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States Greffe: Scrutiny
Senator John Le Fondré Chief Minister
8th February 2021 Dear Chief Minister,
Migration and Population Review Panel Review of Migration Control Policy (Phase 1)
Following the Migration and Population Review Panel Public Hearing held on Friday 5th February 2021 a number of the Panel's questions remained outstanding. As agreed with you and your officers at the conclusion of the hearing, the remaining questions are now forwarded as below.
- What preliminary work, aside from the work of the Migration Policy Development Board, have you undertaken with the Council of Ministers to begin work on a Common Population Policy?
a. What influence will Assistant Ministers and non-executive Members have on creating the Common Population Policy?
- Are you optimistic that a Common Population Policy can be delivered in the time this Assembly has left?
- How will you monitor, track and account for the interests of various departments when creating the common policy?
a. Will performance indicators and similar standards of reporting be published and provided to the Assembly on a regular basis to help understand how the Common Population Policy may or should evolve?
- Are you minded of any major changes that could be made to the proposed policy when considering the effects of Brexit and COVID-19? What work has been undertaken to simulate the effect these issues may have on the development of a Common Population Policy?
- Do you believe that it is suitable to bring these changes now, given the need to attract further investment in the Island as a result of Brexit and COVID-19?
- How has his tied into the development of the proposed changes, and how will you appropriately weight consideration of these issues when developing the final policy?
- How will the use of employment statistics influence the development of this policy and how will you ensure that it is given enough priority?
- What resources have or will be committed to tracking and compiling research on migration into the UK and other relevant jurisdictions, particularly in relation to the issues of Brexit and COVID-19, to improve an understanding of the overall effects of these issues?
- What projections have been created and used to understand housing category demand and its links to Island population?
a. How will you ensure that policy areas, such as those raised in our recent hearing, are not siloed, and that Housing and Work policies retain consistency across work programmes?
- How are you liaising with businesses and community stakeholders on the proposed changes?
- How are you liaising with members of the public on this issue? Will individual islanders who are not representative of businesses or community stakeholders be able to give their views?
- Will a stakeholder list be published or shared with the Panel?
- Do you believe that, given the current issues surrounding the Pandemic, economic recovery, and other areas, that the Next Steps' timetable outlined on page 38 of the proposition remains accurate, and will a new timetable be issued as soon as possible should delays become apparent?
a. How much work has been completed on the development and implementation of the new IT system for the associated operational processing and collation of migration data? Can we expect the system to be in place by the projected month of September 2021?
- How will the review of migrant access to government funded services be conducted? What is its overall aim and policy target?
- You also propose a separate workstream to "consider the impact of the proposed CHW changes on family life and children" (page 8). Please could you outline the details of this workstream and how you intend to ensure that it will have enough of an impact on the creation of a final policy?
- What role will key stakeholders, such as the Children's Commissioner, play in the creation of a final policy?
- Has consideration been given to the consequences of the limitations on family members visiting and the potential impact on the diversification of the workforce given that the system will favour single workers without dependents?
- Please could you provide a clear breakdown on the costs of work permits and immigration costs and clarify whether these are cost neutral or aim to raise revenue.
- Will there be any discretion in the application of the issuing of permits to different industry sectors at any given time as a result of demand and, if so, how will it be applied and who will be making those decisions.
Please could you provide full responses to these questions by no later than Thursday 11th February 2021.
Yours sincerely.
Senator Steve Pallett
Chair, Migration and Population Review Panel