UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC281-xi

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

WELSH AFFAIRS Committee

globalisation and itS impact on wales

TUESDAY 5 June 2007

MR JERRY OPPENHEIM

MR BILL WELLS

Evidence heard in Public Questions 798 - 870

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Welsh Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 5 June 2007

Members present

Dr Hywel Francis, in the Chair

David T C Davies

Nia Griffith

Mrs Siân C James

Mr David Jones

Mark Williams

________________

Memorandum submitted by the Border and Immigration Agency

Examination of Witness

Witness: Mr Jeremy Oppenheim, Director for Stakeholders and Regionalisation, Border and Immigration Agency, gave evidence.

Q798 Chairman: Good morning and welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. As you know this an inquiry into globalisation and we are beginning a new part of the inquiry today on population movement. For the record could you introduce yourself, please?

Mr Oppenheim: I am Jeremy Oppenheim and I am the Director of Regionalisation and Stakeholders in the Border and Immigration Agency.

Q799 Chairman: From your perspective could you describe the patterns of population movement into and out of this country over the past decade?

Mr Oppenheim: I can and I think what is significant is larger numbers of movements of people in and out of the United Kingdom than ever before. Across the borders in the United Kingdom we get many millions of passengers moving both in and out every year and I think it is the number of passenger movements, the number of people both arriving and departing that has significantly risen over the last ten years. If I may, Chairman, there are published documents which we keep up to date and I would be more than happy to alert the Committee to those which show the precise numbers of movements over the decade.

Q800 Chairman: What do you consider to be the most important global influences on these patterns of change?

Mr Oppenheim: I think there are in all likelihood a wide variety of influences, some of which we understand well and some of which we understand. Two that are of particular relevance are the increased number of people in the last decade but not recently who have come to the United Kingdom to seek asylum and whilst the numbers at the beginning of this millennium were significant and high our last quarter's figures indicated that we had the lowest intake since, I think, 1993. I think people coming to the United Kingdom seeking asylum has been a significant issue. The other significant issue has been people coming to the United Kingdom to seek work or be united with family members who are already here. I think those two issues together are probably the greatest influences in migration into the United Kingdom.

Q801 Chairman: Are there any distinctive patterns in relation to Wales compared to the rest of Britain?

Mr Oppenheim: I do not think there are any particular features of Wales in terms of numbers that are vastly different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. Clearly for people to come for work purposes they need to come to the United Kingdom at a point and to a place where they can find work. The Government has been very concerned to make sure that people do not come to the United Kingdom without the right to work in particular places. I think Wales will attract people if there are employment opportunities that cannot be filled from local communities in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. I think there are many examples of migration into the Principality that focus on meeting local employment needs that cannot be met through other labour resources in the United Kingdom.

Q802 Mr Jones: Mr Oppenheim, we see from your memo to the Committee that the first of the Agency's strategic objectives is to strengthen our borders and use tougher checks abroad so that only those with permission can travel to the UK. I can well understand why that should be the first of your strategic objectives. Of course there are some extremely busy passenger ports in Wales, the busiest of course being Holyhead. Does your Agency have a permanent presence in Holyhead?

Mr Oppenheim: We have a regular presence in all the ports of the United Kingdom and we ensure that immigration officers are available in every port as needed. Because of operational requirements we move resources around flexibly but we certainly have a presence in Holyhead.

Q803 Mr Jones: But no permanent presence?

Mr Oppenheim: If I may, Mr Jones, I will write to you to confirm whether the presence is permanent because I am not entirely sure that it is but I would not wish the Committee to take that as indicating anything other than my lack of knowledge.

Q804 Mr Jones: I would be grateful if you could write to the Committee about that. The reason I raise the question is that I have previously expressed concern about the fact that the former IND did not have a permanent presence at Holyhead. There was, as you are probably aware, a well publicised incident a few months ago where a number of illegal entrants were apprehended by North Wales Police, arrested and then instructed by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to release these people and send them with a map to the IND office. Has that practice ceased now?

Mr Oppenheim: Yes, that practice of providing people allegedly with maps and telling them to go somewhere else has ceased and I think there were quite intense and serious discussions between Border and Immigration Agency senior staff and the police in North Wales to ensure that we have a better way of responding to needs as they arise. One other point to make is that by creating regional directors responsible for individual geographical regions of the United Kingdom, including the Principality of Wales, we want to know that there is a local presence which will in this case be based in Cardiff and that the management of a majority of the Border and Immigration Agency business will be handled by a regional director whom we have appointed and who, in the case of the Cardiff office, will be starting on 2 July. We want to know there is a senior civil servant locally present who can resolve just the sorts of issues you raise.

Q805 David Davies: Given that many of the countries from which people came in order to claim asylum here are now in the European Union, it is quite natural, is it not, that the number of people actually registering asylum seeker claims would have fallen?

Mr Oppenheim: Certainly the number of people claiming asylum will have reduced as a result of both A8 and A2 accession.

Q806 David Davies: If you take the overall number of people coming into this country from all countries in the world, including EU ones, that number has increased quite dramatically since 1997 and is continuing to do so.

Mr Oppenheim: I am sure it is and, as I said earlier, that information is available on the Border and Immigration Agency website. Inevitably with increased numbers of airlines, local and international airports, cheaper flights et cetera there is a much larger number of people over the decade both coming into and leaving the United Kingdom. As I recall - I hope I have this right - there were probably something in the region of 200 million passenger movements last year in and out of the United Kingdom.

Q807 Chairman: From the Welsh perspective, how would the Welsh stakeholders make their views known to the Border and Immigration Agency?

