Immigration

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I shall briefly address two issues, tier 1 workers and intra-company transfers, and following your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, will give climate change and air travel a wide berth.

It is already clear that the Government’s cap, as originally formulated, does not fit, and once again a headline-grabbing policy that went down very well with the tabloid press has turned out to be far from straightforward. As many Governments have found in the past and will no doubt find in the future, ill-thought-out policies have a habit of unravelling, and the cap is a perfect example. To be fair, some members of the Government, in particular the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, made it clear some time ago that the cap would be unworkable and dangerous to business in its original form. He said:

“A lot of damage is being done to British industry”

and the quota was wrongly fixed.

Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded, and only yesterday—at the eleventh hour—did the Prime Minister lay the ground for a muddled retreat. How far that retreat will go remains unclear, but recent announcements suggest that some areas are finally being looked at. The problem is that the Government just do not want to admit that their policy is wrong, and badly wrong. I am sure that many hon. Members will have been lobbied by local businesses that are concerned about how the policy—in respect of tier 1 workers, in particular—will impact on them.

The popular press would like us to believe that workers who come to the UK are largely unskilled and easily replaceable with unemployed UK workers—presumably ending unemployment overnight. If only the situation were so straightforward, because the truth is very different. Tier 1 workers, in particular, are important, highly skilled individuals who are key to the well-being and growth of many businesses.

Many employers tell me that, despite advertising vacancies nationally as well as locally, they are unable to recruit people with the required skills. Indeed, in some cases, despite advertising nationally, they have not received any applications at all. I shall cite one example that illustrates the issue perfectly. Comtek is a high-end, knowledge-based company located on Deeside, and Mr Sheibani, who owns the company, wrote to me saying that he has found it impossible to recruit well-trained, qualified and skilled engineers. He said:

“We have been trying very hard to recruit engineers locally and from other parts of the UK. The vast majority of highly skilled people are reluctant to relocate. In July and September this year we did a presentation to 20 skilled telecoms engineers in Belfast who were about to be made redundant from their jobs. We offered all of them employment in Deeside with exactly the same salary as they were getting from their bankrupt employer plus free accommodation. None of them were prepared to move.”

He went on:

“In contrast Tier One skilled workers are very mobile and prepared to relocate, they are resourceful and enthusiastic”.

But Mr Sheibani’s key point was that

“for every tier 1 engineer we recruit we employ four trainee technicians or apprentices from the locality.”

He has made it very clear that, if he were unable to recruit those tier 1 workers, he would be unable to expand his business in the UK. Comtek’s work force has doubled in recent years, and the company pays many millions of pounds into the UK economy, but he would not be able to employ those local apprentices who, after training, attain the required skills.

By chance, just across the road from Comtek is the Toyota engine plant on Deeside. On that site and at Toyota’s car assembly plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire, the firm directly employs more than 3,500 people. It invests more than £1.85 billion and exports more than 85% of its production, and I am sure we all want to encourage such companies to grow and invest further in the UK. Toyota uses a small number of ICTs, mainly from Japan, who are vital to technology transfer and the development and implementation of new products.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, we all want this country to accept the brightest and the best, but he has not referred to the fact that 29% of tier 1 entrants have been found to be working in jobs such as pizza deliverers or security guards. Will he comment on where tier 1 has gone wrong?

[Mark Tami]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that, in some aspects, tier 1 has gone wrong, but we should not put the whole thing in the bin and say, “We are going to introduce a blanket ban at some point when we reach some quota that is made up as we go along.” I accept that there are problems, but I am discussing a company that directly employs and pays such workers; they do not come to this country to look for work.

ICTs are not a substitute for trained local employees. In fact, they are quite the reverse, because the vast majority of ICTs are trainers themselves who train local employees. They have helped Toyota to improve the productivity of its UK plants, which have become some of the company’s leading plants throughout the world. I am sure that we all applaud that. The ICTs are paid by Toyota; they pay taxes locally and pay money into the local economy; and they have helped to create and maintain many thousands of jobs, as well as to help our export efforts.

I asked a question in Business, Innovation and Skills questions today, because, although I welcome the statement about ICTs, I know there is still a feeling that, given the levels being discussed, the policy is being made up as we go along. We have to clear up the situation as quickly as possible, because many companies are worried about exactly how it will work. Toyota employs 3,500 people in the UK, but throughout the entire business it employs on average only 50 ICTs each year.

I am concerned, because those ICTs are key workers, and if we say to Toyota and other companies, “At some point, you will not be able to site the key workers who do that very important work,” we will affect their decisions about whether to invest more money. I accept that it is probably a marginal decision, but if it is a close call, those companies might start to think, “Should we put our money here or somewhere else?” Somewhere else might mean somewhere prepared to make those guarantees.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the requirement for skilled workers from abroad reflects the failure of the previous Government’s education and training policies?

