David Cameron has announced a package of new measures designed to “control and reduce immigration”, to be unveiled in the new government’s first Queen’s Speech.
The Prime Minister’s speech came on the same day that official migration statistics show the Conservatives are still failing in their ambition of cutting net migration to the tens of thousands.
A bold new policy – or a distraction from the bad news? Let’s take a look.
“Uncontrolled immigration means too many people entering the UK legally but staying illegally.”
The Prime Minister obviously thinks this is a big problem, but the Home Office actually says it doesn’t have any statistics on how many of these people are living in Britain.
John Vine, the last independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, found that the department did have some figures relating to immigrants who stay too long, but could not provide him with complete data.
In his last report in 2014, the outgoing inspector noted that over-stayers who fail to report to the Home Office are supposed to be recorded as “absconders” and their details should ultimately be passed on to police and immigration enforcement officers.
But staff told the watchdog that this was not happening in practice, and there was a backlog of around 10,000 over-stayers in London alone who had not been classed as absconding from immigration control.
The Home Office came up with partial statistics on how many people had been classed as an “absconder” but not recorded as such on the police national computer – 1,100 over a six-month period.
The inspector concluded from this that there were probably more than 10,000 such cases in London. This means known illegal migrants might come into contact with the police, but a computer check would not identify them as over-stayers.
His report made for uncomfortable reading for the government: “Thousands of cases were not being actioned in accordance with the absconder policy… widespread confusion among staff about the absconder policy… large backlog of cases…”
It concluded that the Home Office was “not currently resourced” to meet the challenges of a new crackdown on irregular immigration.
“Addressing the spike in EU migration by renegotiating in Europe.”
It’s not clear what spike he’s talking about here. There certainly was a surge in EU immigration after 2004, as this ONS graph shows:
And immigration from inside and outside Europe have both risen in the last year.
But EU immigration alone does not explain the Conservatives’ failure to meet their target of getting net migration below 100,000 a year in the last parliament.
Today’s stats show net migration from outside the EU alone was 197,000 last year – higher than the figure from EU countries.
There was a net loss of 56,000 British nationals in 2014, so even if you take Europe out of the equation completely – if you pretend it doesn’t exist – we still have more total net migration than the Conservatives want.
“We also recognised that we needed to reduce the demand for migrant labour by making our own people able and willing to do the jobs this country needs. And with 2 million more apprenticeships, radical welfare reform, and a system where it pays to work, we are getting there.”
This might give the impression that apprenticeships created so far have only trained “our own people”. But they are open to EU migrants too.
This was a point made the Conservative skills minister Matthew Hancock in 2013 while attacking Labour’s plans to force businesses to hire more British apprentices.
He said: “I have been advised by Government lawyers that legislating to require hiring British apprentices would be contrary to EU law.”
“There were times under Labour when 90 per cent of job growth was taken up by foreign nationals – under us, the majority of the rise in employment – a record 1,000 jobs for every day we’ve been in office – has gone to Brits.”
It’s possible to quibble with Mr Cameron’s use of language here. The official employment figures don’t strictly show “job growth”. They measure the flows of people in and out of employment.
Nevertheless, the government likes to talk about the rise of employment “under us” (including the coalition period, that is) and what proportion is attributable to UK and non-UK nationals.
Since the 2010 election, there are 1,279,000 more Britons in employment and 805,000 more non-UK nationals. That’s 61 per cent British or “the majority of the rise in employment”.
If we just look at the last year, things are different. Now the rise in employment among non-British nationals is slightly higher – an increase of 294,000 compared to 274,000. And of course the non-UK group is much smaller to start with.
Since the first quarter of 2010, the employment rate for UK nationals has grown from 70.4 to 73.6 per cent. Among the non-UK population the rate has grown more quickly, from 65.4 to 70.5 per cent.
“Dealing with those who shouldn’t be here, by rooting out illegal immigrants and boosting deportations.”
The first of the “big three” points the new strategy will hinge on, according to the Prime Minister.
The latest statistics, covering the year ending September 14, show there were 12,461 “enforced removals” – the lowest number on record.
Just over 15,000 would-be immigrants were “refused entry at port” – less than half the 2009 figure.
Only “voluntary departures” have risen since 2010.
Dear Patrick,
There seems to be a lot of confusion around the migration figures. If 641000 people moved to the UK then can we assume that they were almost all non-UK nationals. Does the figure include UK nationals returning home after a period away? Then there is the 323000 people who left the UK, were they all UK nationals or were some of these people migrants going back to their homes? So you see how depending on how you define the figures it gives a different picture. The government say net migration is adding a city the size of Coventry to our population. However actually the number of migrants coming in to the UK is equivalent to a city with a population the size of Brighton and Leicester combined. This therefore has an even bigger impact on local infrastructure and services in areas where migrants have moved to.
This debate is going to go on and on!
Thank you,
JP
This confusion reinforces the need for the Identity Cards & Passports that were being issued to immigrant workers during the Labour Government.
ID cards are essential because the tempo of foreign travel continues to rise and is now over 130 million entrants every year (most of whom are UK residents returning after a trip abroad). This vast increase in travel is unprecedented and their numbers rise every month.
Cancelling the ID project was one of the most destructive and unpopular government policies during the coalition government. A major error we’re now paying for.
We urgently need a system to determine whether workers are entitled to be employed in the UK or not. And one that easily identifies whether patients are entitled to free NHS treatment – or whose home State should be billed.
Only ID Cards can do that.
Most of those you see (or at least a very large percentage) who travel to Europe (lampadusa etc) appear to be fit young healthy men. Where are all the women, the elderly and the children? Most appear to be economic migrants. Those heading for the UK and then claiming asylum having passed safe counties such as Italy, France, Germany, Belgium are definitely not seeking asylum because of persecution having passed all of these safe countries. My thinking if I were desperate enough to flee persecution would be to seek asylum in the first safe country I land on. Long before reaching European shores, some have passed through Turkey where they do not face threat of persecution yet continue on to Europe. I don’t understand why this happens. I would like to live in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or America at times but if I get on a boat and travel there of my own accord without any documentation and state that I seek asylum, I’d be put in prison let alone a detention centre. I think there are certainly those who are suffering persecution in the world but from pictures on TV they appear to being minority amount young fit strong Males seeking economic opportunity. Perhaps the answer is to invest in their countries and educate, to eradicate corruption and swiftly bring to trial those dictators and warmongers at a war crimestribunal, and quickly before everyone leaves the third world empty!
Noticedc that the media have dropped the use of ILLEGAL from migrants. From cape to cairo and senegal to syria the word has been long out that eu is a doormat and illegal migrants are on transport heading north mainly encouraged from those making first phone call on touching down in eu.
nkosi