Mr Oppenheim: I think there are a number of ways in which we have worked hard to improve our working with local stakeholders in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom. There are two in particular. The first is that about two years ago we set up something called the Regional Strategic Coordinating Group for each of the regions in the United Kingdom including the Principality of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, so Government regions plus really. Those have on them have representatives from local government, the police, the Border and Immigration Agency, the voluntary sector and the private sector as well if involved in issues that pertain to our work. They meet regularly and we have begun to provide those groups with as much information as we possibly can to help them - not just asylum seeker, not just refugee issues - and with ministers' agreement we have begun to provide information that will, over time, look at the wider issues of migration itself. We believe that based in Westminster and Croydon the Agency is not expert at knowing the fine detail of pressures, concerns, strengths and challenges provided by migration in Wales. That leads to the second point which is that we want our regional directors (in the case of Wales and the South West Jane Farley, who is an experienced senior civil servant in Wales at the moment but not working for the Border and Immigration Agency) to really get to know local stakeholders from local government, health, the Welsh Assembly Government and others so that people have a personal relationship with a representative of the Agency in Wales. I think those are the two strategies that we have to make sure that we are as attentive as possible to local needs and issues.

Q808 Chairman: Will there be any specific relationship between the new Directive for Wales and the South West and the Welsh Assembly Government and the Secretary of State for Wales?

Mr Oppenheim: Yes. We have certainly begun conversations with officials in the Welsh Assembly Government around how relationships will be taken forward. As part of the work plan for each of the regional directors across the United Kingdom we have put together a list of the sorts of people we believe regional directors need to have relationships with. You will be reassured I hope, Dr Francis, that for Jane we have been very clear that having relationships with Welsh Assembly Government, Secretary of State for Wales and others is really critical. One of the reasons for making the appointments we have is to ensure that we have appointed people who have a broad confidence about being able to not just make relationships but use them to the good of both the people of Wales and the Border and Immigration Agency.

Q809 Mrs James: In your memorandum you describe the process for the dispersal of asylum seekers. How is the capacity of each administrative district of the BIA to accommodate asylum seekers determined?

Mr Oppenheim: Previously, before our new contracts, we used to have a figure that we had had since the National Asylum Support Service had been established in late 1999 which was a ratio, as I recall, of one to two hundred as the maximum figure that we thought an individual area or region might be able to take of asylum seekers in relation to the rest of the population. That did well for five years but that is not really the way in which we wanted to manage dispersal in our new contracts. What we wanted to do was to make sure the dispersal numbers were based upon capacity as understood by local community. That is why we set up the Regional Strategic Coordinating groups because we think that local government, the police, health, the voluntary sector and the private sector providers locally are best placed to be able to effectively describe and discuss, comment and influence the dispersal numbers. If an area in Wales felt that dispersal numbers were too high - I think that is unlikely at the moment because, as I hope I said earlier, asylum numbers are much lower than they have been since the 1993 numbers - I think the solution is not to reach to a ratio but to reach a relationship with somebody locally and have a discussion about what we do about that. I hope that does not sound like a waffly answer.

Q810 Mrs James: I also note from your memo that the city and county of Swansea is one of the key housing providers in Wales. Once asylum seekers are allocated to Wales how are they then allocated to each housing provider and then to a particular local authority?

Mr Oppenheim: The contractual arrangements that we reached with the housing providers in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom were to keep a ratio that was set at the point that we allocated the contracts so that we did not favour any one contractor as opposed to another because local government or the private sector - either contractor - or a housing association could go out of business if we gave all the business to one rather than the other. We agreed we would allocate on the basis of a ratio that had been agreed at the point we let the contracts. The process of actually allocating is not done by the Border and Immigration Agency alone any more. It used to be done by a team in Croydon who would allocate somebody seeking asylum to a particular place in a particular town through a particular provider. What we now do is that we make the whole group of people we are trying to disperse available on a secure intranet site and providers can take people from that site as they have service provision available. It is now a much more interactive two-way stream where the provider, together with us, makes the link. That seems to be working very well indeed with people taking asylum seekers that they can meet the needs of.

Q811 David Davies: There have been concerns that asylum seekers have been placed in sub-standard accommodation after being put into housing. I wonder if you have any national guidance as to what are the minimum standards that we would deem acceptable for people in that unfortunate situation.

Mr Oppenheim: We certainly do. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss that very briefly. We do not publish the fine detail of the contracts because they are commercially sensitive but we publish standards, we consulted about them widely before we let the new contracts in 2005. Those standards are at least the minimum that we agreed with local government who set housing standards more locally.

Q812 David Davies: Are they on the internet?

Mr Oppenheim: They are indeed on the internet and I will be more than happy to send the Committee the link so that you can see them. They are published and they are contractually set. If I may also say - without taking up too much of the Committee's time - the issue relating to the standards is not just one that we put in the contracts and then say "Fine, get on with it". We inspect against those standards on a regular basis and if we find that a provider is not meeting the standards that were agreed and for which we pay then we do something about it.

Q813 David Davies: Where did you say these might be published?

Mr Oppenheim: They are on the Border and Immigration Agency internet but I would be very happy to send you both the link and a copy of them.

Q814 Mrs James: Speaking as somebody who deals with asylum seekers and as one of the largest authorities in Wales, that is not the problem that I come across being about sub-standard. I was really pleased to hear you say that the element of what is the local standard is built into it. Too often I hear the accusation that asylum seekers are in better standards of accommodation than anybody else and in actual fact that is not true, they are in a local standard of accommodation and I think that needs to be said. It reflects what is available locally. I wanted to come in on the point about this pick and mix element. I am a little confused about this. Are you saying that people can choose through this intranet system to opt for certain people or certain types of people or people with certain needs?

