Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-30
Topic: Immigration
David Blunkett (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that was a very thoughtful and interesting contribution. I agreed with some of it, in particular the accolades paid to my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Hunt. They made such excellent speeches that I can be brief, given that many Members wish to speak today, and I have some sympathy for both Front Benches regarding the length of our sessions at the moment, not least on this Bill. However, I want to draw attention to one or two of the issues that have arisen Mention has been made a number of times of the Migration Advisory Committee. I heard Professor Bell on the radio yesterday making the perfectly reasonable case that, as my noble friend Lord Rosser excellently pointed out, it is important that care workers be paid more and respected more. I am fully in favour of trying to tackle head-on the understaffing, underpaying and undervaluing that currently constitutes the general attitude, despite all the sympathy often exuded towards those working in the care sector. However, Professor Bell eloquently made the point that I want to make: that you can get almost £1 an hour more working in general retail than in residential care, despite the enormous challenges arising during the Covid pandemic, as spelled out by the noble Lord, Lord Patel Here is a thought. I have it on the good authority of Professor Bell that, according to the Migration Advisory Committee, which concluded its main survey work in March, the consequences of the pandemic are twofold. First, yes, there will be greater unemployment, and that will be felt differently in different parts of the country and will therefore have a differential impact. I do not expect people to move for £8.70 an hour—which is the average pay in residential care, because that is the minimum wage across the country—given that they could not even afford to pay the rent; that is, if they have not been evicted by the time they get there because the moratorium has been lifted. We therefore have to have some common sense here There is no sign of the pay increase that should be taking place now, and the oven-ready deal promised a year ago has not yet emerged from the AGA—when it does, it will probably be grossly undercooked—so we will not have a solution. It is no good Professor Bell —I am very happy to debate him on this—going on the radio or producing a 650-page report saying, "Wouldn’t it be nice if the Government coughed up the money so that local authorities can pay increased rates?", and that we should protect ourselves from exploitation. That is not happening. I pay tribute to the noble Lord who has just drawn attention to what I said in Committee about private equity investment in this area My noble friend Lord Hunt made the important point that there will be a cut-off point in three months’ time. Yes, of course we should be emphasising this and supporting people to take up jobs in social care. We should be training them properly and giving them a career pathway so that they can see the way ahead. Their career pathway is somewhat blocked at the moment by the fact that, the higher up you go, the more likely the Government are to allow someone from outside the country to come in and take the job. I tried to explain that on a previous occasion, but I do not think I was eloquent enough. I will use this example: you can come in and drive a BMW but you cannot come in to drive an elderly Robin Reliant that has rusted to the point where the brakes do not work and the doors are falling off. That is what happened in social care, as illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. There is death and fear within the sector. You will not cure that in three months, nor persuade other people to move house to take up jobs because they have just been made redundant from quite well-paid employment in areas where they hope to take up training and other opportunities I therefore appeal for everybody, including the Migration Advisory Committee, to get real. I appeal to the Minister to go back to government—it is not her fault but that of the Treasury—and say, "In the next three months, we as a Government will not solve this problem. We will not be able to encourage sufficient people to take up these jobs. We know that the turnover rate is massive"—it is even greater than my noble friend Lord Rosser said—"that the vacancies exist and are unattractive, and that some people will be highly unsuitable." So, for goodness sake, let us have a continuing review. That is all Amendment 3 asks for: to get this right and ensure that the consequences of closing the door to the other 27 members of the European Union on 31 December do not have a disproportionate impact on the care of those we are supposed to care about. This is why this debate is taking place, because of the new situation arising from the way we are treating those from the European Union and the EAA. Were that not to happen, we could have a more rational debate, as appealed for by the previous speaker, on how we adjust to ensure that we are not reliant in key areas —including, apparently, butchery—on drawing in people from across the world. That includes, of course, doctors and nurses, who, under the programme that has been laid out, will be allowed to be recruited into the country There are such contradictions and we are in such a cliff-edge position that I have gone on longer than I intended, because the more I think about it, the more passionate I am to ask for a bit of common sense.