Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to add my name to Amendment 25, which brings together in one place my former professional life in the cultural sector and my current life within higher education. In noting that, I also note my interests as recorded in the register. In both those sectors, international mobility is crucial to success. Ideas and innovations, be they scientific or artistic, are no respecters of international borders. Indeed, it is well evidenced that international mobility enhances the quality of ideas and the impact of outcomes, with researchers and artists reporting that visiting and working in other countries helps them form collaborations, develop new ideas and gain new technical skills and expertise.

Universities are one of the best examples that we have of global Britain. According to the Higher Education Staff Statistics, nearly 30% of the academic staff in the UK are from overseas. The Government’s global talent visa is a very welcome recognition of the importance of international collaboration to research and innovation. Nevertheless, there are already a number of problems regarding the immigration status of academics, and, as we have heard, UK visas are among the most expensive in the world. The global talent visa costs 15 times more than a similar visa in Germany, and my noble friend Lord Patel has painted a very real picture of the costs for a young academic who wants to move their family here. Unless overall costs associated with visas are reduced to levels that are reasonable, proportionate and internationally competitive when compared to those of other research-intensive nations, “global Britain” risks becoming “little Britain”.

The concerns of the cultural sector about the loss of mobility beyond 2020 have been well rehearsed in this Chamber, and they have been laid out again today with great clarity by my noble friend Lord Clancarty. The continuation of short-term mobility between the UK and the EU emerged in an Arts Council survey of 1,000 stakeholders as a top priority post Brexit. It was more important even than the loss of EU funding, which has been worth approximately £40 million per year. The UK’s creative success has been shaped by the opportunities that mobility offers for UK creatives to develop their skills abroad and for UK-based companies to easily access talent from our nearest geographical neighbours. In the most economically productive parts of the sector, domestic skills gaps mean that up to 30% of staff have been recruited from the EU, and it is hard to see, even before Covid, how the creative industries will thrive in the new immigration regime that is in front of us today.

It is a regime that promises access to the brightest and the best, but which defines those qualities on the basis of salary and a points-based system that is ill matched to the characteristics of the sector, in which low pay does not equal low skills and where the training routes—I speak to this personally—do not lead to postgraduate qualifications that are points-scoring. It is also a regime that yet again ignores the importance of freelancers, who offer vital flexibility to a sector that is made up almost entirely of businesses that employ fewer than 10 people. As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, those organisations will be hard pushed to meet the financial and administrative burdens associated with the employment of freelancers.

The UK’s creative sector is often pointed to as a major agent of soft power, but its contributions extend beyond global reputation to the economy and to employment right across the UK. The Centre for Cities reports a disconnect between the Government’s levelling-up agenda and the new immigration system, with cities in the greater south-east expected to gain the most from the new rules for so-called high-skilled migrants. Understanding the impact of this immigration regime on a sector that, unlike most, is delivering growth in almost every region of the UK, becomes even more important in the light of this.

I am afraid that I have seen little to reassure me that, across either research and innovation or the arts and culture, there is genuine understanding within government of the nature and specificities of these sectors, their workforce and the structures and systems on which success has been built. This amendment seeks to ensure that proper focus is given to the impact of reduced mobility on two sectors that we can truly claim are world leading, and will help to ensure that they remain so into the future.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support this amendment and Amendment 25. Although my main interest is in the life sciences sector, as a patron of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, I want to say something about the need for musicians and other artists from the EU to come to the UK, and vice versa. Despite the welcome support of the UK Government through their Culture Recovery Fund, the orchestral sector in particular is under severe threat. Yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, suggested, we should never underestimate the power of the UK’s world-class orchestras and other artistic ventures to contribute to renewal and innovation in our society.

So far as this immigration Bill is concerned, out of the CBSO’s 75 musicians, three come from Germany, and one each from France, Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic and Denmark. I understand from the Association of British Orchestras that that is on a par with most other orchestras. Surely it is essential that, in future, musicians from the EU can continue to come and play in our orchestras and join in other artistic ventures, just as we want British artists to be able to go and work in the EU.

The Association of British Orchestras reports that a major issue for most of its members is how non-UK musicians can come to live and work in the UK as freelancers, given that the majority of orchestral musicians in the UK are self-employed. Under the points-based system there is currently no such route, even if their combined earnings from freelance engagements are above the salary threshold, because they do not have an employer who can sponsor them. There is tier 1, but the bar has been set at an exceptionally high level where a musician has to satisfy an “exceptional talent” test. The Government have talked about introducing an unsponsored route, but for only two years. Practically, orchestras need this to be up to five years, as with employed musicians, and we have no timetable for its introduction.

I turn now to the life sciences sector. Again, it is world beating and I want to echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It is vital that any changes that are made to the immigration system protect our excellent life sciences and the UK medical research establishment. This is contingent, as Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and others have said, on the maintenance of the UK’s world-leading research environment and our continuing ability to attract, recruit and retain global scientific talent at all levels.

As I said in Committee, 31% of the UK’s Nobel Prize winners in science were born outside the UK. That is an absolute indication of the power of life science in this country and of our historic ability to attract the brightest and best from abroad. It is vital at not just that level but the technical level as well that we continue to do so.

In Committee, the Minister said that we should really depend on the impact assessment prepared by the Home Office and the Migration Advisory Committee —but I think we need to go further. Both these sectors are the sort of sectors that any Government would want to support, and they both need reassurance. The amendments before us are very mild. The noble Earl has said that he will not press his amendment to a vote, and I understand that, but the Government need to reciprocate and at the very least show that they understand that these sectors need to be protected.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope the Government do not want to put these visits, exchanges and language schools in jeopardy, which clearly is the fate that will befall them unless the Government are prepared to give this further consideration. I hope the Minister will agree to take this back to give it one further look.

On the question of security—I know he commented on this in Committee—he should note that this amendment allows juniors to travel for single short-stay visits of less than 30 days. We know many of these juniors will receive new ID cards in the coming years, with added security features such as biometric information. The aspiration of the EU countries is for all new ID cards of this kind to be made available by 2021. Most of these young people will be travelling in groups co-ordinated by one or more passport-carrying teachers or group leaders and will remain part of this group for the duration of their time here.

On the other point raised in Committee, which was the Minister’s suggestion that collective passports be used, I understand, from those who travel from the UK using collective passports, that this can be a very bureaucratic and cumbersome procedure. Collective passports have not been used in many EU countries in recent years, so this is not a practical solution.

At the end of the day, this is a very valuable business in the UK, with so many language schools, and we have huge benefits from young people going from the UK to EU countries and vice versa. Surely the Home Office would want to do what it could to help this. I hope the Minister will just agree to give this some further consideration.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]]

I too will be very brief, given the hour. This is a very modest amendment, admirably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. What she proposes is cost free and risk free. Children coming in in school parties and on exchange visits for no more than 30 days and no more than once a year are not a substantial threat to the sceptred isle. The amendment will also do a lot of good. Free movement, Schengen and identity cards mean that large numbers of continental children do not have passports. If schools considering bringing them here face the prospect of insisting that they first get passports or go to the considerable trouble of getting a group passport, a significant proportion of schools will prefer to take the class somewhere else. The amendment would prevent that happening.

More generally, losing free movement inevitably means a diminution of personal contacts. We and our continental friends will be further apart. That is a great pity. Any cost-free, risk-free measure to limit this continental drift should be welcomed, so I welcome the amendment.