Migration - What's Driving The Small Boat Journey?

[00:00:00] The Why Curve, Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing

[00:00:04] The Rwanda Bill is Law

[00:00:05] The first flights will start in weeks or will they?

[00:00:09] Not even Tory MPs seem convinced of that or even that it's going to make any difference

[00:00:13] to the numbers coming across the channel in small boats.

[00:00:16] The last 20 years have been filled with failed initiatives to curb migration.

[00:00:20] So why don't they work?

[00:00:21] Do we need to understand what is it that drives people to make these desperate journeys?

[00:00:26] What if anything could stop people drowning in the channel as they try to make it to the UK?

[00:00:32] The Why Curve

[00:00:35] So the interesting thing is that this is a big issue as far as Rishi Sunak is concerned.

[00:00:41] So I thought well let's go and have a look and see how important it is to the people of Britain

[00:00:44] you know given that we are absolutely in the election.

[00:00:48] Well yes, so you go there you're on a weekly poll on the most important issues

[00:00:51] that people see affecting the country.

[00:00:53] This week in 2011 51% said immigration and asylum seekers were a big issue.

[00:01:00] This last week that's down to 38%.

[00:01:02] So it's really slid down the scale.

[00:01:05] It's not as important.

[00:01:06] Back then it was the second biggest issue after the economy now it's been overtaken by health.

[00:01:10] It's still a big issue and that it's the third place.

[00:01:13] So a third of the population is still worried about it.

[00:01:16] But if you look at it by age, obviously it's an age thing.

[00:01:20] 59% of those aged 65 plus are worried about it compared to 27% of those aged 25 to 49.

[00:01:27] Just 16% of those aged 18 to 24 are worried about it.

[00:01:30] What do they know?

[00:01:31] Well the thing is it is an issue in one sense.

[00:01:35] I mean even whatever one's view of it, you know people obviously getting into boats and

[00:01:39] dying coming across is a bad thing.

[00:01:42] That's pretty self-evident.

[00:01:44] The question then is how, if and how you restrict it, if you do, and in what form that would

[00:01:51] actually work.

[00:01:52] I mean legal migration as we've said on this show before is way, way ahead.

[00:01:59] Hundreds of thousands, 600,000 I think.

[00:02:01] Whereas the illegal migration as the Tories would call it, that many people would fight

[00:02:05] that distinction is in the sense of first...

[00:02:08] It's a regular rival.

[00:02:09] It's a regular rival.

[00:02:10] It's an official term not the less politically charged term.

[00:02:14] The question is why is it all of a sudden happen?

[00:02:17] Yes.

[00:02:18] If you go back to...

[00:02:19] Why across the world it's true, it's not just here.

[00:02:20] So Home Officer, I've got more numbers for you.

[00:02:22] I've piled high with numbers this week.

[00:02:24] Please, please.

[00:02:25] You're pleased to know.

[00:02:26] Up to and including the 23rd of April, the latest so far this year, 6,667 people

[00:02:32] arrived by small boats.

[00:02:33] The same period last year it was 5,546.

[00:02:37] So this year already we are 20% higher than we were last year.

[00:02:40] The same period two years ago was 6,691.

[00:02:43] So pretty much the same as where we are now.

[00:02:45] So we had that big drop last year because lots were returned to Albania.

[00:02:50] Yes, that kind of a lot there.

[00:02:52] But now we're back to where we were two years ago.

[00:02:54] But if you go back to 2019, the year before the pandemic, guess what the number was?

[00:02:59] Small boat arrivals.

[00:03:00] 261.

[00:03:01] The year before that it was 7.

[00:03:05] So this...

[00:03:06] What is going on?

[00:03:07] Either there's some sort of redefinition or there's just an explosion of people traffic.

[00:03:13] People want to come.

[00:03:14] I mean, I suppose you could say that the world over the last 20 years, particularly in areas

[00:03:18] relatively near to Britain, I suppose Middle East, Africa, it's got pretty grim.

[00:03:23] It was grim before but it's got a lot of grim in a lot of countries.

[00:03:26] Syria being obvious one.

[00:03:28] Ethiopia, Sudan now.

[00:03:31] People want to find a better life.

[00:03:32] I've got more numbers.

[00:03:33] I'll tell you where they're coming from.

[00:03:34] Go on then.

[00:03:35] Come on.

[00:03:37] These are figures for the last full year of 2023.

[00:03:39] Nationality of the arrivals of these irregular arrivals, which is mainly small boats.

[00:03:44] It does include people who come and somehow smuggle away on planes or whatever, but that's

[00:03:48] a very small percentage.

[00:03:49] 19% Afghanistan, 12% Iran, 10% Turkey, 9% Eritrea.

[00:03:54] So those four countries account for half of all arrivals themselves.

[00:03:58] Then 9% Iran, 8% Syria, 5% Sudan.

