Avoiding Windrush II

by LAUREN CODLING

UK MINISTERS should introduce an annual migration report based on a public consultation,

Yvette Cooper MP, the chair of the powerful Home Affairs Select Committee, has said, as the Conservative government grapples with reducing the number of immigrants arriving in the UK each year.

Labour MP Cooper, who heads the influential cross-party parliamentary group, also recommended replacing the government’s current net migration target with an evidence-based framework and different targets of control, including dropping student numbers from the final figures.

On recent reports relating to more than 1,000 highly skilled migrants in the UK, including professionals from India and Pakistan, at risk of deportation due to minor errors on their tax status, Cooper said it is an issue the committee is pursuing.

“We have asked the Home Office to review those cases as we are very concerned about whether that means people who are very skilled and contributing to this country for many years are being caught up with mistakes and problems in immigration system,”

Cooper told Eastern Eye in an exclusive interview. There were also concerns regarding the Home Office’s approach on immigration post Brexit, including potentially “ineffective” register applications in which to secure the immigration status of EU citizens, she said.

On the prospect of an annual report, Cooper said it would be based on a large-scale public discussion, and would work in a similar way to the government’s yearly budget. “The report would be based on evidence from a strengthened and more independent migration advisory committee, just as the Treasury has to take account of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR),” she revealed at the National Conversation on Immigration conference hosted by British Future last Thursday (17).

“We said that the report should not just be about immigration, but it should look at issues around skill shortages, issues around the labour market, issues around exploitation...and how you also make sure there’s increased support for local communities.”

The recommendations come as the Home Office is still handling the aftermath of the Windrush revelations, in which the generation, who were invited to the UK from the West Indies between 1948 and the early 1970s to help rebuild the country, have been wrongly threatened with deportation.

Last week, home secretary Sajid Javid admitted up to 63 Windrush citizens may have been wrongly removed from the UK.

Cooper has said the committee are continuing to pursue why issues regarding the Windrush generation were never addressed.

“Everyone agrees that what has happened is deeply wrong and the government has rightly apologised and rightly tried to rectify, but we will keep pursuing why it went so badly wrong and what needs to be done,” Cooper said.

Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, the government has pledged to cut net migration to tens of thousands per year. The targeting stemmed from a “hostile environment” immigration policy pioneered by prime minister Theresa May when she was home secretary between 2010 and 2016.

Cooper said the Windrush scandal “strengthened [her] views” that the net migration targets are ineffective and treat all immigration the same.

“You have a system at the moment which has incentives for the Home Office to try and get people to leave the country whether they are here legally or not in order to meet the net migration target,” she said. “That makes absolutely no sense and it’s unsurprising that injustices happen.”

She also emphasised that international students and refugees should not be counted as migrants. The Labour politician, who was the former shadow-home secretary from 2011 to 2015, showed further concern that the Home Office did not have the resources or system in place to register the three million EU residents as part of the immigration process, post Brexit.

So far, the Home Office has said the legal status of EU citizens will not depend on whether you were a resident of the UK before Brexit, it will depend on whether you have officially registered.

The committee has raised significant concerns about this; even if the Home Office system worked effectively, there are those who do not register or may find it difficult to register for a variety of reasons, including British-born children of EU parents who do not know they need to register them as citizens; long-term residents who may not realise they need to register; elderly citizens or those who may be vulnerable, or individuals who have literacy issues and may struggle with the registration process.

“What the Windrush crisis should make clear to the Home Office…they should be seeing their responsibility to uphold and protect the rights that citizens have, not rights dependent on a registration process, but rights that they genuinely have because of having lived here for many years,” Cooper said. “It’s crucial to what happens to our country over the

next few years.”

Next month marks two years since the EU referendum vote and also the anniversary of fellow politician Jo Cox’s murder by far-right activist Thomas Mair. Cooper pledged it is “possible” to overcome tensions and divisions within UK society.

“There are some fantastic examples right across the country of people overcoming tensions and divisions and having a positive, diverse and strong community culture, but you have to work at it and never take it for granted,” she said. “Never just think you can ignore hatred and extremism when it arises.”