UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 324-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

EUROPEAN SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

COMMISSION COMMUNICATION:

THE IMPACT OF THE FREE MOVEMENT OF WORKERS IN THE CONTEXT OF EU ENLARGEMENT

Wednesday 11 March 2009

MR PHIL WOOLAS, MP, MS EMMA CHURCHILL, MR NIGEL FARMINER

and MR RAGNAR CLIFFORD

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 47

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the European Scrutiny Committee

on Wednesday 11 March 2009

Members present

Michael Connarty, in the Chair

Mr William Cash

Mr James Clappison

Jim Dobbin

Mr Greg Hands

Mr David Heathcoat-Amory

Kelvin Hopkins

Mr Bob Laxton

Mr Anthony Steen

________________

Witnesses: Mr Phil Woolas MP, Minister of State, Home Office, Ms Emma Churchill, Director of Immigration Policy, Mr Nigel Farminer, Deputy Director of Immigration Policy, and Mr Ragnar Clifford, Senior Officer, Immigration Services, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome you, Minister, to our deliberations and thank you very much for the document which you sent to us. We are looking at the report on the impact of free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement from the Commission, Commission document 2,765. It says "Final" on this document so it must be right. It obviously took our attention because at the same time there were publicly disputed statements about what was happening to the employment base in our country and what was happening to British workers. I think it is fair to say that some people think British nationals are unemployed or at risk of losing their jobs because of migration from new Member States, which this report is about. Could you tell us how many people from the new Member States have jobs in the UK at this moment and what is the trend in the movement to UK nationals from the new Member States?

Mr Woolas: First of all, thank you very much for the invitation. On a light note, when I was hit by a custard pie shortly after the reshuffle, the group that threw the custard pie complained to the media that the pie was not made of custard; it was made of veggie cream because they were environmentally sound. That did not help me but the cleaner said that it made cleaning my suit easier. This is a good opportunity for me to answer your question directly and I will give you the best information that we have on the situation at the moment. On the policy that we have regarding the European Union and the workers' registration scheme, there is often confusion regarding the figures for the number of people who have registered, which is not necessarily the same as the number of people, because people can register twice or even more times. The figures for the number of people who have registered are around a million for the WRS. We are looking of course at the A8 as well as the A2. I also have figures, if you want me to go into the detail, on the welfare benefits that flow from that. I do not know how much detail you want me to go into in this conversation. The figures are: in total, in quarter four 2008, the latest figures we have, there were 29,000 initial applicants to the workers' registration scheme. That compares to 53,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007 and 65,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006. That shows that there is a downward trend and that has been going on for two years. The number of approved applications in quarter four 2008 was 27,000. That is 2,000 fewer than applied and that compared to 51,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, again 2,000 down. That compared to 60,000 in quarter four 2006, 5,000 lower than applied. Our analysis shows that the decrease is mainly explained by the fall in applications from Polish nationals coming to our country and that fell to 16,000 applications in quarter four 2008 compared to, in quarter four 2007, 36,000 and, in quarter four 2006, 45,000. I have more details on some of the sectors.

Q2 Chairman: What we are trying to get at may be contained in the figures you have just given us. Is there any way of working out how many of the people remain in employment? In other words, what is the cumulative total? The question on which people seem to be drawing their own conclusions is that there is a certain number and that is a very large number that somehow denies UK workers access. You say the trend is going down. What is the likely cumulative number that we have of people in employment who are not UK nationals, people who have come to the new A8 states that have joined the EU?

Mr Woolas: These figures are not precise because the answer to the question is not precisely known. The figures we have from between May 2004 and December 2008 show that 965,000 A8 nationals - this is not Bulgaria and Romania - made initial applications to register. I think that is people, not applicants. We have stripped those figures down. Of those, 926,000 applicants were issued with a worker registration card and certificate. That is the measure of the number of people who have arrived in the UK for the purpose of work but, as you rightly point out, not the number who have necessarily stayed. We turn to other sources of data that we use to try and get a picture of what the stock is, if I can use that word, of people here. The Labour Force Survey is a main source of information, although I should point out to the Committee, as you know - because I think you have noted this already in your deliberations - that excludes temporary workers here for less than 12 months and those in communal accommodation. The second source that we have is the analysis of the Labour Force Survey data by the IPPR, the think tank, who estimate that the population of A8 and A2 nationals - they have pooled them together - resident in the UK in April 2008 was 665,000. That is an increase of 550,000 since the start of the period of the analysis in May 2004. That is our best estimate of what the figures are.

Q3 Mr Cash: I would like to know whether, when you are talking about migration from new Member States, you have taken into account the extent to which people come in overtly as legal migrants but are illegal. Have you made any calculation about that?

Mr Woolas: If somebody comes to the United Kingdom from an EU Member State, subject to what they do in relation to work, by being here they are not illegal immigrants.

Q4 Mr Cash: I appreciate that. What I am asking is whether there are people who get in under the radar screen because, although they overtly have legal visas, they have got them in the Member State. For example, they have come from Africa, they have come through Malta or Spain or Italy and then they come over here. Do you have any way of calculating the relationship between the legal and the illegal based on where they come from, from the Member States?