[Mark Tami]

I am about to move on to training, so if the hon. Gentleman waits a few moments he will hear what I have to say.

There is a concern, because we are introducing extra barriers, which, for international companies, might affect their decision about whether to invest in the UK. I have given examples of two companies with major concerns about the effects of the cap, illustrating the point that, if we apply the cap in a way that greatly concerns business, we could increase rather than reduce UK unemployment. It is simplistic to believe that, if we stop more people from coming in, UK workers will suddenly pick up all those jobs.

As the hon. Gentleman said, that prompts the question: why do we in this country not have the skills we need? The simple answer is: we have failed to train the people to meet our needs. Like the previous Government and the Government before them, the current Government are talking about more apprentices and more training; no doubt future Governments will do the same. The issue is a major problem, and we have not addressed it so far. It is all very well talking about a cap or whatever, but unless we really address the skill base and training need in this country, we will never solve the problem.

[Mr Brazier]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government are addressing the issue by getting rid of the wasteful Train to Gain schemes, with all their phoney elements, and introducing proper apprenticeships. Does he accept that however hard we work at it, a man or woman in their late 40s or early 50s, who has come out of employment and is looking for a new job, is never going to be as attractive to an employer as a young incomer in their early 20s?

[Mark Tami]

The point that I am trying to make—and the hon. Gentleman’s point, I think—is that we have to address our training needs. Just stopping a person coming in does not address that problem. We still do not have the skill base. We lag behind other countries, and we have done so for many years. I am not saying that we got everything right, and I am certainly not saying that the current Government have got everything right. We will be having the same argument for many years to come.

We have to admit that some UK private industry has been reluctant to train people. Many companies see training as an avoidable cost rather than as an investment. For too long, rather than training people themselves, companies have preferred to poach a skilled employee who has been trained by another company. After a time, that becomes a bit of a vicious circle. Many people from companies, particularly smaller companies, have asked me what the point is of training somebody. They invest a lot of time and money in doing it, but then the bigger company down the road comes in, offers the employee more money and off that employee goes. Those companies say that they might as well not train anybody in the first place.

In the past, we had a number of nationalised industries; whatever their merits, most people will accept that they trained an awful lot of people to a very high standard. Many of those people drifted off to the private sector. After privatisation, one of the first things to suffer was the number of people being trained—numbers were cut and shareholders became the fundamental concern. We saw a big drop-off in the number of employees being trained by companies such as British Telecom, British Gas and the old electricity companies. People were not going from the public sector to the private sector in the same numbers to fill the gap that the private sector has always failed to fill.

I know that this will get absolutely no support from Government Members, but I support a training levy: a company of a certain size should have an obligation to train a certain number of people. That would mean a level playing field. It might address the problem of some companies not training people because they are worried—

[Andrew Bridgen]

Do we not already have a levy on companies? It is called corporation tax.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman says that corporation tax is a levy, but does it address the training issue for companies? No, it does not.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman may have some support on this side of the House for the idea of a training levy. Certainly, engineering businesses in my constituency have strongly put the case to me that they bear a cost for training that ends up advantaging other companies that poach their employees. It would be a good idea to have some form of incentive to encourage training by those responsible companies and discourage that kind of poaching.

[Mark Tami]

That was the point that I was trying to make. Once again, we are seeing a split in the coalition on this issue.

I finish by saying that I suppose that there is some good news—the Government are recognising that the cap as originally put forward was not going to work and would be damaging. But we need to clear up where we are on this. There is the problem of this Government—and, okay, previous Governments as well—sometimes going for a cheap, headline-grabbing policy that sounds very good. People like the sound of it but then it really starts to unravel in the way that the policy on the cap is. It is creating a lot of uncertainty for business. Business is worried. At least the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills recognised that some time ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman clearly has a degree of expertise in the matter, and his suggestion sounds sensible.

I was talking about the upheaval caused to families who have been in this country a long time who face removal or deportation proceedings, not all of them as a result of doing something that the vast majority of the population would think drastically wrong. We need a sensitive approach, and if we are to have fair immigration controls we need to deal humanely with the people who are in the country at the moment.

Enforcement is a case of needing to be firm to be fair—not aggressive, not rough, but firm, competent and timely. I do not underestimate the difficulty of getting the balance right, but I cannot help but worry that cuts in the number of UK Border Agency staff will make the problem even worse. Perhaps fewer staff will just mean fewer legacy cases being processed and more people hanging around the system waiting to get on with their lives. I do not know the answer to this question, but perhaps the Minister will enlighten us about why, at a time when his Government are talking tough on immigration, he is cutting the very staff who are needed to do the job.

