I understand the argument, but a balance must be struck. If we were to have a regularisation scheme, the question is what would it look like? A blanket amnesty, which says, ““If you are here working illegally, come forward and we will give you indefinite leave to remain,”” could become a magnet. I am sure that the Minister has seen the report on the subject by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and the suggestions from unions such as the Transport and General Workers Union. They discuss a scheme that would consider the length of time that somebody had been in the country. In the first instance, the scheme would not provide indefinite leave to remain, but regularise their position and provide them with temporary legality, thus allowing them to earn indefinite leave to remain.
A scheme along those lines has real merit and is worth serious consideration. There will be a real problem if we introduce a points scheme that allows no route for an unskilled person who comes to this country to obtain indefinite leave to remain. There are large numbers of people here illegally, often in low skilled jobs—that is certainly true of London’s economy—whom we know we will never remove, because their numbers have built up over the years.
Other countries have had regularisation schemes. Indeed, this country has had a whole series—we call them concessions. We have had a concession for people with children who have been in the country for seven years and a family concession for failed asylum seekers, so there is nothing new about us having concessions to deal with big backlogs. However, we have never had concessions around work, and that is something that we should be seriously considering. If we do not, I suspect that the problem will fester, which will make it much more difficult to introduce a proper managed migration scheme. In introducing and talking about managed migration, the Government have started a debate and started to move towards a policy that is long overdue. I very much welcome that change in policy, but the problem that I have described is one of the big holes in it.
Immigration Control
Proceeding contribution from
Neil Gerrard
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Thursday, 2 November 2006.
It occurred during Adjournment debate on Immigration Control.
About this proceeding contribution
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451 c158WH Session
2005-06Chamber / Committee
Westminster HallSubjects
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