Mr Woolas: That is the question that immigration ministers through the years do not like because the answer is that by definition we do not know. What we do know in relation to asylum claims first of all - it is not directly related but may help the Committee - is that 17% of asylum claims within the European Union Member States are duplicate applications - i.e., people who may have applied in Greece and in the United Kingdom or even three or four different countries. We are reliant of course on the sharing of information on the general points with our European Union partner Member States, particularly through for example Eurodac and the Dublin arrangements. If a document has been issued by a Member State that accredits status to that individual, we would not necessarily know if that person was legitimately granted but on the illegal point the crude answer is it is not known.

Mr Cash: That is a very honest answer, if I may say so.

Chairman: When we banned people applying for asylum from working in 2002, it is clear that we lost a source of information because then we would have known if they were working and paying tax. I did note that a well known social liberal, the Mayor of London, has suggested it might be logical as in fact his predecessor suggested to allow people applying for asylum to work, register, pay taxes and then be available for clear, statistical analysis. Clearly there is an area where we do not know whether what we have said are UK nationals are losing jobs to people who are not legally in the A8 countries or the two plus two in the EU but may be losing it to persons unknown who are not recorded or registered.

Mr Woolas: As ever with this debate, it is never as clear as the public debate would have it. There are of course asylum seekers who can work, people who through no fault of their own have been here for 12 months.

Q5 Chairman: People who have not lost their appeals?

Mr Woolas: Exactly so. They are entitled to working rights. Underneath that point, your point is absolutely valid. We can monitor asylum claims and appeal rights exhausted. What we cannot monitor is abscondees and particularly our policy is absolutely rooted in the reintroduction of border controls. Border controls, the measurement of people coming in and out of the country, were phased out starting in 1994. Quite frankly, my own government carried on that phasing out. I am not trying to make a partisan point although I do think the decision in 1994 was the wrong one. The reintroduction of border controls through our e-borders programme allows us to measure overstayers, people who have come in on legitimate routes for visiting, not for working directly. The points based system combined with the e-borders programme creates a new regime whereby we can see who has come in to work temporarily, who has come in to study and who has overstayed. That is the new policy that we have.

Q6 Jim Dobbin: This question is about the rights of citizens of Member States to work anywhere in the EU according to Article 39 of the EC Treaty. Because of the economic downturn, have there been any discussions with the Commission about putting limits on those numbers?

Mr Woolas: That is the key question, which is why you have asked it. The answer to the question is that the impact of the economic situation on the numbers of people coming to the United Kingdom is not yet known. Of course, the very fact that the economic situation is not isolated to the United Kingdom means that the simple statement that says that, for example, Lithuanians are going home because the UK economy is in trouble ignores the fact that the Lithuanian economy is also in trouble. We believe that exchange rates are very important. There has been a 30% change in the relationship between the zlotti in Poland the pound in the last six months I believe. I will correct that if it is wrong. That of course has an impact on how much relatively a Polish worker can earn in the United Kingdom. We have until the end of April to indicate to the Commission whether or not we intend to extend the workers' registration scheme on the A8 which can only run to May 2011. We have the A2 workers' registration scheme which can go through to 2014. We are deliberating this very point which is why, speaking very frankly, your inquiry is so helpful at the moment because you are gathering evidence on these matters. My simple point to the Committee is that it is wrong to say - Mr Dobbin did not suggest this - as some have said, that because the United Kingdom economy is in a downturn therefore people will not wish to come here. What matters of course is the relative situation. We are still the fourth largest economy in the world. We are still at GDP per head much better off than the A8 countries. The honest answer to the question is that we do not know what the future holds.

Q7 Jim Dobbin: Have there been any discussions with any other Member States and also discussions with the trade unions?

Mr Woolas: There have certainly been discussions. The document that you are looking at is the lessons for the whole of the European Union. Obviously we are concentrating on the United Kingdom impact. The great lesson for us in hindsight, with the decision over the restrictions or otherwise for the A8, is that one cannot take those decisions in isolation from other countries. Page five of the document gives the chart as to what happened in other countries. Member States do not take the decisions exactly in parallel, so we do have those informal and formal talks with them. Regarding the trade unions, I must point out for the record that the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Scheme which is now from A2 around 21,000 people on the quota, which was an increase from last year, was a specific negotiation and discussion. The general policy is discussed with the TUC and with individual trade unions.

Chairman: If I am correct, there is a break point at which a country, even if it has accepted not to have a derogation in the first phase of the expansion, can decide to take that derogation and rescind that open access. That is the context in which the question has been asked. There is a power to the UK should it decide that there is an adverse effect to withdraw its open access policy and move to a closed policy at a certain break point in this process. You do not have to continue. Even those who have allowed people to come in do not have to continue with that policy.

Mr Woolas: That is correct. One of the benefits that we now have because of the points based system is that we could apply the points based system as our criterion to future accession countries. The question at the heart of it is could we impose a quota. In principle, the answer is yes but, if our decision is to continue to apply transitional measures into the third phase of the A8, we could apply a tougher scheme and quotas as we already have applied for low skilled workers for Bulgaria and Romania.

Q8 Mr Clappison: You seemed to suggest, when you were being asked about whether we could impose quotas or put a temporary block on movement, that we could look again at the workers' registration scheme but of course that does not stop somebody from coming to work here. They can merely come here and work and they can choose to register if they want to do so. If they do, they can obtain certain benefits. In any case, when Lord Mandelson came to us on Monday, he left me with the impression - and he took issue with me about it - that he seemed to be very strongly in favour of the freedom of movement. There was no question of any UK derogation under freedom of labour movement around the EU. Have you consulted him about this?