Mr Oppenheim: I would not wish the Committee to think it is anything like pick and mix. To be blunt about this, Mrs James, we want to know that somebody from a particular ethnic group or religious group is not placed in isolation from others of the same community. We have a series of rules which are set through this electronic system so that you cannot just take somebody who has halhal meat requirements and place them in a town, city or area where there is no halhal meat available. We want to know that people from Iraq or China or wherever are placed in a community that has other people from the same community there. It is often based on family size that our largest challenges arise, it is the same for local government housing as well. We want to know that a family with four of five children may, if they needed accommodation while the asylum claim is being processed, get that accommodation quickly, so we will make that accommodation available not by us saying "You have to go here" but by saying to all our providers, "Here is a family; these are the requirements of that family, which one of you can meet that requirement?" The reason this works well is because we only pay the accommodation provider once they place the family in their accommodation. In the previous contracts we kept some places available whether they were filled or not; we stopped that. They get a profit if they can get on and do it properly.

Q815 Mrs James: Following on from that, have there been any instances of community cohesion issues that have led to the suspension of the dispersal of asylum seekers in Wales?

Mr Oppenheim: Not to my knowledge recently, Mrs James. We are sensitive to community cohesion issues and we will discuss those through the fora I have already mentioned to the Committee. I am no longer responsible for asylum support so my information is not contemporary and if I am wrong I will assure you I will write to the Committee, but to my knowledge - I checked this in the last few days - there have been no areas where we have suspended and I would be surprised if we had done so in the previous year of two. If I am wrong I will of course let you know.

Q816 Mrs James: Is there any evidence of the impact on local services?

Mr Oppenheim: No adverse impact on local services that we have picked up through our discussions with local government in its broadest sense. There are occasionally areas where we get hot spots of concern, often based upon misunderstandings and lack of communication rather than any tangible impact in an area, but nothing recent. Two or three years ago there were some tragic incidences in some parts of Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom that had caused some concerns but we have learned and worked really hard to work with local communities to resolve those issues.

Q817 Mark Williams: Turning now to the issue of managed migration into Wales, in your memorandum you talked about the new points based system and how it would help control migration in the United Kingdom, more effectively tackle abuse and attract the most talented workers into the UK or in this context the Welsh economy. How will the new system lend itself to those objectives?

Mr Oppenheim: I think that is a great question, thank you Mr Williams. I think there are a number of things that the points based system will do. Other than what we have already said in the memorandum - which I think is pretty self-explanatory - I think it is going to help ensure that we bring to the UK people who have the right skills for the economy. To give a couple of examples, I guess tier four students will help Welsh universities compete for talented international students. I think it is going to bring a young skilled workforce to help Wales develop a dynamic and flexible economy. I think tier two is likely to allow employers to sponsor foreign nationals but only for jobs where there is not EU or EEA equivalent can be found. I think that will reduce gaps in the Welsh job market. I think it will also allow employers in shortage sectors to more quickly bring in workers, preventing the sorts of bottle-necks in economies that I think employers and others complain about. I think there are some quite tangible processes that will deliver more speedy employment needs.

Q818 Mark Williams: In your memorandum you have talked about the role of the new Migration Advisory Committee and the advice it is going to give the Government on labour shortages. How regional is that Committee going to be in its recommendations and will it be able to make specific recommendations to the Welsh labour market? We are aware of the gaps that have been filled in the agricultural sector and the tourist sector, but over and above that how specific are they going to be in their regional analysis of gaps?

Mr Oppenheim: The Migration Advisory Committee is going to look at shortage occupations across the United Kingdom and base its decisions on a UK-wide basis. Welsh organisations will be able to put their case to the Migration Advisory Committee at appropriate points in its work and I think it is likely that the Migration Advisory Committee will take into consideration both the context and the experience of Wales. As the MAC has not yet been formally launched - it has been announced but I think it will first start meeting in April 2008 - it is hard to give assurances about exactly where the reports and the work it does will focus but I am confident that it will take into account and have a listening ear to the issues in Wales.

Q819 Mr Jones: I am interested in the work of the MAC. The labour market is obviously in a constant state of flux and sometimes it moves pretty rapidly. How frequently will the Migration Advisory Committee be meeting?

Mr Oppenheim: I believe a minimum of four times a year but there will be a significant amount of work done in between the meetings because I think everyone is conscious of the issue you have raised, Mr Jones, relating to the fluctuations in the labour market.

Q820 Mr Jones: Some of these fluctuations are predictable but of course some are not and it might be necessary for the MAC to react quickly to these fluctuations. Will there be any scope for more frequent meetings?

Mr Oppenheim: I think if there are needs for more frequent meetings there is no question that the immigration minister responsible would wish to do so. Liam Burns proposed the Migration Advisory Committee on the basis of helping understand needs and if those needs are occurring rapidly and we need to make adjustments to our system as a result I am confident he would wish to do so.

Q821 Mark Williams: The Migration Impacts Forum advises the Government on the wider impacts of immigration.

Mr Oppenheim: Yes.

Q822 Mark Williams: What would be the regional dimension to that body in assessing the wider benefits, impact of migration and the impact on Welsh speaking communities?

Mr Oppenheim: Liam Burn has asked us to ensure that representation on the Migration Impacts Forum includes members from each of the government regions - Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - so there will be someone who has a particular interest in Wales. That may not be the only thing they are interested in; we are trying to combine geographical and country interests with interests and expertise in a particular area, say education, social care, health. We have nearly finalised the membership list and I think we will be sending invitations out today and tomorrow. I can assure you that there will be representation and great interest in issues relating to each region of the United Kingdom.

Q823 Mark Williams: You are confident that that is going to be robust enough? Returning to your earlier answer on the Migration Advisory Committee and the regional dimension to that, you are confident that that is robust enough that Welsh interests will be fully appreciated and recognised in this?