My second main frustration about the cases that I see in my surgery relates to the poor quality of immigration advice that many of my constituents receive. Although many private and voluntary sector providers deliver an excellent service, there are also many so-called advisers who simply exploit vulnerable people who do not know which way to turn.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend touches on a very important point. The sad thing is that by the time some people come to see us, they have already forked out hundreds or thousands of pounds to people for giving advice that they could either get off the internet or from our offices. Those people are like vultures.

[Heidi Alexander]

I agree entirely. Earlier this week, the Secretary of State for Justice himself admitted in the House that people are being taken advantage of. He said:

“We have all known for many years that some…advice, usually given by non-lawyers…is not very good and that the prices charged are rather unscrupulous.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 671-72.]

I think “not very good” and “rather unscrupulous” are probably quite significant understatements. In my experience, some individuals dispense absolutely diabolical immigration advice, and something needs to be done to tackle that.

I fear that the challenges to legal aid will make the situation worse, and I understand that the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner will undergo a merger in the not-too-distant future. I ask the Minister to use this opportunity to look again at the accreditation process for immigration advisers and at the quality checks done on providers once accreditation has been obtained. I am told that the accreditation process for advisers without legal qualifications involves a simple online test, which seems somewhat open to abuse. Will the Minister speak with his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice about tightening that process?

Much of the debate has focused on the implications of the cap for top universities, but another part of the education sector could also be hit hard by changes to the immigration rules. Roughly half of international students in our universities have completed some form of foundation course in the UK. In my constituency, Twin Training International Ltd provides such courses, along with short English language courses. It makes an enormous contribution to the local economy; in fact, after Sainsbury and Tesco, it is the largest employer in the borough of Lewisham. However, it also puts money into the hands of many local families, who provide board to students. This is not some dodgy college set up to offer a way into the country, but a reputable business, which has the capacity to grow. However, it will not grow, and it will lose students to businesses in Canada and America, if the Government make it harder for those students to come here. Why would we encourage international students to learn English in Canada when they could learn it in England?

I accept that action needs to be taken against bogus colleges, and the previous Government started that process. However, it is important that we remind ourselves that only 12% of all migrants granted settlement last year originally entered the UK as students. Some 80% of all overseas students leave the UK within five years of entering. In taking action against fraudulent institutions, let us not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

I accept that we need some form of control over the numbers of people coming to the UK and over the purposes for which they come here, but please let us acknowledge the way in which the flow of people from all over the world makes a positive difference to our economy and culture. Let us also acknowledge the benefits of international students going back to their own countries with links to the UK.

Let us also treat people who are here humanely. Let us think how we would feel if our children were being taken away from their school friends, our 17 or 18-year-old was being sent back to Afghanistan or our friends were being forced to live in limbo, as they waited for the Home Office to make a decision on their case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. We need a long-term strategy to develop the necessary skills. We can already provide the technical skills, but the training in our British universities cannot provide a knowledge of foreign markets. There is a difference between training someone in the latest Sri Lankan IT software, which we can do, and teaching them the nuances of how to access the decision makers in the Chinese economy, which we cannot. There is a big difference between the two.

I understand that the Government might be thinking of relaxing their stance on visa extensions. The company has an Indian graduate who can no longer get a visa extension. The company will lose his skills and his contribution. I ask the Minister to think again, and perhaps to assess companies on a case-by-case basis to see whether an extension could be granted because of the contribution that certain individuals make.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. Bearing in mind all the problems that he rightly suggests could pile up, does he agree that the company in question and others like it might wonder whether the UK is really the right place to be? Might they not decide to offshore their whole business and work from somewhere else?

[Mike Freer]

I would hate to put words into the mouth of the company’s chief executive, but I doubt that that would happen. The mainstay of the UK operation involves not only administration but design, and its design capability is based in Finchley. The manufacturing already takes place offshore. I am talking about a very small number of specifically skilled individuals, and under the Government’s proposals, the company would no longer be able to recruit such people. So it would not recruit at all, it would not recruit locally because of the lack of that nuanced knowledge of the foreign markets, or one or two individuals would be recruited offshore. All three scenarios would be damaging to the UK economy.

I support the Government’s attempts to control immigration, and I support the right hon. Gentleman’s motion, but I want gently to ask the Minister whether the Government will consider introducing some form of mechanism under which global companies that are struggling and can prove that they cannot recruit the necessary skills in the UK can seek a remedy whereby they recruit offshore graduates for a period of time— perhaps one or two years, or longer—provided that they could make the economic case for so doing. I ask the Minister gently whether we can have a flexible policy, rather than a rigid cap.