Mr Woolas: The government's policy is sophisticated and joined up. We are working with other Member States and the Commission towards April of this year to determine what future or otherwise there is for the A8 workers' registration scheme and, to be fair absolutely to Mr Clappison's point, there are for example self-employed workers who are not covered by the scheme. The Free Movement Directive allows that. That is something that this country has signed up to. I am simply pointing out that as we strengthen our policy in regard to the points based system the future does give us more control within those regimes for future accession countries.

Q9 Mr Clappison: I do not know if I can read from the corrected evidence of Lord Mandelson but he said, "The UK has always been a firm supporter of the free movement of workers in Europe." He says that the single market and openness to trade and the circulation of capital and workers is of immense economic importance to Britain. Lord Mandelson was very clear indeed. In his first question the Chairman asked you how many people from the A8 countries were working in this country and, if I may say, you quoted quite a number of figures to us from a variety of sources. Do you have an estimate of the number of A8 workers working in the country today and, if so, what is it?

Mr Woolas: I thought I answered that question. The best figures we have are the figures that I gave. The nature of the situation is that one does not know exactly. That is the nature of the Free Movement Directive.

Mr Steen: Are you going to call people in turn, Mr Chairman, or are they just going to speak?

Chairman: There will be another person on this question which will be called after Mr Clappison.

Q10 Mr Clappison: The final figure which you gave was a long series of figures based on the workers' registration scheme. What is your final figure? It is quite a simple question. Can you tell us what it is, please?

Mr Woolas: I have given you the best figures we have. It is in the nature of the scheme that we know how many applicants we have had through the scheme. Exact figures are not known in any Member State, other than through surveys, as to how many EU nationals there are working in the United Kingdom.

Q11 Mr Clappison: Does the Office for National Statistics produce a figure for this?

Mr Woolas: The Office for National Statistics speaks for itself. I am not going there today. I can help the Committee in other ways. The evidence also has to include the answer to the question how many UK nationals are working and living within the European Union.

Q12 Mr Clappison: Can you just stick to one question at a time, please? The question is quite simply will you tell us how many people you estimate are working in this country from the A8 countries?

Mr Woolas: I have given the figures to the best of my ability and the best of our knowledge.

Q13 Mr Clappison: You chose to rely upon the IPPR. Is that part of the government?

Mr Woolas: I did not rely on the IPPR. I quoted the IPPR in an attempt to help the Committee to understand the evidence that we have available. We know the numbers of people registered and the numbers of applications, which I pointed out at the beginning are not necessarily the same figures, although public comment assumes it is.

Q14 Mr Clappison: Was the figure you gave us, which you said was your final figure, derived from the IPPR estimate?

Mr Woolas: No. That is derived from the number of registrations we have. Also, as you no doubt in your Committee will want to do, we make estimates based on other evidence. The Labour Force Survey is not a government figure as such; it is a figure produced for the Labour Force Survey and is available.

Q15 Mr Clappison: It comes from the Office for National Statistics. Does this not underline the value of having an Office for National Statistics? They produce a figure. You could give the figure to us from the Office for National Statistics, which I thought was why we had one, and they say that the latest figure they have for quarter four 2008 is that there are 470,000 A8 nationals working in this country but they cannot include people in that figure who are living in communal establishments. Subject to that, that is the figure they produce. We have an Office for National Statistics. What is wrong with it?

Mr Woolas: I am not saying there is anything wrong with it.

Mr Clappison: You gave us a very round about series of figures.

Mr Woolas: I represent the Home Office, not the Office for National Statistics.

Chairman: The figure I have written down is that the estimate is for A8 plus A2, 665,000. You quote a figure of 470,000 for A8.

Q16 Mr Clappison: The figure I have is from the Office for National Statistics. My question, which is quite an important question in view of what the Minister has had to say about the Office for National Statistics, is why in his remarks to us he chose not to rely upon it and instead gave the whole series of figures derived from government homework based upon the workers' registration scheme, which is not a record of the number of people working here, and also the IPPR which is not I think part of the government. I think what the Minister says speaks for itself. On the same subject, Lord Mandelson when I was asking him questions about this on Monday gave a quote to us of a figure by which the number of UK citizens in employment had increased since 2001. That is not in fact the case because the number of UK nationals in work started to go down in 2005. I am afraid my statistics here derive from the Office for National Statistics. If the Minister has some different ones, I would like to hear them. Before 2005, the number of UK nationals in employment in this country had been going up during this period of this government's office according to the Office for National Statistics. In 2005, it started to go down and it has gone down by 350,000 since then, including the period of recession, but the decline started in 2005. Can the Minister throw any light on why that decline has taken place?

Mr Woolas: Could I answer the first question that Mr Clappison asked? The ONS figures are in the main based on the Labour Force Survey figures. I was not trying to deny the ONS figures' accuracy or credibility, but that is the derivation of the ONS figures. I did not quote the ONS figures because I had already quoted the Labour Force Survey figures and also because I did not think you wanted a long, rambling answer, but I have statistics here from the ONS that I am more than happy to read into the record.

Chairman: I do not think that would benefit anyone.

Q17 Mr Clappison: The Minister's answers which he gave earlier will speak for themselves. Can the Minister throw any light as to why the number of UK nationals in work began to fall in 2005, both as a rate and as a number?

Mr Woolas: I have come here today with evidence from the UK Border Agency and the Home Office on the migration aspects of the workforce, not on the domestic employment market as such. That is not within my portfolio. I am not being evasive. I do not have those statistics available. I could give you my personal view but I suggest that that would not be scientific and would not help the Committee.

