My Lords, what evidence are the French basing this view on? The academic evidence that I am aware of, and certainly the evidence that the JCHR draws attention to, does
not support the view that public funds, or welfare more widely, somehow acts as a pull factor. The pull factors were set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud —family commitments, language and so on—and the evidence shows that the push factors are much more important. I would be very interested to know what evidence the French base this on because it may well be just reading our newspapers, which is probably not very good evidence.