[00:04:03] So a big chunk of it is Afghanistan and Iran basically.

[00:04:06] We know what we, in some ways of course there.

[00:04:09] Yes, exactly.

[00:04:10] But no, I mean the question is why people want to come?

[00:04:14] What do they expect?

[00:04:15] What would it, I mean in the sense if you think that you can't, you could just open the

[00:04:19] doors and say fine come do what you want, that's one way forward or you restrict,

[00:04:23] but if you restrict what you want to do is stop people pushing so hard to come

[00:04:28] that they end up dying in the channel.

[00:04:30] And the question is what is it that motivates these people to come and therefore I suppose

[00:04:35] what might deter them or give them reason not to?

[00:04:38] Yeah.

[00:04:39] That's the best way to deal with this.

[00:04:41] So it's hard, isn't it?

[00:04:42] It is.

[00:04:43] And whether Ruranda is going to make any difference because I love the fact that

[00:04:47] Ruranda is a safe place.

[00:04:48] We've had very nice accommodation we've seen, you know, we've seen nicely.

[00:04:51] We have comprehensively demonstrated on this very show that there's anything

[00:04:55] about.

[00:04:56] Yeah, we have and yet you know the way it's being portrayed there's

[00:05:00] nothing to worry about.

[00:05:00] And we've declared that Ruranda, I mean by an act of law, Ruranda is a safe

[00:05:04] country now forever until that law is repealed.

[00:05:08] Absolutely.

[00:05:09] And and then we've been shown it's a nice place to live because we've

[00:05:12] shown you know we've seen the accommodation which looks lovely.

[00:05:15] I wouldn't mind going there on holiday.

[00:05:17] So I think there's a lot of people coming over.

[00:05:21] Can I go to Ruranda please rather than sending me off to the

[00:05:24] Bibby Stocko in Dorset?

[00:05:25] It seems to make no difference whatsoever in terms of the way people

[00:05:29] think about it.

[00:05:29] That's all the evidence is on the ground.

[00:05:30] But let's let's talk to someone who has studied in depth the reasoning

[00:05:33] behind people's moves, why they do this and therefore potentially I

[00:05:37] suppose what might affect their choices.

[00:05:39] And that's Dr. Jessica Hargan Zanker who's a senior research

[00:05:42] fellow at the ODI research group looking into these kind of issues.

[00:05:46] So to Jessica we were just running over some numbers there about how

[00:05:49] the number of people arriving in the country by small boats has

[00:05:53] just mushroomed since the pandemic.

[00:05:56] So have you got a theory on why that's happening?

[00:06:00] So one of the explanations as to why the number of people arriving by

[00:06:04] small boats has mushroomed is because are their channels closed?

[00:06:10] So it's not like people didn't used to come to the UK.

[00:06:13] They just used to take different ways of getting here.

[00:06:17] So people used to come over on ferries or in the back of lorries

[00:06:23] or even sometimes on the Euro tunnel and the euros for the euro

[00:06:29] star I meant, but the Euro tunnel and also ferries are policed much

[00:06:34] more heavily. It's much, much harder to actually get on those.

[00:06:39] So people have started reverting to other ways of getting to the UK.

[00:06:45] And there just isn't a way to apply for asylum

[00:06:50] outside of the UK and then get to the UK.

[00:06:55] And also other legal migration pathways are quite hard to get on to.

[00:07:00] They're also really expensive.

[00:07:02] So people are just reverting to this route to actually make it to the UK

[00:07:08] and they want to come to the UK for many reasons.

[00:07:10] I was going to say, yeah, well, that was going to be my question.

[00:07:12] Why the UK? I mean, if you've made it all the way through Europe,

[00:07:16] if I could live anywhere, I'd choose the south of France personally.

[00:07:19] So what is it?

[00:07:20] What is this driving people?

[00:07:21] You know, it's the the the pull factor of leads or because we should say,

[00:07:26] I think I've read your article, right?

[00:07:27] You're very interesting article in the conversation, which suggests

[00:07:30] you've taken part in sort of service and finding out really what people

[00:07:33] and what motivates people talking to some of these people,

[00:07:35] getting a sense of what's driving them.

[00:07:37] So so just give us a bit of a view on that.

[00:07:40] Yes. So I think we need to break down between the kind of reasons

[00:07:44] why people leave in the first place, which are often quite different.

[00:07:48] And then how they select their destinations.

[00:07:52] Those are kind of distinct parts of a decision making process.

[00:07:57] And also, for example, the process around or the decision

[00:08:03] around where to go can often actually change and mutate over time.

[00:08:09] So people leave their countries of origin for many reasons,

[00:08:13] for safety, because they're looking for work opportunities,

[00:08:18] because they want to join family or maybe they want a better future

[00:08:22] for their family or educational opportunities.

[00:08:26] Or some people just want an adventure and migration is not about

[00:08:32] one of these factors, it's usually about many factors all at once.