Q18 Chairman: The point of the report was the impact of free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement. There may be a sub-question: was that fall off in UK workers caused by that?

Mr Clappison: The Minister said there had been no effect upon the UK labour market. The number has decreased since roughly the period of time of accession of the A8 countries. I am just asking the Minister if he can throw any light upon it. If he cannot, that is fair enough.

Chairman: The point that you are reaching for is the Minister adhering to that logic, that that fall in figures which Mr Clappison has given is not caused by the migration of EU workers.

Mr Clappison: I am asking if he can throw any light on why it has taken place.

Chairman: In the context of this report it is relevant to the migration of workers rather than just a general analysis of the economy. If the Minister thinks it has had an effect on it, he should say so.

Q19 Mr Clappison: I am asking if the Minister would give an answer.

Mr Woolas: My view is that the general value added - and we share this analysis with BERR - has been to increase from migrant workers coming to the UK. Logically, there is a diminishing return and obviously, depending on the labour market domestically, that would affect it. That is why we believe that the controls that we have, in so far as we have controls regarding the European Union, but also the points based system outside the European Union, are the right policy. I think there is a consensus for that policy because it enables us to control flows without an exact number - I would not claim that - but we believe that to be the case. I think there is some truth in both arguments. There is a general value added. The statistics independently show that. We share that view with BERR and indeed with DWP but that does not mean, in our view, that one can extrapolate that into the future against the background of a different labour market.

Mr Clappison: You talk about value added to the economy. The House of Lords reported on that. You do not agree with the House of Lords report. It did not agree with you either.

Mr Woolas: It agreed in the general direction but the margin of its analysis was less.

Q20 Mr Clappison: You refer to the points based system. Of course, access to the UK labour market by the A8 countries is not controlled by the points based system and it could not really be because there would be a lot of problems with EU law if it was. You do have controls over the number of people coming to work here from outside the EU. You have a discretion over them. When you began to see the numbers coming from the A8 countries, it became clear that there was a substantial number of people coming over the years since then. Did that have any effect upon the number of work permits which were issued to people coming from outside the EU? Did you take that into account in determining how many people to admit from outside the EU or not?

Mr Woolas: In so far as the establishment of the Migration Advisory Committee, which we took great care over and whose advice we value as objective and independent enormously - they incidentally have said that they do not believe there is a link between A2 migrant workers and UK national unemployment statistics - and the new policy regime allows that policy lever of the points based system to be pulled, if you like, the answer to your question is yes. If I could cite again the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Scheme, previously it had included non-EU people. Now it is exclusively A2.

Q21 Chairman: Can we just read into the record that A2 refers to Romania and Bulgaria?

Mr Woolas: Yes.

Q22 Mr Steen: The last time we met was at the Bowie Head Hotel, talking about fishing and tourism. This is slightly different now. The Minister probably does not have his feet under the desk yet and has not been down to Lunar House and spent half a day there, which I have in my capacity as chairman of the All Party Group on Trafficking Women and Children. I spent a day at Gatwick. I understand all the problems that he talks about. One of the simplest ways to deal with this - I may have caught him answering the right way on this - is to have exit visas so that at every port of entry you have a port of exit as well, so that everybody coming out says who they were. Is that being contemplated? That would solve a lot of the problems. The reality is that nobody knows the numbers about anything. That is the truth of the matter. For example, the number of Chinese boys coming in without any passports. They flush them down the loos coming over on the plane or they eat them. The number of children coming into Britain without any documents from the Far East is enormous. You are never going to get the right numbers and what they are here for. In the EU, you have the problem of people coming in on a pretext and they do something else. I am particularly referring to the trafficking of human beings because they are perfectly lawful. They believe they are coming in to do a job and in fact when they come here they find they have been duped. We do not know the figures. I am just wondering whether the Minister is seriously contemplating an exit visa or an exit point, because that would tell us about overstayers, trafficked people, people who are asylum seekers. It would give you a far more accurate indication than the incoming.

Mr Woolas: Can I thank Mr Steen for the question? I remember the visit very well. I remember that his area did get the money for the fish quay, and very valuable to the United Kingdom economy it is too, the highest by value fish port in England, not in the UK. It is second in the United Kingdom and first in England and Wales. We were glad to be able to help in that regard. The lobster was lovely. The point that is being made is absolutely the core of government policy and the answer to your question is, yes, I very much agree with you. The problem with public debate about this issue - and this is perhaps a bit broader than the document that you have before you; I hope you will give me some leeway - is that it is often seen as too easy to get into this country. My view is that it is too easy to stay in this country because of the lack in the past - and to some extent now - of border controls in terms of knowing whether or not a person has overstayed. We have spent an enormous amount of effort as a country over different governments in different decades in issuing visas or not and not in counting people out. Our policy now is directed at the heart of that issue in order that, if somebody comes to our country through the points based system or on the other route through temporary leave to remain, if that leave to remain is overstayed, then we know and enforcement policies become important. There is a different policy of course in relation to the European Union which is the reality of the policy that I am dealing with.

Q23 Mr Steen: You are not going to introduce an exit policy for EU nationals?

Mr Woolas: We do not have a plan to have exit visas in the sense that Mr Steen is relating to. What we do have is, through electronic borders and the monitoring that we have - I appeal for cross party support for this - the ability to know when somebody has come in, which we have known in the past, but also if they have left and therefore if they have not left.

Q24 Mr Steen: When will that come into practice?

