European Union (Accessions) Bill

I want to speak in favour of the amendment. I am in favour of migration in general. My constituency might have more migrants from the 10 countries that acceded last year than any other. We have a vibrant Polish community and we are home to the excellent Polish cultural centre. Both parts of the amendment are extremely sensible. The first part would ensure that an assessment takes place no later than four months before the accession. That is not fundamentally different from what happened last year, when the Home Office announced the worker registration scheme on 23 February 2004, in advance of accession. In other words, an assessment was, rightly, made at that time, and the rules were changed slightly. It would be sensible to make an assessment four months in advance to judge what the effects are likely to be based on how the previous accession has gone, and so on. The second part of the amendment would ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny of the system. That does not mean that we should review the two countries’ membership of the European Union but that we should review worker registration from those two countries over a period of seven years. That is an eminently sensible provision. If we are to have the worker registration scheme, it is sensible to use the data that arise from it to see whether it is working properly. Last year, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), said:"““The purpose of the scheme is to allow us to track properly our commitment. It will give good information to the authorities and the Home Office about how, in practice, the right to work of people from accession countries is operating.””" She went on:"““We have a good pattern of what is happening, and if, against all expectations, there were adverse impacts on our labour markets—let me reiterate that we do not expect that—we could act immediately to re-impose restrictions.—[Official Report, 2 March 2004; Vol. 418, c. 876.]" The basis of the worker registration scheme was sensible, and we should use the data from it to monitor whether it is working in practice. I do not say that because I believe that a flood of people will come in from Bulgaria and Romania. I think that a healthy number of people will come to this country bringing very useful skills. However, it would set a good precedent to do this now for the purposes of future EU accession. If, say, Turkey or Russia become EU accession countries, there may be genuine concerns about a very large number of people coming into this country and distorting our labour market. It would be useful to have a precedent in place to ensure that Parliament assesses the likely impact of the accession four months beforehand and then monitors the actual impact every six months for seven years. It is better to set that in stone in 2005 rather than some point in the future when large countries may join the EU. The amendment is sensible and I hope that the Government will support it. It ensures extra parliamentary scrutiny, which is always a good thing.