[00:08:37] So, for example, in our research, we found that being a male

[00:08:41] or being being a man makes you more likely to migrate

[00:08:45] in addition to being dissatisfied with your life as a whole.

[00:08:51] In addition to having experienced corruption,

[00:08:55] in addition to maybe being more wealthy than others in your community

[00:09:00] and also in addition to knowing am I going to abroad?

[00:09:03] So it's all of these factors that come together

[00:09:06] that then lead to someone maybe making the decision to migrate.

[00:09:10] It's not just one of these factors.

[00:09:12] So it's not people whose lives are necessarily in danger in that case.

[00:09:15] It's people, as you say, seeking adventure.

[00:09:18] That's interesting or seeking economic improvement or seeking economic opportunities.

[00:09:23] So it can be so safety and fleeing, fleeing conflict,

[00:09:28] violence is obviously a key factor for for many people that are fleeing.

[00:09:34] But even for those people, the economic factors often very much

[00:09:37] intermerged with the safety and conflict factors,

[00:09:41] because living in living in an area that sees a lot of violence,

[00:09:47] conflict war obviously also means that you're living somewhere

[00:09:50] where you cannot work very easily right now,

[00:09:54] where maybe the schools aren't running and where it's difficult to get around.

[00:09:58] So even for people who are fleeing violence and conflict,

[00:10:03] there's often other factors that play a role as well.

[00:10:06] Yeah, well, 20 almost 20 percent of those irregular arrivals

[00:10:10] as the Home Office likes to call them, which is better than illegal arrivals.

[00:10:13] I guess 20, almost 20 percent came from Afghanistan and 12 percent came from Iran.

[00:10:18] So, I mean, clearly these are people who are not necessarily looking for a better,

[00:10:22] well, they are looking for a better standard of living,

[00:10:24] but their standard of living obviously isn't that great.

[00:10:27] And there would be.

[00:10:28] Well, except that you said that they have to have the means

[00:10:31] or often the characteristic is they do have the means to be able to do it.

[00:10:35] They're a bit more money than the average perhaps.

[00:10:37] And that's an indicator as well.

[00:10:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:40] So what we've found is that and this isn't necessarily very new.

[00:10:45] It's not the poorest of the poor who leave.

[00:10:47] It's people who are able to finance their migration journey.

[00:10:52] And these migration journeys can often be extremely expensive,

[00:10:57] much more expensive than just getting a plane ticket from Afghanistan to the UK.

[00:11:04] And they can often also take a long time because it's broken up

[00:11:09] into into different segments.

[00:11:12] So it's not the poorest of the poor.

[00:11:14] It tends to be wealthier people.

[00:11:16] We also found that people who live in poorer communities

[00:11:22] are less able to migrate, but they're also less, in a way,

[00:11:27] inspired or aspire to migrate.

[00:11:30] So they have lower migration aspirations.

[00:11:33] So migration just doesn't really feature as part of

[00:11:37] if the package of things they can potentially do,

[00:11:41] which is super interesting that you would expect people who live in the poorer

[00:11:46] communities are more likely to want to want to leave.

[00:11:50] But we actually find the opposite.

[00:11:52] They're less likely to want to leave.

[00:11:55] But it's odd in a way because you think

[00:11:56] well, people with the means and perhaps I guess education as well

[00:12:01] might be able to find legal ways of going to other countries,

[00:12:05] not necessarily just Britain or the European Union,

[00:12:07] which wouldn't involve these very difficult and highly expensive

[00:12:12] methods and dangerous methods that we see being used.

[00:12:16] Yeah, I guess so when I'm speaking about wealthier people

[00:12:20] or people who are better off, that's relatively speaking.

[00:12:23] And that's also comparing them to other people in their community of origin.

[00:12:29] Migrating legally, I think can be quite challenging,

[00:12:34] at least on the kind of pathways that are available for many people

[00:12:39] in many destination countries, including the UK,

[00:12:44] because work permits can be extremely expensive.

[00:12:49] The processes can be very bureaucratic and protracted.

[00:12:53] And if someone in Afghanistan is in a position where it's

[00:12:58] and if the economic circumstances alongside being potentially in acute

[00:13:03] danger come together, it means they're definitely not going to

[00:13:09] to find out how our legal migration pathway works and spent

[00:13:15] spent the time waiting for a work permit to come through.

[00:13:18] But obviously people would just leave straight away.

[00:13:23] So something I also wanted to come back to before was that

[00:13:29] that's why we also see migration journeys that are kind of start and stop

[00:13:35] journeys that people initially leave to get to a semi safe place.

[00:13:40] They try to make a life for themselves there.

[00:13:43] So for Afghanis that could be Iran, for example,

[00:13:47] or for Syrians that could be Lebanon or Turkey.