Mr Oppenheim: I genuinely believe, as the person in the Border and Immigration Agency responsible for our relationships with stakeholders, that the Home Office takes very seriously the needs of all the regions in the UK - Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - and that is why we have worked very hard to make sure that the Migration Impacts Forum has serious representation from across the United Kingdom as well as from the different sectors that are concerned about impact.

Q824 David Davies: Do you think the specific needs of Welsh language speakers in rural communities where they may number 80% of the population will be taken into account by the Forum or will they look at more general issues that might affect the whole of Wales in a more general sense?

Mr Oppenheim: I am certainly tempted to suggest that I will write to you in English. You might say you have before you somebody who is ignorant on these issues and perhaps I am, but we want to think carefully about the issue and the impact of language. I would like to think about that and write back if I may.

Q825 Mark Williams: Just returning to the points system, we have had a discussion in this Committee on the lack of employment protection rights with the domestic workers. How will the new arrangements affect the rights and status of domestic workers?

Mr Oppenheim: I think what is going to happen with regard to domestic workers - I presume you are referring here to au pairs and housekeepers - non-EU, non-EEA nationals who currently work legitimately as domestic workers or care workers in the UK are unlikely to be able to stay in the United Kingdom legitimately under the points based system if they do not qualify for tier two, the NVQ level three or above. I think there will be a change because the points based system is particularly designed to make sure that we have working in the United Kingdom and here people who are meeting particular needs that cannot be met from EU or EEA countries or the United Kingdom. To be crystal clear, that is about the right to remain in the United Kingdom; employment rights in themselves will not change.

Q826 Mr Jones: Mr Oppenheim, I would like to ask you about the Worker Registration Scheme. Your memo notes that the UK Government has put in place transitional measures to regulate A8 nationals' access to the labour markets via the scheme and to restrict access to benefits. Could you tell the Committee how effective the scheme is proving as a means to regulate A8 nationals' access to the UK labour market?

Mr Oppenheim: I will do my best. The scheme is, as you say, designed to allow us to monitor what is going on in the labour market and restrict access to income related benefits. I think they are the two key propositions of the scheme. So long as those are the two propositions I think evidence is that the Worker Registration Scheme is effective in meeting those purposes. It gives us information at an aggregate level of the profile of A8 nationals coming into the UK for employment and can show it by age, by gender, by dependence, by the sectors in which they register the occupations et cetera, and a lot other information as well (hours people work, intended length of stay, geographic location at the point of registration) but it does not - it is important to note that it was never intended to - provide any information on the total number of migrants in the country because it does not count those, nor does it count (and I think this is a critical issue around the Worker Registration Scheme) the number of people who are self-employed migrants in the country; it is only employed migrants that it counts. In the second part of your question I guess there is the implication of how well does the scheme restrict people's access to benefits. In terms of income based benefits - job seekers' allowance for example, income support, pension credit - it does have an effective role in restricting access to those.

Q827 Mr Jones: Could you give an indication of the effects?

Mr Oppenheim: Of the 13,030 of those who registered with the Worker Registration Scheme, as I understand it only 2,648 have been allowed some form of tax refund because there was a restriction on them. I can give this to you in more detail in writing if it helps, but I think it has been very effective in restricting access to benefits. Out of the about 13,000 people of all of those who registered with the scheme only a very small number had applied for benefits and an even number had been allowed them. There will be reasons why some have been allowed them as I understand it.

Q828 Mr Jones: When did registration under the scheme commence?

Mr Oppenheim: I believe at the point at which A8 nationals were allowed into the United Kingdom but again I can check for you. I am told it was 2004

Q829 Mr Jones: So since 2004 only 13,000 A8 nationals have registered under the scheme?

Mr Oppenheim: No, what I am saying is that out of the total number only that number had made application for tax funded income related benefits and of that number only about 2,500 had been allowed. There is a much larger number of people who have registered in the scheme and I think I was just trying, probably ineptly from your view, to just show that of the total number who registered in the scheme only a small proportion had made application for any form of tax funded benefit, and of that an even smaller proportion had actually been granted it. I will, if it helps the Committee, provide those figures in detail in writing for you.

Q830 Nia Griffith: If I could just follow up on the same point, what system do you have in place to alert you when people on that scheme leave the country? What safeguards do you have to ensure that benefits do not continue to be paid into their bank accounts? I raise this because it has actually been raised by an organisation locally within my constituency.

Mr Oppenheim: In terms of the second part of your question, if I may I would like to write to the Committee with some detail on how we ensure that people who are getting benefits have those benefits stopped when they are no longer entitled to them. That may be an issue that may be worth discussing too with colleagues from DWP. So far as how we know when people leave the United Kingdom, as I said earlier, we do not have an integrated system at present of counting everybody out of the United Kingdom, though we are, over the next few years, introducing that very scheme. We do have ways of monitoring both entry and departure from the United Kingdom through electronic and manual means. We are growing in our skill and ability to do that but at the moment with 200 million passenger movements a year we do not manage to count everybody out.

Q831 Nia Griffith: I have a couple more points on this business of registration. How can you ensure that everybody does register? The Treasury is talking about reorganising the tax offices and at the moment we have the situation where many of our immigrant workers can go to the local tax office and they can have a face to face interview, is the impact of re-organisation on the immigrant community, migrant worker community being taken into consideration because it is obviously going to have a knock-on effect if they cannot go to a local office to make these declarations?

Mr Oppenheim: We are having conversations nationally with Job Centre Plus about the nature and detail of access to Job Centre Plus and the advice that job centres and other government organisations can provide to migrant workers. There is a balance to be struck between this which we have been talking particularly with Job Centre Plus about. I would hope that the Migration Impacts Forum would be an environment in which we could not only discuss examples of good practice because you can be sure there are examples locally of things being handled very well and when we find them we want to inculcate those both across government and across the United Kingdom.