Mr Woolas: That is being rolled out now. It is completed - I hesitate to say for 100% of the world - by 2014 but we aim to get 95% by 2011.

Q25 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: People agree with the general benefits of free movement provided they know that the government can measure this, can monitor it and control it and, if necessary, take action. We have heard from you already that you do not really know how many people are coming here or staying here. They may or may not register. They may or may not stay. All your figures are estimates. People can see that you have really lost control of the numbers. What I would like to ask you is about the underlying regulations. You will recall that the present immigration system is governed by the Immigration EEA Regulations 2006, of which I have a copy. It is quite clear from reading this that these regulations greatly enhance the rights of people to come here and achieve an immediate right of residency. It is almost impossible to exclude or remove people, even if they have committed crimes. Therefore, do you understand the frustrations building up? We know about it in all our constituencies. We know about the industrial problems and unrest a few weeks ago. People do not believe that you or Parliament any longer controls immigration as regards the population of nearly half a billion people in the EEA.

Mr Woolas: Mr Heathcoat-Amory makes a strong point. I disagree with his context. I think it is fair to say that the government is increasingly better able to manage, because of the numbers. We take the view in lay person's terms that if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it, so we are increasingly able to measure it so that we can manage it. I was slightly worried by the statement that says we do not know what is happening. One does have to separate the European Union from non-European Union. That is a fair point. We are better able to measure and manage non-EU movements. We work within the European Free Movement Directive. We point out the benefits to our country of UK nationals working elsewhere in the European Union. There are 581,000 UK born citizens living in the EU 15 countries. There are 285,000 UK nationals working in other European Union countries. In that regard, the government agrees with the statement that has been made, that the numbers are not known exactly in terms of EU movements.

Q26 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You are telling me that eventually you may be able to measure the numbers. You will not be able to do anything about it because these regulations which I have referred to are completely unambiguous. People can only be excluded or removed if they present a sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society. That is a very high bar to clear. You may recall the last Prime Minister got into a terrible muddle when Charles Clark resigned as Home Secretary over claiming that people convicted of serious offences would be deported. This is completely illegal under these regulations. Are people forgiven for thinking that you are trying to measure something and failing but, even if you measure it, there is nothing you can do about it? To me, it is rather enchanting that people still come along to Parliament and think we can do something about it. We have lost control. Will you admit this?

Mr Woolas: In terms of EU membership, we do not accept that premise. We are members of the European Union. We support the Free Movement Directive. Our argument is that that is a net benefit to the United Kingdom economy and to the United Kingdom subjects who benefit reciprocally from those free movement rights. History shows that where, for example with Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece, EU membership benefited the GDP of those countries, migration to this country subsequently fell and, in many cases, is now a net flow the other way. We think that is a good thing.

Q27 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You are not denying what I am saying.

Mr Woolas: I am not denying it.

Chairman: I want to caution you both.

Mr Heathcoat-Amory: This is an important point of principle.

Chairman: I am just trying to put it in context. Remember, we are here to look at a particular report and the report is on the free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement. Article 39, which was formerly Article 48, was in the treaty we signed in 1972 when we joined, so it is not a question about free movement of people within the EU; it is about what has happened since the enlargement process. We have to restrict ourselves to that.

Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry. These regulations are 2006 and they greater alter and extend the rights of people, including from the enlargement countries - those are the ones I have in mind - to immediate rights of residence. They cannot be deported even if they are criminals. It is unambiguously in these regulations passed by Parliament. My point is that for a citizen of this country, who I am afraid does regard people from Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria as being foreigners - perhaps they are being old fashioned about this; I know we are in one European home, but they do - you are telling me that you have a plan eventually to monitor and measure the numbers coming here, but you cannot do anything about. I would just like you to confirm that.

Mr Woolas: On the point about foreign national prisoners, we do deport people who have offended within European Union states as well as outside. We are able to do that and we are negotiating for further powers in that regard. On your general point, within the European Union you are correct.

Q28 Mr Hands: Before I ask you a question about future accession countries, can I just ask you a quick question about the last accession? Lord Mandelson told us on Monday, "In the case of A2 workers from Bulgaria and Romania, these are very small numbers we are seeing coming to the UK and we do not have any specific evidence on the impact of their movement on the UK economy but by inference I would conclude that it is very, very slight indeed." Can you explain why we still operate a scheme specifically for Bulgarians and Romanians which is different to the previous scheme for the A8 nationals? In the words of one of my Romanian constituents, he asked why he was being punished because we have too many Poles in the country.

Mr Woolas: I will be very honest with you as you would expect me to be.

(The Committee suspended from 3.46pm to 3.56pm for a division in the House)

Q29 Mr Hands: If the impact is "very, very slight indeed", why do we continue to operate a separate A2 system to the A8 system?

Mr Woolas: The conversation so far - and I believe yesterday - has been about the economic impacts and the employment impacts. Of course we also have to take into account the social impacts as Mr Hands has raised in the House on a number of occasions. We therefore were able, in judging the A2, to benefit from the experience of the A8 and we therefore took into account the transitional impacts of people coming. The purpose of the policy is to ensure that there is not turbulence that can have social and indeed economic impact. In the light of that experience and of course being able to learn from the experience of other Member States in terms of their decisions - again, the memorandum from the European Commission explains the policies that other Member States took - we were able to take those into account.

Q30 Mr Hands: I am not following you. You say you took into account the A8 experience when drawing up a policy for the A2 nationals. Why did you not, by the same logic, change the policy on the A8 nationals to make that more restrictive? Surely using that same logic that is what you would have done, rather than just introducing a specific scheme for A2.