[00:13:49] And people often live there for many years and try to make a life for

[00:13:53] themselves, try to work or do work,

[00:13:57] but just don't really manage to get anywhere to

[00:14:02] to build a promising life for their kids.

[00:14:04] And that's when they then decide to move on.

[00:14:07] That's really, really interesting.

[00:14:09] I'm going to stop you there because this suggestion,

[00:14:11] because it pays into the the notion of migration in the first place,

[00:14:15] particularly for safety or asylum seeking.

[00:14:17] People talk about the first stopping in the first safe country.

[00:14:20] It's part of the international law idea.

[00:14:23] And what you're saying is they kind of do that.

[00:14:25] But then they don't stay there.

[00:14:27] That's how it works.

[00:14:28] At least not all people, of course.

[00:14:30] A lot of people do stay there because we also know that

[00:14:34] around 75 percent of the world's refugees are hosted in low

[00:14:39] and middle income countries.

[00:14:42] So the vast majority stay in neighboring countries or countries

[00:14:46] within their region.

[00:14:47] Some people do indeed try to move on.

[00:14:51] And again, that's for a mix of different reasons.

[00:14:55] It's really a variety of different reasons that come together

[00:14:58] such as, of course, economic opportunities and opportunities

[00:15:02] around education for their children.

[00:15:06] But often they also seek out countries where there is some kind

[00:15:10] of existing tie or connection.

[00:15:14] Could be a colonial tie, for example, could be a country

[00:15:18] where they speak the language or even even just a country

[00:15:22] they've heard of before, a country people talk about.

[00:15:27] And then, yeah, so it's then other factors come in as well,

[00:15:32] such as what have I heard about this country's reputation

[00:15:36] in terms of how safe it is?

[00:15:39] Does it protect people's rights?

[00:15:43] Will I be allowed to work?

[00:15:44] Can I access protection?

[00:15:46] So the policy factors often come in almost as a kind

[00:15:50] of secondary factor, whereas where can I work and where can I get

[00:15:57] my kids to school?

[00:15:59] Are there much more important factors?

[00:16:01] So all of that becomes a draw card for the UK, doesn't it?

[00:16:03] So that sort of overshadows the fact that we are one

[00:16:07] of the most dangerous or difficult places within Europe

[00:16:10] to get to because you've got to cross water to get here.

[00:16:14] But so I wonder, you know, the efforts made by the government

[00:16:17] to try and cut back on the number of people making those crossings.

[00:16:22] I wonder whether they're going to work.

[00:16:24] I was I was in Australia at the time that they started to do

[00:16:27] offshore processing.

[00:16:29] So they sent people to Nauru and then eventually they sent them

[00:16:31] to Papua New Guinea, thinking that would be a big enough incentive.

[00:16:34] This was 2012, 2013.

[00:16:37] They kicked it off.

[00:16:38] Actually only four thousand, little over four thousand, 200 people

[00:16:41] were ever sent to offshore processing.

[00:16:44] Only 118 of them stayed in Papua New Guinea or

[00:16:47] or Nauru.

[00:16:48] One thousand of them ended up back in Australia.

[00:16:50] There was a deal that was done with America.

[00:16:52] America took about 11 or 1200 of them.

[00:16:55] I think about 900 were returned to the country they came from.

[00:16:59] But it's all sort of stopped in no way could that have been seen as being

[00:17:04] a successful policy.

[00:17:06] And yet here we are sort of almost taking the

[00:17:10] the Australian copy book and just, you know, and replicate even right down

[00:17:14] to stopping the boats, which was the deadline.

[00:17:17] It was quite successful in Australia because I think, I mean,

[00:17:19] then you don't hear now of boats getting to Australia or they don't report it

[00:17:24] because they still have me.

[00:17:25] It's well, we who know because there's a there's a ban on reporting it.

[00:17:29] Gosh. So as far as I know, it actually is still happening in Australia.

[00:17:34] And what is also happening now is that boats are being pushed back

[00:17:39] which is against international law.

[00:17:41] So in a way, that's even worse.

[00:17:43] It's a myth, really, that the Australian example works, which is

[00:17:46] a lot of right wing politicians say.

[00:17:47] It's just been a media blackout all along.

[00:17:50] Yeah. Yeah. And it's a myth, really, that deterrent policies work.

[00:17:53] It's it's a political rhetoric.

[00:17:56] It's something that sounds good in in an election year.

[00:18:01] And politicians all over Europe love to make these big announcements,

[00:18:07] not based on evidence and say they have this big, big new policy

[00:18:12] that's going to deter people from coming in the first place.

[00:18:16] But they don't really work.

[00:18:18] So one reason why they don't work is I was going to say, let's pick up on that

[00:18:22] because you said, you know, they're not based on policy, they're politics.

[00:18:24] And we know that is pretty much true.

[00:18:27] But OK, well, let's turn that around and say from your research,

[00:18:29] I mean, and your articles talking about how policies can often do

[00:18:32] the opposite of what's intended. But what what could work?

