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Economic Migration (EUC Report)

My Lords, I will confine my remarks to the first report on economic migration. I speak in a personal capacity rather than from a considered Church of England view, and I should add that I am speaking not with any claim to particular expertise, but as the jobbing Bishop on duty for the week. I enjoyed reading the report and thought that I would share my response with the House. The report and the evidence on which it is based amply demonstrate that migration is a complex and multidimensional issue. It intersects with fundamental questions about what it is to be a nation, as well as with a host of sensitive practical issues at the heart of people’s lives. Our participation in the common labour market of the EU, with its principle of Community preference, adds a particular perspective given our historic links with the countries of the Commonwealth. There is also the vital, related question of the birth rate in the indigenous population of these islands, and indeed in both the older and newer member states of the EU. In fact the report hardly touches on the subject, although it forms a major background to the policies which are applied to immigration. It is curious how little discussion seems to be taking place in Europe over native birth rates, which are generally well below replacement levels. Without augmentation by immigration we read that the population of Germany, for example, would fall by an astonishing 25 per cent by 2050, with similar trends in Poland, Italy and Spain. Only France among the larger countries would have a balanced population without any further immigration, with Britain a little way behind. In the case of the UK, migration trends suggest that the shortfall will be more than made up by the prospective increase in our population over the period by around 5 million. Fundamentally, I welcome the interchange which immigration and emigration represent. The history of this island people is one of trade and cultural interchange, and of enrichment by migration. The Christian perspective underlines this. From the beginning the Church was an international and trans-national movement, and so it has remained. In my diocese we currently have serving as incumbents of parishes a Nigerian priest whose wife is a doctor working in the NHS, a Zimbabwean refugee, and a Solomon Islander from the Pacific where we have a particular link. Each of the parishes in which they minister is flourishing under their leadership. We have had three South African priests in the diocese, and each of them has done a splendid job both in their parishes and in their contribution to wider diocesan life. We also have a German minister whose husband works for AstraZeneca at its UK headquarters near Macclesfield. She has brought a distinctive, much valued and highly effective ministry to her parishes. I hope we shall benefit from further such appointments and exchanges in the future. So, from my personal experience, I gladly endorse the broad conclusions of the report concerning the benefits of migration—and yet I remain a little uneasy. Let me try to focus the reasons for my sense of unease in several questions to which I shall invite the Minister to respond in due course. First, to pick up on my earlier comment, should we be raising more proactively in our society the issues surrounding the birth rate? Why is it that this is below replacement rate in this country and in so much of Europe? Is it healthy for the future of this country—and even more for the other countries of Europe—that this is the case? One suspects that if recent immigrants were excluded the figures would be even more disturbing. I realise that this was not directly in the remit of the committee, but the report could at least have touched upon these questions more directly, bringing them more to the forefront of future public debate. It is, I believe, a debate which is much needed. Secondly, can we leave the future size of the population of this country fundamentally to market forces? Even when Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are included, we are already more densely populated than all the countries of the EU apart from Belgium and the Netherlands. The consequent strains are especially apparent in the south-east region of England, with all the pressures on resources, housing and infrastructure of which we are increasingly aware. There may be answers to these issues—but they are real issues and they need to be considered on their own merits and not simply left to the chance outcomes of fundamental economic and market forces. There is much that a market can deliver but there are some large-scale questions which need a measure of long-term planning, not just short-term regulation of market forces. We are learning this in the case of global warming. For a long time, we left energy policies very largely to market forces, with a degree of regulation, and we did not notice certain issues, which emerged only after a long period of time and to which the market itself was relatively blind. Are there similar issues concerning population density and so on in our country? I simply ask the question. They may be difficult questions, but I do not find it persuasive to say that they are impossible questions to consider. My third point flows from this. Recent years have seen an extraordinary, almost unprecedented, period of growth in the British and world economies. Presumably this is mainly due to the IT revolution, which has fuelled all kinds of improvements in efficiency and under-girded this extraordinary period of economic growth. It was quite unpredicted 25 years ago. Can we assume that these patterns of growth will simply continue? It seems to me quite likely that sooner or later there will be a recession and, given the long years of growth, quite possibly a sharp and persistent downturn. That is when our migration policies will be truly tested. We should be planning now for these eventualities and not just assuming that there will be the forces of growth to help the situation through. The trouble here, of course, is that the growth in extreme political parties—of which we see elements already in our society—will be greatly fuelled by the stresses and strains of a severe rise in unemployment and downward pressures on wage rates from an over supply of labour. These are serious issues which the report could have dwelt on a little more. Markets have their purpose but also their limitations. Yes, we have been able to staff the NHS through a fairly open market in doctors and nurses, but that should not excuse our failure over the years to train anything like the right number of healthcare professionals in our country. Indeed, we should return to the issue of compensation for often poorer countries which have trained the professionals, both in healthcare and elsewhere, who then come and make their lives and their living in this country. In conclusion, let me focus the fundamental question which I sense may arise from this report. Given that migration usually has intrinsic benefits to the migrants and the receiving country—I am not in any sense denying that—are there any limits beyond those set by regulated economic forces? I doubt that the committee is right simply to say that the primary determinant of migration policy should be market forces. They should be our servant and not our master. They should serve wider social, ethical and political judgments, which I consider to be open matters.