Parliament’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee has called for better coordination between departments on managing migration and communicating the government’s over-arching plans.
The House of Lords panel says the Home Office responds to immigration and settlement issues primarily through the lens of net migration and labour market considerations – which is out of step with voter sentiment.
“This fundamentally misses the issue that concerns public opinion, namely the impact of immigration and settlement on public services and their communities,” peers said.
The committee wants to see a triennial “spending-review style” document that is jointly owned by the Home Office and the Cabinet Office. It would reflect the priorities of different government departments, the devolved nations, and local government in relation to migration, and be updated on a yearly basis.
“This will provide clarity and reassurance to the public, alongside ensuring that different bodies work more closely together,” peers said. “This plan would be qualitative rather than quantitative, focusing on the principles guiding the government’s migration and settlement decisions, and outlining predicted impacts of policy decisions rather than proposing a cap or estimate of numbers.”
Peers warn that “woefully inadequate” data on migration, as well as a failure to accurately predict its long-term impacts, hampers the “already complex and controversial” topics of settlement, citizenship and integration in the UK.
Their report says the Home Office should restart publishing data on exit checks as a matter of urgency, to clarify the number of migrants who are in the UK and the number of overstayers. Publication of exit-check data ceased in 2020.
The majority of the committee also opposed measures set out last year by home secretary Shabana Mahmood that would extend the baseline qualifying time for migrants to obtain indefinite leave to remain in this country.
Committee members also said they are “not convinced” that the Home Office will be able to deliver the new system set out in the immigration white paper without additional staffing. They said the lack of a public staffing impact assessment was a source of regret.
Elsewhere in the report, peers voiced disappointment over the Home Office’s “limited engagement” with their inquiry. They said no written evidence had been provided by the department and secretary of state Mahmood had been unable to give evidence in person due to “diary pressures”.
Peers said the Home Office’s approach “does not suggest a co-ordinated department with clear lines of responsibility, nor one that welcomes a critical friend”.
Committee chair Don Foster said the panel is proud the UK is a place that so many wish to call their home, but conscious that there are many people in this country who are “alienated and discomfited” by the change in their communities.
“How governments, migrants, and the receiving society conduct themselves matters at least as much as how many people migrate to the UK and from where,” Lord Foster said. “But this focus on settlement and integration is often lost in discussion around migration.
“We need better data on who is, and is not, in the UK, and better data on migrant outcomes, to see the full picture of how migration affects the country and whether people are integrating. Without this picture, misinformation becomes rife.
“We need a settlement system that promotes integration, and which shows that integration is a two-way street. The government needs to ensure migrants have the tools and opportunities they need to become part of British society, including opportunities to work and learn English. Migrants need to take those opportunities.
“We also need a government that plans ahead on migration, rather than just reacting to it.
“Settlement, citizenship and integration policy presents complex issues, but they are not impossible. We can and must do better.”
Civil Service World sought a response from the Home Office.