Q832 Mr Jones: A memo we have had from the DWP indicates that there are approximately 15,000 A8 immigrants working in Wales. Is that a figure that you provided to the DWP or do you know where it has come from?

Mr Oppenheim: I do not. It is likely to have been material that DWP have got through their own means and sources. We do provide, through the Worker Registration Scheme, local government and other government departments with the numbers of people who are registered borough by borough and county by county.

Q833 Mr Jones: Do you have an all Wales figure available?

Mr Oppenheim: I do not have but clearly I can add them up and make sure I let you have them.

Q834 Mr Jones: We have seen the recent accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU. Could you explain to the Committee the Government's policy on allowing entry to migrants from those countries?

Mr Oppenheim: I think it is that essentially we will allow migrants from Bulgaria and Romania to enter the United Kingdom for purposes of work so long as they are not dependent on any state benefits whilst doing so. We have restricted entry from Bulgaria and Romania on those terms and the Government will review those restrictions I believe in the fourth quarter of this year.

Q835 Mr Jones: I had understood the Government was proposing a limit on migration from those two countries.

Mr Oppenheim: There is a quota but it is quota based on skills so that what we do not wish is for people to enter the United Kingdom on the basis of having skills that are not required when working in the United Kingdom. People from Bulgaria and Romania who can come and work in areas where that work is required and cannot be met by other EU migrants and UK citizens in those instances the scheme allows people to come. There is a restriction both in terms of access to public support and also in terms of the jobs that people are coming to do.

Q836 Mr Jones: What criminal record checks are carried out on immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania?

Mr Oppenheim: I would prefer to write to the Committee in answering that if I may, Mr Jones. The reason for wishing to do so is that I think it is a complicated area and I would like to take some advice so that I do not mislead you in any shape or form.

Q837 Mr Jones: Presumably you would be prepared to reply to any further queries the Committee might have in correspondence.

Mr Oppenheim: Anything that the Border and Immigration Agency can do to help the Committee in its deliberations of course we wish to do.

Q838 Nia Griffith: Can you explain to us how the new arrangements for licensing gangmasters are actually being implemented and how effective they are? Could you also include in that answer what sort of regime you have for inspection and what sort of percentage of companies you manage to inspect? It seems to me we can have these acts but unless there is actually some way of checking up that people are complying with them then they are not going to be very effective.

Mr Oppenheim: I certainly agree with that entirely. As we said in the memorandum, the gangmasters licensing process which I think has been in place since April 2006 means that individuals who supply or sub-contract labour in a variety of fields need to get a licence from the GLA which is the Gangmaster Licensing Authority and not to be confused with anything in London. There are 12 licensed gangmasters in Wales holding licences for labour management in agricultural and food processing industries. The scheme applies to any work done anywhere in the United Kingdom. There are a number of offences created by the Gangmaster Licensing Act and it prohibits anybody from operating as a gangmaster in specified areas without a licence. Licensing, as I understand it, of shellfish gathering industries commenced on 1 October 2006 and I think the Government is aware that many labour providers are legitimate, they are hard working businesses, but the aim of the licensing regime is very much to do with what I think you were hinting at which was to drive out illegal employment practices by rogue providers. Since the GLA commenced operations it has been very clear that it wanted to not only introduce the licensing but it also wanted to create good communication with labour providers. It wanted to impose the least possible burden on labour providers, set clear standards for best practice and then, as you were hinting at, check licence holders for continued compliance with the licence conditions and, critically, take enforcement action against those who operate illegally and do that not just on their own but supporting enforcement of the law with other enforcement agencies and other government departments. Finally a series of sanctions were created, particularly for people who were operating as unlicensed gangmasters. I suspect you may have been hinting at what were the numbers of activities of the GLA in Wales, but it is not within my remit or that of a Border and Immigration Agency but I would be very happy to try to get somebody from the authority to write to you if that would help.

Q839 Mrs James: I understand what the GLA's role is but it seems to be to be a very toothless tiger. It has these two roles, one to stamp out illegal activities but it also has a self-monitoring role, monitoring the organisations that are already licensed. However, unless we give it specific powers of sanctions and then some sort of action against the people who are making those rules, how can we actually give it more teeth?

Mr Oppenheim: I am not an expert in this area and I would commend, if I may, that that is a discussion to have with the GLA rather than the Border and Immigration Agency. However, as I understand it there are powers that the Gangmaster Licensing Authority does have, not just to award licences but also so monitor and sanction those who are not following the standards that have been set by the Authority.

Q840 David Davies: I think your previous answer will probably apply to this question, but I wondered if you were aware that in South Wales there are two companies that are employing people who are bussed down from the Midlands every day and sent back up again and they are often told when they arrive - this is gangs of Eastern Europeans workers - there is no work for them in the morning so they go and sit in the canteen for the morning for which they will not get paid of course. They might get a couple of hours' work if they are lucky and they will get paid the absolute minimum wage and I suspect there will be deductions as well. I do not know whether you know whether that is legal or not; I suspect it might be legal but it is obviously morally unacceptable. I know the names of the two companies involved; I suspect there are more. I have been given this information by a reputable union.

Mr Oppenheim: I am not personally aware of those issues but I would share the concerns that you have, at least on moral grounds and on human grounds about those issues. These are things that I think Jane Farley, our new Regional Director, together with the GLA and other enforcement staff would want to pick up because they have impacts on human beings and on communities that we need to address.

Q841 Nia Griffith: Linked to that is the whole issue of accommodation. You will be aware that there are limits on the amount of money that can be deducted from workers' wages but you will also be aware of some of the practices that appear to be going on in terms of taking deductions, including deductions for accommodation which can often be overcrowded or substandard. Where do you see the role of the Border and Immigration Agency in helping to ensure acceptable standards are met?