Mr Woolas: I would argue we did take into account the A8. We were able through the various policy measures we had to look at that impact. We have a decision yet to be taken on the future of WRS for A8 and of course that, as I said to the Committee earlier on, is by April of this year.

Q31 Mr Hands: How have regulations for the A8 been tightened?

Mr Woolas: They have not been loosened.

Mr Hands: Your logic that the A8 experience led you to tighten regulations for the A2 would imply that you should tighten regulations for the A8 but it did not happen.

Mr Woolas: No.

Q32 Mr Hands: How would you explain to my Romanian constituent who is saying, I think not unreasonably, why should he be punished because there are too many Poles in Britain?

Mr Woolas: You could equally argue on that logic that there are too many French people in Britain. The A8 and the A2 may separate themselves in policy decisions but one has to take into account the cumulative effect. You could equally say that the continuation of the restrictions on A8 is punishing some Polish people.

Q33 Chairman: What is the difference? What is the restriction on people from Romania and Bulgaria that does not apply to the other A8 countries, the countries that came in in enlargement?

Mr Hands: I can answer that if the Minister cannot.

Chairman: I can as well but I thought the Minister might be better to put it on the record.

Mr Woolas: The essential difference is that under A2 we can have a quota restriction for unskilled work.

Q34 Chairman: I believe also you must have a job to come, whereas you could come from the A8 countries and find employment.

Mr Woolas: On the whole, yes.

Chairman: You must have a job to come to but you can come. I hope your Romanian is not begging on the streets.

Q35 Mr Hands: It is a totally different registration scheme which is driving a lot of Bulgarians and Romanians to avoid it by declaring themselves as self-employed contractors, which in turn costs this country some amount in tax and raises all kinds of national insurance problems for what is really a very small number of people. What I am trying to get at is what I think is the chaotic decision making in all of this. Looking forward, for a future expansion the precedent has been set that for the A2 accession you will look at the previous accession in helping to determine policy. If there is a future expansion, which there is tabled to be with Croatia and at some point with Turkey, how will the recent experience inform policy on those expansions?

Mr Woolas: First of all, I do not think it is fair for Mr Hands to say that decision making is chaotic. I think that is, if I may say so, naïve, because one is dealing with the decisions of other countries as well as our own in relation to that. On the registration scheme and the differences, I am being cautious because it is not as black and white as it is being presented. Mr Hands makes the point about the self-employed. That is right. He is right about that. I do not want to make statements that mislead this Committee in any way whatsoever. Our ability to look at potential future accession countries - we now have the experience of the A8 and the A2. It does not necessarily follow but what we are able to do is to base our policy on accession countries on existing migration policy. That allows us to use the points based system, which of course is now in existence but was not in existence for A8 and A2, as a potential platform for our policy for potential future accession countries.

(The Committee suspended from 4.02pm to 4.12pm for a division in the House)

Q36 Mr Hands: I have a final question on future and further enlargement. It does seem to me that, if we are going to properly assess the current enlargement, which as you have already conceded is a big factor in assessing any future enlargement, we do need to get the statistical basis on a proper footing. Can you just tell us a little bit more? I am still worried by the fact that you would not quote the ONS but would in preference quote the think tank, IPPR, statistics. Is that because of no confidence in the ONS statistics or is it a problem with their methodology and the IPPR methodology is better? What is the reason for shunning the ONS statistics?

Mr Woolas: I did not intend at all to shun the ONS statistics. I ran out of time. The Labour Force Survey makes up the basis for the analysis of the IPPR and makes up the basis of the ONS statistics as well. I do not at all intend to distance myself or criticise the ONS statistics. It was simply presentational.

Q37 Mr Hands: It is the same statistics that provide the basis for both. The IPPR estimated 665,000 A10 nationals resident in the UK, you told us, in April 2008. Using the same statistics, what did the ONS say at that time?

Mr Woolas: The IPPR is A8 and A2, I think I am right in saying, and the ONS figures were just on A8. ONS published figures from the Labour Force Survey that show the number of non-UK born workers - which is not the same thing but that is their figure - in April to June 2008 at 3.7 million. In April/June 2008, people born in Europe made up the largest number of non-UK born workers in the UK. The group comprises people born in the 14 countries that were members of the European Union prior to May 2004, which was 0.7 million people, people born in the eight central and eastern European countries - the Member States that joined the EU in May 2004 - were half a million and people born in other European countries were 0.2 million. Those ONS figures are themselves based on labour force statistics and I am sorry if I gave a different impression.

Mr Hands: The ONS quoted 500,000 and the IPPR 665,000. That cannot possibly mean there are 165,000 A2 nationals. There is quite a considerable difference there between those two figures, is there not?

Chairman: The figures I wrote down were 200,000 from other European countries other than the A8 countries.

Mr Hands: It seems to me that the ONS figures are lower than the IPPR. I do not understand why anybody would call the ONS figures sinister when they are lower than the IPPR figures.

Mr Woolas: That is not what I said and not what I was reported as saying.

Chairman: What was read out was 500,000. Other European countries other than the eastern countries were given and then there were 500 from the A8 plus another 200,000 from eastern European countries. That would be 700,000.

Mr Hands: The A8 are eastern European countries.

Chairman: The A2 I believe was 200,000.

Mr Hands: It cannot be. There cannot be 200,000 A2 nationals. Lord Mandelson said their impact had been very, very slight indeed.

