Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-16
Topic: Immigration
John Horam (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend was able to get these amendments tabled. I think we should pay tribute to the wisdom of the clerks on this issue in extending it as far as they have. This is the right way to approach immigration policy—from the point of view of demography and population growth. We should assess the optimum level of population for a country such as the UK and, once that has been settled, we should decide what our policy is on immigration My noble friend has set out this subject with great clarity in his pamphlet Overcrowded Islands, produced with the help of Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society—an entirely appropriate body, if I may say so, for this question. It is well researched, cogently written, beautifully illustrated and I urge noble Lords to read it if they get an opportunity. I may say in passing that it is far better than most government White Papers in this area, which are rather turgid by comparison. They could well take a leaf out of his pamphlet My noble friend has covered the ground very well in his remarks this evening, so I will confine myself to two points, remembering the advice of Lloyd George to Harold Macmillan after his maiden speech that a good speech should make no more than two points, and if the audience remembers even one of them you have done well My first point is that, despite being an economist myself, I wholly agree with my noble friend’s sentiments about the role of economics. It is entirely the wrong way to approach immigration through the prism of economic policy. Business and many commentators and, sadly, the Government, do this in spades. The Government’s main adviser in this area is the Migration Advisory Council and they invoke it at every turn. However, the fact is that the MAC is composed almost entirely of academic economists specialising in manpower issues The MAC does a good job within its narrow remit, under a lot of pressure from business interests. I have met the new chairman of the MAC, Professor Brian Bell, and he is an impressive man. But, as my noble friend said, immigration involves much broader issues than simply economic policy. There is the question of democracy and population. There are environmental issues. Quoted in my noble friend’s pamphlet is a certain Boris Johnson, who said in an article in 2007: "Do we want the south-east of Britain to resemble a giant suburbia?" Frankly, he seems to be going the right way about that at the moment, judging by his housing policy. He seems to have forgotten all about his excellent sentiments of 2007. However, that is another matter There are ecological issues as well as environmental issues. There is the quality of life issue. Do we want all the good things about Britain to be perpetually unavailable because of overcrowding? There is the question of social cohesion. There is even a moral dimension—I have attached great importance to this. What right has Britain, a rich, developed country, to scour the world for talent from poorer developing countries that need it more than we do? All these issues should be addressed and the sort of unit that my noble friend envisages has the right approach to do that Again, speaking as an economist, I should say also that the assumptions underlying the usual economic argument that large-scale immigration is essential for business are simply wrong. Large-scale immigration damages economic growth. The simple point is that growth depends on increasing productivity. Productivity comes from increasing capital assets per person. When a person comes to this country, they occasionally bring significant capital assets but usually do not, and therefore productivity decreases and economic growth is damaged. It is no surprise to me that the large-scale immigration we have had over the last 10 or 20 years has been accompanied by very poor levels of productivity in this country. It is a major problem and the two are not unconnected Those are the simple economics. In addition, allowing business to recruit immigrants on a large scale reduces the incentive to train people who are already here. That is one reason why technical education and apprenticeships have been so poor in this country. We have supported higher education too much and further education too little. Arguing that we need immigration for economic reasons leaves out all those other subjects that are so important. In my view, it is also bad economics and bad business My noble friend mentioned the views of the people. My final point is that it is about time that we listened to the views of the people. They have been saying consistently and for years that they do not want any more immigration. They have been ignored. This is one of the issues that led to Brexit. Now we have Brexit, and still the people’s views are ignored. Especially in a Covid-haunted situation, where jobs are scarce, I cannot imagine what the political explosion will be. The only sensible way out of this is to put a cap on immigration at a reasonable level, decided with the help of a body such as that proposed by my noble friend I appreciate, in addressing the Minister, that these are large issues that his brief may not cover to the extent which we would like. But he is from the north of England, as I am from the north of England, and I am sure he is well aware of opinion on matters of this kind in the north of England. I hope that he will convey to his colleagues in government the importance and urgency of understanding these issues.