Mr Oppenheim: I think the Border and Immigration Agency, by setting up together with communities and local government, the Migration Impact Forum, should be able to look at examples of good practice and inculcate those as I said earlier. I think that so far as overcrowding of accommodation is concerned, it is an issue that has been raised by a number of local authorities. I think the Impact Forum needs to look at what powers currently exist. Local government does have the power to deal with statutory overcrowding in houses of multiple occupancy and we need to find examples of where that works and works well - it does in many towns and cities in the United Kingdom - and get those to help others, to make sure they enforce the rule of law in terms of overcrowded accommodation. That would apply in Wales as much as it would in any other part of the United Kingdom. I cannot comment, because it is beyond my technical remit, on the issues of deductions. These are probably again matters for other government departments, in particular DWP to comment on, but I would go back to the human issue that we want to know as members of society that people are living in an environment that is safe and sound and that they are living in an environment that provides them with enough money to be safe and sound. If there are large deductions from people unfairly that is something we all need to be concerned about.

Q842 Nia Griffith: I know this is probably a little bit beyond your remit, but would you see some sort of grounds for re-visiting the whole issue of zero hours contracts which currently seem to be legal?

Mr Oppenheim: It is so far beyond my remit that I prefer not to comment.

Q843 Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence this morning and thank you also for your promise to send us a further memorandum based upon the various queries that were raised and which you indicated you would be able to satisfy us. Thank you very much.

Mr Oppenheim: It is a pleasure. If there is anything else that you need you only have to ask us.

Memorandum submitted by the Department for Work and Pensions

Examination of Witness

Witness: Mr Bill Wells, Economy and Labour Market Divisional Manger, Department for Work and Pensions, gave evidence.

Q844 Chairman: Good morning and welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. For the record could you introduce yourself, please?

Mr Wells: Good morning. My name is Bill Wells and I head the Economy and Labour Market Division within the Department for Work and Pensions.

Q845 Chairman: From your perspective could you describe for us the pattern of population movements in and out of Britain over the last ten years and what are the global influences that you consider to be important that have impacted them?

Mr Wells: Some of this was mentioned by the previous speaker and I would agree that in general there is much more movement in and out of the UK and across the world. As well as some of the issues that you mentioned about ease of travel and cost, there are political issues as well. More parts of the world are able to move across borders and also some opening up of borders, for example the European Union extensions in 2004 and 2006, have had some effect. There are also probably some economic issues around. With the relative prosperity of the UK meaning that more people are attracted to the UK than in the past, it used to be the case that the UK lost population until the 1980s and 1990s. Now there is a net inflow of migrants into the UK.

Q846 Mr Jones: We have seen a large influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe in the wake of the accession of Poland and other large European countries, do you see that pattern diminishing once France and Germany open their borders to workers from Poland and other countries from Eastern Europe?

Mr Wells: In terms of the patterns of people from the A8 countries, it may have levelled off. It has been increasing but it may have levelled off. It may be that a number of countries across the European Union have more liberal regimes than they had before, for example the Netherlands. That may be one factor, but it may just be that there is a natural level of migration that you get to at some stage. It is too early to say, but the year on year increase has definitely slowed down and may be coming to an end.

Q847 Chairman: Do you discern any difference between Wales and the rest of Britain because of these population movements?

Mr Wells: Maybe I could do this in two parts, the first is overall population and the second is A8. It tends to be that migration in Wales is less than in other countries. Some parts of the country, for example London, are prone to much more migration. As a proportion of the population migration is less in Wales than it is in many other countries. There has been some increase in recent years in Wales and as with the rest of the UK there has been quite a big increase from A8 countries. We have numbers from a variety of sources which are not always exactly the same, but migrants are around 4% of the population in Wales compared to around 10% in the United Kingdom as a whole. I think it has been on a lower level but as with the rest of the UK it has increased and the numbers from A8 countries have increased in recent years. You do tend to get some changes in the other direction. It used to be the case that Irish people were very prevalent in the UK and this is part of the sort of relative prosperity argument, that fewer people come from Ireland today. As was said before, there are quite a lot of people leaving the UK to go to other countries (Spain and so on). I think the pattern is roughly the same in Wales but it has been at a lower level.

Q848 David Davies: It is an interesting statistic that 10% of the population of this country are recent migrants. That presumably only takes into account the numbers we are aware of as we know there are much higher numbers of people in Britain than are recorded, therefore the percentage is higher than you have suggested, is it not?

Mr Wells: Almost by definition we do not know the people we do not know about. From the sorts of figures that we have looked at I am not sure that we see much evidence of it being an enormous number. For example, on the Worker Registration Scheme there is in some senses a check which is the National Insurance numbers and those numbers are for employees roughly the same in Wales at around 15,000 to 16,000. There will be people who will not get National Insurance numbers as well but in terms of people who are employees and have National Insurance numbers there is not much sign that the Worker Registration Scheme and the National Insurance numbers are out of line with each other. I am not suggesting that there is not a problem, it is just that, as you can imagine, we look closely to see if we can identify and we cannot find an enormous problem in this area.

Q849 Chairman: Could you say a little more about the accuracy of these statistics of the migrant population? Are you able to make any observations over a period of time about their accuracy?

Mr Wells: There are a number of different sources and you gather different sets of information from the different sources which enable you to paint a picture but not to give precise numbers in every respect. The Office for National Statistics is looking at improving the population statistics and particularly the migration statistics. The main sources are the population estimates which are based around births and deaths within the UK and also information on migration from things like the International Passenger Survey which has been questioned in some areas. I think my assessment is that they are getting better; they are not wonderful but they are not likely to be too far out. That is not very scientific but actually by looking at the range of statistics you get a picture where there are probably some underestimates but not of a large scale.