Chairman: If I remember what Mr Clappison said, he said there were 480,000 from A8 and if there are 665,000 overall for A10 there must be almost 200,000 by any calculation.

Mr Hands: That cannot be right. If you ask the Romanian and Bulgarian embassies, there is no way.

Mr Woolas: It may help if I give you a note on this.

Mr Hands: It is very important though. This is a huge difference.

Mr Woolas: With respect, you are not repeating what I said. You asked me to quote the ONS figures. I am not defending the ONS figures. I am reporting the ONS figures. Let us be very clear about what they say. Non-UK born is not the same as EU Member State national. Non-UK born can mean the son or daughter of a UK national born in Germany as a son or daughter of a member of the Armed Forces, of whom there are 265,000. That is exactly why I pointed out the difference between the ONS and the migration figures. What I said was people born in other European countries, 0.2 million.

Mr Hands: That is not the difference between the 500,000 and the 665, because the IPPR said the 665 is A10. The ONS said 500,000 are the A8. The implication the Chairman is drawing from this is that 165,000 are A2 and I do not think that can possibly be right.

Chairman: Can I read into the record the Commission's report which we have a summary of? It is a high statistic. It says, "Polish nationals comprised about 25% of the EU nationals who had moved to other Member States ... Romanian nationals accounted for about 19% of the total", who had moved to other national states. How many of them have come here is not quite specific.

Mr Hands: I think it is very few. I happen to know a lot about this because the Romanian and Bulgarian communities happen to be based in my constituency and they are not very extensive at all. Lord Mandelson is partly right when he says their impact is very, very slight indeed. Most of those figures are Romanians going to Italy and Spain, which is the main destination of choice for them. I am still trying to get to the bottom of these statistics because they seem to be all over the place and I cannot see how we can make an assessment based on these statistics. We are arguing about 200,000 people. We are unsure whether they are A2 nationals or something else.

Mr Woolas: I would urge precision. I simply report the IPPR figures and the ONS figures. The debate proves my point that statistics can prove anything. The figures from the IPPR are population figures. The figures from the ONS are based on non-UK born workers. The Committee's deliberations will no doubt wish to flush those out.

Q38 Mr Clappison: I am not familiar with the IPPR. I do not know if this is an organ of government. Perhaps the Minister could explain to us what exactly it is. I think he referred to population, figures in any case which should include people not working in this country. The figures which I have quoted come from a written parliamentary answer which I received on 23 February from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, reporting the Office for National Statistics figures, which was the number of EU A8 nationals working in this country. I said 470,000. That was the figure I gave. The reason I gave that was because I asked the question and it came from the Office for National Statistics. The point I want to put to the Minister is: is it not important that we should have the Office for National Statistics there as an independent body, who the public can put confidence in as being free from politicians' interference. Does the Minister have confidence in the ONS figure?

Mr Woolas: Yes, but I think the interpretation of figures and the confusion, deliberate or otherwise, of the difference between population and working population and the difference between non-UK born and EU Member State nationality does confuse the analysis. That is why your Committee's deliberations are very helpful and timely.

Chairman: We have danced around the statistics quite a bit. We did come to ask the Minister about the migration of workers, particularly in our interests, in the context of EU enlargement. I think we have raised and put on the record a number of serious doubts about the sources of the information, particularly for the Romanian and Bulgarian population that is here. If those figures put on the record are the ones people are using, they seem to be very large compared with the assertion by the Minister for the Secretary of State for BERR. It is a very small number and not significant at all. They will have to be looked at in some detail and maybe someone else will come back to them at a later date.

Q39 Kelvin Hopkins: People may disagree but the IPPR used to be an independent, left of centre research organisation. Now it is a new Labour front. Secondly, I am probably alone in not believing in free movement and it looks like the European Union is moving in my direction because most countries move from free access for the A8 to restrictions for the A2. Was it not the case that the government predicted that when free access was given to the A8 20,000 people would come to Britain and indeed 20 or 30 times that amount of people came in, in the end, and that was what changed minds?

Mr Woolas: The 13,000 estimate related to migrants, not visitors. A migrant is defined by the ONS. The ONS definition is someone who intends to stay for more than 12 months. The 13,000 estimate related to net migration - i.e., inflow minus outflow - and to longer term migrants - i.e., those coming for over a year. The IPS passport data reflects arrivals only. We would therefore have to count people going the other way from the UK to the A8 to have a comparable figure. Since we do not have data for this at the moment we cannot do a simple comparison. The 13,000 figure was never an official Home Office estimate. It was done on a piece of research undertaken by University College, London, amongst a number of other estimates which helped to inform the government's decision on free movement of workers. It was broadly in line with other studies across Europe, most of which suggested that the numbers coming in would not be very large. The 13,000 estimate did not take account of policy developments elsewhere - i.e., in other Member States. That is the hindsight lesson.

Kelvin Hopkins: I do not know whether you are able to answer these questions because it might not be within your purview. The Posting of Workers Directive: rulings were made in the cases of Laval and Viking-Line by the European Court of Justice which caused great concern amongst trade unions across Europe and indeed at the ETUC. Do you share their concerns?

Q40 Chairman: The question is whether you feel that this is an area in which you have any opinion and any remit.

Mr Woolas: You are very kind. It is not my policy lead.

Q41 Chairman: You think the Posting of Workers Directive is outwith your remit?