[00:18:36] I mean, if these policies don't, what could work?

[00:18:40] Well, what might actually change people's minds, perhaps deter them from coming

[00:18:44] or perhaps just not make it happen?

[00:18:45] I mean, for example, some people have said, well, if the places they were coming

[00:18:49] from, the places you've been describing, were better able to support people

[00:18:53] where had a better outcome for people's lives there, that that in itself

[00:18:57] would deter people would mean people weren't so keen to take the risk

[00:19:00] of more foreign aid given to those countries.

[00:19:03] That's a bit hard, isn't it?

[00:19:04] We've cut foreign aid and a quarter of our foreign aid is now spent

[00:19:08] domestically looking after asylum seekers.

[00:19:11] Yeah, and the UK isn't unusual in that the EU also, in fact,

[00:19:16] spends a lot of their foreign aid on on migration in a very broad sense.

[00:19:24] So what you're describing is, in fact, another policy approach

[00:19:27] that's extremely popular has been around for decades.

[00:19:31] It's called tackling the root causes of migration.

[00:19:34] So basically the basic idea is let's improve standards of living,

[00:19:38] for example, create new jobs or

[00:19:42] let's improve education systems and then people won't leave anymore.

[00:19:47] And we looked at this quite closely in our work.

[00:19:51] So we interviewed more than 13,000 young adults and 26 communities

[00:19:56] in 10 countries and really looked at the extent to which these root

[00:20:00] causes affect their aspirations to leave.

[00:20:04] And we have we found some really counterintuitive findings, really.

[00:20:09] So the one counterintuitive finding I mentioned is around poverty and education.

[00:20:16] More educated people are more likely to leave.

[00:20:20] So the more you improve education systems, the more likely it is

[00:20:24] that people will want to leave.

[00:20:25] That doesn't mean, of course, that you shouldn't be putting age into education.

[00:20:30] Again, with poverty, as I mentioned, poorer people are less likely to leave.

[00:20:34] Does that mean we shouldn't be putting aid into reducing poverty?

[00:20:39] Of course, it doesn't.

[00:20:40] And that really already points to the danger of using development aid

[00:20:44] for migration purposes.

[00:20:46] The one area where we did actually find quite a substantial effect

[00:20:51] was around corruption.

[00:20:53] So people who live in corrupt areas

[00:20:58] 36 percent more likely to have migration aspirations.

[00:21:02] So that points to corruption as an obvious area for

[00:21:07] for development aid efforts.

[00:21:10] And of course, there are already a lot of aid

[00:21:15] or a lot of development efforts are being spent on on reducing corruption.

[00:21:21] But we also know that corruption isn't an easy fix.

[00:21:24] It's an incredibly protracted issue.

[00:21:28] It's an issue that runs across different sectors,

[00:21:31] institutions and success very much depends on different configurations

[00:21:37] of power and the ability to approach a rule of law.

[00:21:41] And aid cannot really change all of these things.

[00:21:45] Well, we're certainly not going to change the ways of the Ayatollah,

[00:21:47] aren't we, or or the Taliban?

[00:21:49] You know, that's the you know, I mean, they are two big sources

[00:21:53] of which we have very little influence at all.

[00:21:55] Yeah. So I suppose I suppose on that basis, then if you say

[00:22:00] from what you're saying and the evidence base that you're using,

[00:22:03] is it then better to find some mechanism that makes actual migration

[00:22:09] doesn't need necessarily try and stop it, but perhaps tries to organize it at least

[00:22:13] in a more in the easier way?

[00:22:15] I mean, that if people were able to, you know,

[00:22:17] if there was a little place in Calais where people could go and say,

[00:22:20] yes, I'd like to go over and put their names on a list

[00:22:23] and had a chance perhaps of that being successful,

[00:22:26] would that then reduce people dying in the channel, which is the real problem?

[00:22:30] Yes. Yeah.

[00:22:31] So I think what needs to happen is that we need to accept that migration

[00:22:37] first of all is normal and is a reality.

[00:22:40] And it will continue to take place because not only because people are

[00:22:44] leaving for for many reasons, but also because there's demand for them

[00:22:49] in in countries of destination, they're able to find jobs

[00:22:52] in those countries, their labor gaps.

[00:22:54] So migration will continue to take place.

[00:22:57] So indeed what we need to do is to create legal migration pathways

[00:23:02] to replace irregular and unsafe ones.

[00:23:05] And there are many benefits to moving people over onto

[00:23:09] legal pathways from irregular ones.

[00:23:13] In terms of countries of destination, it means they will have

[00:23:18] a healthy tax paying workforce who actually makes tax

[00:23:22] and contributions instead of working in the informal economy.

[00:23:26] And they will be more in control of their migration.