Q850 Chairman: This may not be a relevant question, but it just occurs to me that in terms of the history of demographics would you be aware of whether or not earlier censuses were dramatically inaccurate compared with today or not?

Mr Wells: I think in general the censuses have tended to find over time that the estimates are worse before you get the information from the census. For example, not just in the UK but in many countries, when the 2001 census came out there was quite a lot of revision backwards to the population estimates and part of that is down to the much greater movement in and out of the country.

Q851 Chairman: In terms of Wales, can you identify any significant changes in population movement in particular localities? Would you be aware of that and what are the causes?

Mr Wells: As I said, one of the biggest sets of movements has been the A8 migrants in recent years and we do actually have quite a lot of information from the Worker Registration Scheme. We also have information from the Labour Force Survey which gives you in some senses a measure of the number of people at any one time. In terms of people born abroad they tend to be in the bigger cities so Wrexham and Cardiff and so on; they tend to be in those areas. That is from the local survey and we can provide you with that information. They are indicative because the LFS does underestimate new entrants. In terms of the Worker Registration Scheme we were looking at the movements and they are all around 1% to 1.5% of the working age population. The ones which are bigger are in Wrexham, Cardiff, Newport and Powys. Again we can provide you with the numbers that we have had on these sorts of figures.

Q852 Mark Williams: Following on from that, has the DWP undertaken any specific work on the age profile of migrant workers and a perception that young migrant workers are potentially going to fill the gaps as our working population ages?

Mr Wells: Again we tend to use the local survey which we have examined and also the Worker Registration Scheme. It does tend to be that migrants tend to be in the younger ages, mostly between 25 and 34 and up to 40. It is a similar profile for the Worker Registration Scheme where most people are young, single, work full time, quite a lot of them go home. That is the main pattern. In terms of filling the gaps, I think it is true to say that there has been quite a lot of growth in employment in Wales alongside migrant workers. Migrant workers are an important but relatively small part of the labour market and again you can imagine we have been looking to see if there is any relationship between the migrants and the indigenous population. In the analysis we have done we could not find any discernable evidence of substitution one for the other essentially.

Q853 Mark Williams: So the Department is pro-active in looking at those two trends, ageing population and young migrants. It is not simply a process of two coincidences; they are actually pro-actively looking at that.

Mr Wells: Yes. It is actually difficult to prove in this area and when you do the analysis there is always someone who disagrees with the analysis. We do as much as we can but in general we have looked quite strongly at, for example, when the migrants have come into the country and whether there was any statistical effect on the numbers on current unemployment and we could not find any relationship between the two.

Q854 Mark Williams: How pro-active a study is that? We have had evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that talks about a larger than expected number of migrants from Eastern Europe. Again, how pro-active is the Department at looking at the long term impact of population on the jobs market and the claiming of welfare benefit? Is there a specific study that you have piloted?

Mr Wells: Yes. When the new Member States came into the European Union DWP was given the responsibility for monitoring the labour market and we have actually published a couple of studies about the effect of the A8 migrants on the UK labour market. We have done some specific analysis for this group but the results are essentially the same.

Q855 Mark Williams: And specifically on the demand for welfare benefits?

Mr Wells: In terms of welfare benefits you are getting the numbers from the Home Office. Virtually nobody is on the welfare benefits. The numbers are very, very small in terms of the welfare benefits compared to the total numbers. In terms of the hundreds of thousands that come in they are close to zero in those sorts of terms really.

Q856 David Davies: How does the Department for Work and Pensions intend to work with the Borders and Immigration Agency on planning the future of migration into Wales?

Mr Wells: There are a number of different areas of this. The first is that the DWP is quite heavily involved in the Migration and Advisory Council and we have been developing the UK policy for the Migration Advisory Committee and also the Migration Impacts Forum. We are closely involved because employment has been a key element in this and also the other side is that we have responsibility for the benefit area.

Q857 David Davies: What do you think is going to be the effect on the operation of the labour market for Wales with the new points system for migrant workers and in particular the two year scheme for unskilled migrant workers?

Mr Wells: As you may have gathered I consider migration to be important but small in this respect. There are much bigger trends in Wales with above average employment growth particularly in areas that started off in a worse position. It will be part of the normal turnover in the labour market but not a substantial part.

Q858 David Davies: We know there are some welfare reforms being planned. One of the ones being discussed a while back was, as I understand it, somebody who comes in here and claims asylum will be on a much lower level of benefits than the British national who is unemployed or who is on income support. When an asylum seeker receives indefinite right to remain they were able to backdate a claim with the DWP for the full amount of benefits to which they would have been entitled from the day they first arrived. The Government were talking about changing that but then we did no hear any more about it. What is the situation with that now?

Mr Wells: I am afraid I do not know about the benefit system but we can get you that information. I think that what is important is that the receipt of benefit comes with strings attached and so, for example, if that person went onto the job seekers' allowance there are stringent requirements to look for work and so on. Similarly that sort of work focus has been increased in the other benefits.

Q859 David Davies: Absolutely, I am not doubting that for a minute. The question is more about whether or not you can still back date a claim for the full amount of benefits available. Another interesting quirk of the benefits system is that it currently recognises polygamous marriages that have been carried out legally in a country outside of the United Kingdom and allows all those who are part of a polygamous marriage to be entitled to claim benefits. Is that still the case or is that going to change as well?

Mr Wells: I think that is being considered by the Home Office as part of migration but if there are a number of issues about the benefit system and asylum we will provide you with the information.