Mr Woolas: It is outwith my remit. It is of course a factor that we have to take into account in our analysis but it is not our lead.

Q42 Kelvin Hopkins: It is something I raised with Lord Mandelson on Monday. Many trade unions across Europe have become deeply concerned that there has been what seems like a quantum shift from being even handed between employers and employees to taking the side of the employers in these rulings; and that trade unionists are now becoming more Eurosceptic and they were indeed a factor in the Irish no votes and before that the French and the Dutch no votes as well. Do you share the concerns that these decisions are going to make unity in the European Union more difficult?

Mr Woolas: Yes, in honesty. That is my own personal view. The employment ministers, as I understand it, in the December meeting agreed that they would look at the implication of these judgments with the European TUC and with businesses. They are meeting on 20 March to look at this point in light of the concerns that Mr Hopkins has raised.

Q43 Kelvin Hopkins: Going back to the free movement question, I imagine you would speak with your counterparts in other European Union Member States. Are they concerned about these very substantial movements of Palestinians across their frontiers or are they more relaxed about free movement than perhaps we are?

Mr Woolas: Speaking frankly, I think the ball is bouncing towards concern. In deliberations on policy, this Committee is looking at workers' movement. In general migration policy - as we were talking about before - one has to look at asylum or economic migration movement as well. The fact of the matter is that the European Union is moving towards a more pragmatic, Anglo-Saxon based view of things, particularly in the light of global movements from Africa, West Africa, East Africa, the Middle East and so on. Frontex, the cooperative body of border controls within the European Union, is increasingly influential and increasingly important. One only has to look at migration movement across the Mediterranean to see that that is the case. Being very honest and frank with the Committee, my own assessment - and I am new to this job - is that the spectrum of opinion has widened but the centre of gravity has shifted.

Q44 Kelvin Hopkins: We have been through an era of an extremely liberal view about these matters when we got rid of border controls and now we are reinstating border controls, which I strongly support and I hope that many others would too. Is that likely to happen elsewhere, especially given those countries with land borders where it might be more difficult?

Mr Woolas: Schengen changes the colour of the spectacle through which most EMS states look at the situation. I think the reaction to a number of court judgments and to the reality of global movement and in other related areas, such as Customs and smuggling, is that there is a general move across the European Union towards that policy of more border controls. The most important development has been the European Union Africa migrancy pact which essentially recognises that, if you look at EC policy on migration, the primary purpose of EC policy is the development of the economies of the countries of origin. Ultimately, to paraphrase one of my colleagues, you can put as much barbed wire up as you like but you have to solve the problem at cause.

Q45 Mr Laxton: Sticking with the Posting of Workers Directive, about two or three months ago the Commission established a committee of experts to have a look at the Posting of Workers Directive. We are required to take up two seats on that committee. Have you any views on the work of that committee or what the view of government should be? A personal view maybe, if it is not directly within your brief?

Mr Woolas: We do not have a view within the Home Office. I do not have a developed view personally on the issue. The way in which this is going is that the expansion of the European Union is bringing out the differences. Crudely put, Jacques Delors' speech in 1988 was for a European Union that was much smaller. Moving together with 27 is a different kettle of fish to moving together with what were then 12.

Q46 Chairman: Thank you very much for coming along. Can I just ask you to sum up? You seem to be saying that you fully support the analysis of the paper on the impact of free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement; that it has had only a marginal impact on employment prospects for those in the countries to which people have migrated. You seem to also say that it was a beneficial process in the UK. Do you think that will continue in the present economic climate?

Mr Woolas: I think that the overall impact is beneficial. One would have to look at regional and local impacts. You could not in all cases say that there was value added with certainty. I am not suggesting that there is evidence to the contrary but I think one would have to look at the immigration impact, social as well as economic. Overall, we support the analysis that shows that it is beneficial. We believe that there is, other things being equal, a diminishing return on that. We believe that the current economic situation will present us with unknown quantities of people and activity in the future, which is why we are cautious and why we believe that the migration controls that I was mentioning before, in answer to Mr Steen, are increasingly important. We were doing them anyway but we think they are increasingly important. We are keen to put into the debate the other side of the coin which I characterise as the Auf Wiedersehn Pet point, which is that many of my constituents work within other European Union Member States. All of these policies can be reciprocal. I urge caution in looking at that. This is a report about the 27, not about the one, that the European Commission has presented us with. Overall, we support the analysis that it has been beneficial. We proceed with the benefit of hindsight for future potential accession.

Chairman: Thank you very much. We intend issuing this report for a debate in the European Committee which of course, as you know, can be attended by every Member of the House of Commons to question the appropriate minister and also to speak on the issue. We will have a second chance if it is you who goes along to speak on this policy to a larger audience than this.

Q47 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: My question arises out of the controls that you do have on non-EEA immigration. You will be aware that a number of work permits are not being renewed, are being withheld or withdrawn for existing workers from outside the EEA, presumably to make way for higher immigration from the EEA area. The group I have in mind are Filipino nurses who integrate extremely well. They speak English. They are very suited to the jobs in hospitals and care homes. Is it in line with your policy for community harmony and economic integration to deny immigration to a very suitable group of workers from outside to be replaced by people from within the EEA who do not speak the same language and may be less suitable? Is this not a distortion in our policy which is forced on you?

Mr Woolas: That is not our policy. A2 allows those nurses to remain.

Chairman: You have some support with you. Can I thank Emma Churchill, Nigel Farminer and Ragnar Clifford for attending with you at this meeting.