiethnic society and has been, to our great advantage, for decades. Europe has for centuries absorbed aspects of other people’s cultures. Those influences have forged the nation states that compose the EU. Let us not forget that the great leap forward in the French cuisine came in the 16th century from Italy, with the arrival of Catherine of Medici as Queen of Henry II of France. Unfortunately, for some reason or other, that benefit has not been passed to those staunch allies of France in Scotland. The French language is to France as important a part of its culture as the British system of justice is to the UK. Both must be equally respected. One of the great strengths of the United States has always been that those arriving in that country have sought to become Americans. Immigrants do not arrive with their own political, economic or social agenda to change the American way of life. But in Britain, multiculturalism has overtones of political action to modify the values of host nations to accommodate new entrants, even where there is a fundamental conflict between those values. This is what can breed resentment and can lead to the horrors of racism and even to civil strife. Let me say a word about certain aspects. My first point is about language. I believe that the considerable resources applied by some local authorities to communicate with immigrants in their own languages should be switched to help them to learn English. It is a priceless economic asset for the UK, and it really should be a major priority for people who come to live here. Secondly, immigrants cannot be allowed to import into either the public or private sector the systemic corruption that may in certain cases be entrenched in their own countries. Nor can we tolerate, let alone accommodate, the exploitation of women, whether in their treatment or their status, in the UK. One of the greatest, and growing, evils in migration is the criminal activity of people-trafficking, whether for sexual or economic purposes. The exposure of this has further undermined public confidence in the whole system of immigration control. There is no doubt that the failure of the UK returns policy to operate on the scale that the problem demands is a constant stimulus to public anger. Excesses in legal aid and attempts to spin out the judicial appeals system by the often bogus invocation of human rights undermine and thus discredit our underlying sensible, tolerant and humane approach to immigrants. I, too, support the Government for not signing up to the EU draft returns directive. Although I can see the merit of constant exchanges of information—governments should be able to have a dialogue on the policies between the EU and other areas, and the fact that we are not part of the Schengen agreement should not mean that we are not given full Schengen migration information, although we do not get it at the moment—I doubt whether it will ever be sensible to legislate at EU level for a constantly developing situation. Not only is there the risk of a compromise between the worst and the best, but to freeze one pattern in the kaleidoscope imperils the flexibility with which governments are expected by their electorates to deal with such problems. Finally, I must say a word about the deplorable failure of the Government to have, or even to be aware that they did not have, an effective system for the deportation of foreign criminals whom the courts have said should be deported. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, knows, because she has signed the Answers, I have since early March been questioning the Government on this issue. Some of the Answers reveal a disgraceful level of concealment of the reality not only from Parliament but from Ministers. At least the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, whom of course I acquit of any connivance in the matter, cannot defend the performance of her department. It is yet another example of the dazzling incompetence of the Home Office. All I would predict is that the Prime Minister’s enthusiastic advocacy of a fresh and vigorous policy of deportation will not survive the onslaught of the ranks of civil rights lawyers who are at sharpening their claws to attack him.