[00:23:31] Migrants are obviously much safer, less likely to die,

[00:23:35] will have much greater benefits from migration

[00:23:38] and also able to send remittances, financial remittances,

[00:23:42] but also social remittances back to their countries of origin,

[00:23:47] their communities of origin.

[00:23:48] So sharing ideas, sharing knowledge.

[00:23:50] So the idea that these people who are coming over would to some

[00:23:53] extent or to a large extent, which you do here as a political line,

[00:23:57] you know, is coming here to live on benefits.

[00:23:59] They are coming here to drain our NHS.

[00:24:01] They are coming here to to utilize our better services

[00:24:04] to the detriment of the people who are here already.

[00:24:06] That's basically not true.

[00:24:07] You're coming here to work in NHS, which would be quite useful.

[00:24:11] I look after our old people.

[00:24:12] But then and they do.

[00:24:15] Yes, unfortunately, that's another one of those migration myths

[00:24:19] that people come here to to abuse our benefits system.

[00:24:23] And of course, that does not happen.

[00:24:26] So I've got radical idea.

[00:24:27] This is extraordinary radical.

[00:24:29] And one of Phil's radical ideas.

[00:24:31] It's almost heresy.

[00:24:31] But imagine if you actually had, you know, if you took this

[00:24:35] as an issue that affects all of Europe and all of Europe work together.

[00:24:39] So you provided safe routes into Europe and European countries

[00:24:43] work together to determine, you know, who how the proportion of people

[00:24:48] and how they're allotted to each individual destination.

[00:24:50] Good luck with that.

[00:24:51] What a fantastic idea.

[00:24:52] We cooperate with the rest of you.

[00:24:55] What do you think of that idea, Jessica?

[00:24:57] Can you see something because radicals that ever happening?

[00:25:00] Well, it's it's hard to see that really from happening

[00:25:03] because as as you might know, the European Commission passed

[00:25:08] or in fact, the European Parliament passed the new pact on asylum

[00:25:13] and migration a couple of weeks ago in Brussels.

[00:25:17] And I think this pact took seven years to negotiate.

[00:25:22] And it does have some form of doubt in terms of burden sharing

[00:25:26] of numbers of asylum seekers across Europe.

[00:25:31] But it's quite quite limited and migration is so political

[00:25:37] that it's really hard to get different destination countries

[00:25:41] really cooperating on it.

[00:25:43] It's often still very much a national policy issue,

[00:25:47] even within the EU, for example.

[00:25:49] So the question is, do I mean, you know, the point you're raising,

[00:25:53] do we actually need migrants?

[00:25:54] I think the answer is yes, because I'm looking at offices

[00:25:57] of national statistics numbers, loads of numbers on the podcast today.

[00:26:00] Isn't that so between now over the next 15 years,

[00:26:05] if we just looked at the natural growth of the population,

[00:26:08] it would be about half a million people over the next 15 years.

[00:26:10] So, you know, more births and deaths over that period.

[00:26:13] And of course, that would be an aging population as well.

[00:26:17] But an internal migration, the ONS is forecasting

[00:26:20] of 6.1 million people over that period.

[00:26:23] So what do you mean by that?

[00:26:25] So there will be.

[00:26:26] So in other words, we are not going to grow as a population

[00:26:30] through natural growth, but we will put into their numbers

[00:26:34] will get six million people over the next 15 years added to the population.

[00:26:37] So that's where the growth is going to come from.

[00:26:39] So that's an annual growth rate, an annual rate of about 0.7 percent,

[00:26:44] which actually doesn't seem like a great deal.

[00:26:46] In fact, you know, there's a lot of economists would argue,

[00:26:49] well, actually, unless you're going to have leaps forward in productivity,

[00:26:52] you almost need to have that level of population growth

[00:26:56] to maintain your standard of living.

[00:26:58] So let me turn this around.

[00:27:00] I also know that they're very labor intensive sectors

[00:27:03] where we will need people with skills and sectors like care,

[00:27:09] for example, you mentioned an aging population.

[00:27:13] Many sectors like that, I think productivity gains just won't cut it.

[00:27:19] Let me turn this around a little bit because you mentioned about,

[00:27:21] you know, we need people with skills and people willing to work on that.

[00:27:25] We also are we not in a way depriving the countries

[00:27:29] that these people are coming from of their skills, of their labor,

[00:27:33] of their as you said, these people are perhaps above the dirt poor

[00:27:37] and therefore perhaps people functioning in business,

[00:27:40] managing to earn a bit.

[00:27:42] Are we not depriving their economies of skills and a workforce,

[00:27:47] a brain drain if you like, and that that in itself is rather immoral

[00:27:51] to take away from these countries the people they need for their own benefit?

[00:27:55] Well, you might be taking people away from the Iranian nuclear program,

[00:27:58] for example. Well, potentially.

[00:27:59] But I mean, I think that's rather less likely

[00:28:03] and something the Israelis would encourage.

