Another one from garry on Keith Best's thoughtful pronouncements!
IAS Chief Executive Keith Best calls for integration of migrant labour remittances and development aid - 18 Jul 2006
We should see temporary labour migration as a part of development aid in view of the remittances and the use they can be put to improving countries of origin - there is a need for joined up thinking by the Government
Speaking at a major policy conference on the benefits of migration to the UK entitled “MIGRATION: WORKING FOR THE UK?” organised by the Migration Alliance (of which he is Co-Chair) at the Lewis Media Centre, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London sponsored by UNISON and supported by the CRE on Tuesday 18 July 2006 Keith Best said:
“Official development aid has always been bedevilled by corruption in recipient countries. Only recently the Africa all-party Parliamentary Committee called for anti-corruption legislation this year which has been rejected by the Government. We know from the World Bank’s survey that remittances from foreign workers worldwide exceed official development aid and amount to some US$167 billion.
“Apart from the obvious benefits to the UK economy of foreign migrant workers in filling vacancies that employers otherwise cannot fill and contributing taxes (which would be boosted by at least £1 billion if irregular migrant workers were regularised) we should look at the benefit to the workers, their families and their countries of origin as part of Britain’s wider responsibilities. While in the UK they enhance their skills and learn better English which makes them more marketable anywhere. They also send as much as half their earnings back home. How can that be better utilised? Such remittances are more effective than official development aid in so far as they are used directly in the economy of the country of origin and are not subject to being sliced through corruption and management fees.
“Most of these workers do not want permanent settlement although we should have the grace to offer it after five years (recently increased from four by the Government) irrespective of whether they are highly skilled or not. The Government’s proposals under the points based system will deny Tier 3, so-called low skilled workers, the opportunity ever to gain a right of permanent residence or indefinite leave to remain unlike the present situation. Apart from being appallingly discriminatory against those who are needed to run the economy by doing the sort of lower skilled jobs that the indigenous workforce cannot be found or choose no to do the distinction between the high skilled and the low skilled is often illusory – many of the so-called low skilled have qualifications and skills that may not be used or recognised in the UK.
“The International Organization for Migration paper in its Migration Research Series entitled Dynamics of Remittance Utilization in Bangladesh of January 2005 show that remittances have increased dramatically and are carried out in several different ways and as much as 50% are sent informally through the hundi system (payment to third parties in country of work for other third parties to pay in the country of origin), 5 per cent through friends and relatives and 8 per cent hand carried by migrants themselves. Most Bengalis who work abroad go to the Middle East not the UK. A study by Mahmood in 1991 of 510 Bangladeshi returnees from Japan who had households in Munshgonj and Dhaka revealed that migrants send up to 80 per cent of their income home. It is a complex pattern but one which benefits both the country of origin and the country of work as well as enhancing the skills of the migrants themselves. Most remittances are spent on consumption – the challenge for the countries involved is how to encourage investment in infrastructure. Bangladesh has created tax free zones for such investment – the British Government should respond by allowing tax relief on such remittances."