Q860 David Davies: Could you do that? I will make a note that you are going to do that and I would be very grateful, Mr Wells; thank you very much indeed. How will planned economic welfare reforms help address relatively high levels of economic inactivity in Wales, particularly amongst people over 50 and those claiming incapacity and disability benefits?

Mr Wells: There is a Welfare Reform Act that has just gone through Parliament. Essentially we will continue and extend the approach that I mentioned earlier, which is Welfare to Work policies which are about mandatory attendance to persuade people to look for work. People will not get a job if they are not looking for a job so there is a rights and responsibilities agenda being brought in and actually in all three of the main areas there have been substantial improvements already in Wales but from a situation that was quite a long way behind.

Q861 David Davies: Will it pay, for example, particular attention to some of the nebulous claims which I have come across with people in their twenties saying that they cannot work due to stress?

Mr Wells: Yes. The entry onto the new benefit which is called employment and support allowance will be changed somewhat but there is more interaction with the individuals both help and pressure so they actually leave the benefit. It is about fewer people coming onto the benefit but also in terms of the Welfare to Work policies persuading people and helping them to get into work.

Q862 David Davies: Thank you very much, and I would be grateful if you could send me the information about back dating claims and polygamous marriages.

Mr Wells: Yes, I will do that.

Q863 Mrs James: Carrying on with this line of inquiry, will the availability of a pool of migrant labour make it harder for older and poorly qualified economically inactive people in Wales to re-enter the labour market?

Mr Wells: I think there are two elements to this. The main issue in the UK and in Wales is that they are economically inactive and in real language that means they are not looking for work. Even if there are vacancies - and there are always vacancies - the fact that they are not looking for work means they will find work essentially. That is why the Welfare to Work policies are essentially about getting people to look for work. In terms of migration restricting the availability of the vacancies that there are it sorts of kicks up a point I made earlier that the numbers of migrants are relatively small in Wales but all over the UK they are actually very small compared to the number of jobs that come up each year. There are around six or seven million jobs come up each year and migrants are one source of labour for that. The work of Job Centre Plus and other agencies to match the individuals with those jobs means that there is not, if you like, a restriction on the total number of jobs; it is getting the individuals into the right jobs. It sounds like magic but the fact that there are so many vacancies if you can assemble the assets that an individual has so that they can fill those vacancies that is one of the reasons why we think we have not been able to find an effective substitution for migrants in the analysis that we have done.

Q864 Mrs James: We have touched upon this earlier with the evidence from Mr Oppenheim, the fact is those jobs have to be of a sufficient quality and they cannot be jobs that no-one else will do. They have to be of a similar level which anybody can apply for.

Mr Wells: Yes, that is right.

Q865 Mrs James: As a follow up on that, do you think there are sufficient private and voluntary sector providers in Wales willing to undertake work within the Government's Welfare to Work programme?

Mr Wells: There is a move towards getting more private and voluntary sector provision. I think the market probably still needs to be developed but in some senses there is the demand from the Department for Work and Pensions for this sort of provision which is shifting more towards the private and voluntary sector. There does not appear to be a lack of private and voluntary sector provision given the current situation, but the Government has ambitions to extend private and voluntary provision which may mean that the market on the other side will need some consideration.

Q866 Mr Jones: To what extent, if at all, can welfare reform policies be specifically geared to the needs of the Welsh labour market?

Mr Wells: A lot of the policies are national policies but some of the areas where problems still remain are disproportionately in Wales and so, for example, the Welfare Reform Act which I mentioned before is about the reform of incapacity benefit and incapacity benefit was particularly prevalent in Wales. Actually there has been a substantial improvement in Wales over the last decade or so and I was a little surprised by the numbers but the proportion of the population in Wales who are on incapacity benefit is now only marginally above the UK average. It is about the people on inactive benefits which are primarily incapacity benefits and lone parent benefits where the next stage of the Government's welfare reforms aim to increase the number of people who first begin to look for and then find work. Hopefully, if that is successful, it should narrow the employment gap further between Wales and the United Kingdom.

Q867 Mr Jones: To what extent can those policies be geared towards Wales? Or is it the case that they cannot be?

Mr Wells: There is a national policy but it does reflect local situations. There is quite a lot of formal interaction between the Department for Work and Pensions and the authorities in Wales. As well as that the DWP is currently piloting some work about local provision. We call it the City Strategy - in Wales it is not actually in cities - and it is focussed on the most disadvantaged areas. Because a lot of our policies nationally are demand driven where the problems are the greatest there will be a focus on some areas of Wales and on top of that there is some local provision and some move toward devolution in Wales.

Q868 Mr Jones: To what extent does the DWP take into account the policies of the Welsh Assembly Government?

Mr Wells: There is a concordat with the Welsh Assembly and a framework of cooperation which involves regular meetings, usually monthly, between DWP and the Welsh Assembly. It also involves specific work on specific areas so, for example, on the Child Support Agency Reforms there were some briefings to the Assembly. Our ministers visited Wales to set out where the current position was on the Welfare to Work policy but also to learn from a seminar. There is, if you like, regular official contact which is quite formal so it makes sure that everything gets dealt with. There is also interest on particular subjects and from our ministers recently.

Q869 Mr Jones: The over-arching policy framework is set by the DWP I take it.

Mr Wells: It is partly the rules on the devolution with Job Centre Plus. Employment is a national policy and education and training tend to be devolved responsibilities. Marrying those two together is one of the reasons that we have these formal arrangements.

Q870 Chairman: Could I ask the last question about training bodies? Are there sufficient private sector and voluntary sector bodies in Wales willing to participate in the Government's Welfare to Work programme?

Mr Wells: As I said, I am not aware of there being a problem, however given the interest of the Committee perhaps I could go away and answer that more fully.

Chairman: Thank you very much for your responses today and we look forward to hearing from you again in terms of an additional memorandum. Thank you.