[00:28:05] But but I mean, there is that moral issue there.

[00:28:08] So there is that moral issue and there's always the statistics.

[00:28:11] I can't quote them off.

[00:28:13] You know, the number of Ghanaian doctors in the NHS is higher

[00:28:16] than the number of Ghanaian doctors in in the ex districts

[00:28:20] or perhaps even in the country as a whole.

[00:28:23] I don't remember now.

[00:28:24] But in general, the evidence on the brain drain

[00:28:30] suggests that there isn't that much of a brain drain actually

[00:28:35] because the the opportunity or potential opportunity

[00:28:41] of migrating often inspires

[00:28:45] or people to to become more highly educated to get an education.

[00:28:50] And of course, not everyone is able to then migrate.

[00:28:56] So the countries of origin often actually experience

[00:29:01] a net gain in terms of number of educated people

[00:29:07] when the option of migration is on the cards.

[00:29:13] What's what's also the case is that many countries

[00:29:17] have actually been building on that idea of exporting highly skilled people.

[00:29:25] The Philippines is, of course, the prime example for that.

[00:29:30] Other countries are trying or attempting to follow steps.

[00:29:35] And also, there's a number of innovative migration pathways

[00:29:40] that are now being explored across a growing number of countries

[00:29:44] called migration skills partnerships, where the idea is that a country

[00:29:48] of origin and a country of destination work together

[00:29:53] and train people in countries of origin, train people to

[00:29:59] work and stay in the country of origin, but also train people who are then

[00:30:02] given the opportunity to work in the country of destination.

[00:30:07] So the idea is that the country of destination

[00:30:11] who profits from highly skilled people contributes towards

[00:30:15] the cost of of skilling out these people.

[00:30:18] So I think most people require happy to see a migration programme

[00:30:22] that worked like that, you know, we're we're taking skilled people

[00:30:26] from overseas, which obviously we do through regular channels.

[00:30:31] But it's this these irregular channels that's a concern.

[00:30:34] So even if we said, well, we'll take more skilled migrants,

[00:30:37] how do we would still have that issue that there will be people

[00:30:41] taking their chance across the channel?

[00:30:43] You made the point that they are mainly young people and mainly men.

[00:30:46] I'm looking at numbers from the home office that shows that I think

[00:30:51] only 12 percent were women or girls of all those who came across last year.

[00:30:56] So, you know, it's how do we stop?

[00:31:00] Even if we had more coming by established channels,

[00:31:03] we're still going to have these people chancing it, aren't we?

[00:31:05] I don't think you were able to reduce it to zero.

[00:31:07] But you can reduce the numbers if you open up other opportunities.

[00:31:12] The problem with a lot of the legal channels is also just that

[00:31:17] the numbers that are being admitted are quite small.

[00:31:20] The costs are high. They extremely bureaucratic.

[00:31:24] It's quite hard to get your skills and your degrees recognized, all of these things.

[00:31:29] So that can be simplified.

[00:31:31] Their countries where it's much cheaper to apply for.

[00:31:37] Apply for visa, for example, Ireland is a case that has

[00:31:41] case of a country that has a fairly open permit system.

[00:31:45] It's much cheaper compared to the UK.

[00:31:47] So visas only cost about a thousand euros.

[00:31:51] Most occupations can get a permit, except extremely low skilled and low paid.

[00:31:57] But even there, some exemptions are being put in place.

[00:32:00] So they are examples of countries that are doing doing this quite well.

[00:32:06] Another I can vouch for that.

[00:32:08] I mean, actually, you know, my Australian wife trying to get hair over here.

[00:32:12] Sometimes think it would have been easy to go rowing boat in Calais

[00:32:16] because it's because the cost involved in it and the whole process

[00:32:19] is unfortunate.

[00:32:21] Yeah, it's enormous.

[00:32:22] What I mean, one of the issues in this, Jessica,

[00:32:24] and it is one that I think people are very concerned about

[00:32:26] is the notion of asylum seekers.

[00:32:28] Asylum in international is a very specific thing.

[00:32:30] You are in danger for your views or your sexuality

[00:32:34] or whatever it is in your previous country

[00:32:36] and you're going for safety somewhere else.

[00:32:38] And this has got hugely confused with the idea of what we're basically

[00:32:42] talking about here, which is economic migration, people who want a better life.

[00:32:46] And that isn't it shouldn't be seen as a wrong thing.

[00:32:49] But the confusion of those two things seems to me a major problem in this

[00:32:53] because people who may genuinely have reasons for wanting to seek asylum

[00:32:58] are being put on one side and said, oh, no, you're just seeking economic advancement

[00:33:03] and economic migrants are forced to claim asylum status

[00:33:07] in order to try and get through it all. So it's a huge mix.

[00:33:09] Yeah. And of course, legally they are very distinct categories.

[00:33:15] But in practice, in terms of their motivations,

[00:33:17] in terms of the channels they take, there is a bit of a blood line between the two.

[00:33:22] So I think that makes it particularly challenging.

[00:33:25] But because there is that legal distinction,

[00:33:27] it does mean that they need to be legal migration pathways for both of these

[00:33:32] and they can kind of quite different and

[00:33:37] especially for asylum seekers.

[00:33:40] That's that's why that idea of, yeah, maybe maybe we do need to think

[00:33:44] broader at the European level.

[00:33:46] It isn't fair if the neighbouring countries

[00:33:51] take asylum seekers or the countries at the European border

[00:33:55] who are the first countries where people arrive.

[00:33:57] Very radical idea, that one though. Very radical.

[00:34:00] So you just think it's not going to work.

[00:34:03] It's just and the BB Stockholm is, you know, we're hearing now

[00:34:06] that perhaps the thing more, you know, the idea that you wouldn't want to live

[00:34:09] in a barge in Dorset.

[00:34:11] The barge parked down in in Poland.

[00:34:12] It's quite nice in Dorset there.

[00:34:13] It's lovely in Dorset, but I don't recommend I come from there.

[00:34:16] I don't recommend the barge.

[00:34:17] But essentially, why?

[00:34:18] But why not?

[00:34:19] So just that you're saying that the push factor is too great for a

[00:34:23] render to make a a jot of difference, basically.

[00:34:26] So it's such plus the fact that it's it's a wide range of different factors

[00:34:31] that people use to make their decisions.

[00:34:34] Also, for example, social networks are really important.

[00:34:37] People go where they know someone who can help them find a job,

[00:34:40] who can help them settle, who can potentially house them in the beginning.

[00:34:44] And all of these different factors come together and migration policies

[00:34:49] often only play a very small part in that.

[00:34:52] What's also really important is that people often actually lack

[00:34:56] awareness of how migration policies really work, what they are.

[00:35:01] They may not even have heard of them or they've just heard rumors

[00:35:04] or information that's passed down in their networks.

[00:35:07] And it looks quite different to the big announcements

[00:35:10] that the politicians make and the factors that influence their decisions

[00:35:15] are more their own perceptions or understanding of how these policies work

[00:35:20] rather than what the policy actually is.

[00:35:23] And in our research, we also found that people also have biases

[00:35:29] in terms of how they interpret that information.

[00:35:32] So they're more willing to accept or take into account policies

[00:35:39] that are welcoming than policies that deter.

[00:35:43] Or they're more willing to take in information

[00:35:46] that confirms what they already know, then new information

[00:35:50] which potentially throws into doubt what they've already been planning.

[00:35:55] And that's perfectly normal in human.

[00:35:57] We all do that in our lives.

[00:36:00] And that's just one of the many reasons why these kind of deterrent

[00:36:04] policies don't really have much of an impact.

[00:36:07] It's going to remain an issue.

[00:36:08] I'm wondering what our conclusion is here then.

[00:36:10] It's just that we open borders, it sounds to me,

[00:36:13] but open borders with an element of control, I suppose,

[00:36:16] that makes it so much easier for people and then the idea that or an established route.

[00:36:21] Yeah, do you establish routes?

[00:36:23] And I think we also really need to disbuilding on my last point.

[00:36:27] I think we really need to think about communication to the people

[00:36:32] we want or do not want to come to our country.

[00:36:35] So as I mentioned, people often don't even know how migration works.

[00:36:42] What's happening in those countries?

[00:36:44] They know very little about the countries they're going to.

[00:36:47] So just putting the information out there into the news,

[00:36:51] into the media doesn't mean it will reach migrants.

[00:36:54] So it's all about sharing information on how they can come in

[00:36:58] in the right languages and also reaching out through networks.

[00:37:03] Fundamentally making it easier for those who have a reason to come here

[00:37:08] would make a lot of difference.

[00:37:09] Jessica, thank you so much for taking us through all that.

[00:37:12] It is going to be an issue that keeps coming up,

[00:37:15] I'm sure with the election looming.

[00:37:16] But thank you for giving us an idea of some of the evidence

[00:37:19] which is rarely heard about what actually might work or might not.

[00:37:23] Thanks for your time, Jessica.

[00:37:25] Thank you for having me.

[00:37:26] Yes, I mean, she made a really good point there.

[00:37:28] You know, if there's a way,

[00:37:29] if there's a way we could communicate with the rest of the world

[00:37:32] about, you know, just what the policy is in this.

[00:37:35] Because imagine, for example, a podcast or a global broadcaster

[00:37:40] that, you know, like a world sort of service thing

[00:37:44] that will never catch up offer the rest of the world.

[00:37:47] Never catch up.

[00:37:47] No, I just know one of my crazy ideas.

[00:37:50] Crazy ideas. But now the crazy idea.

[00:37:52] Well, crazy ideas have been on display, of course,

[00:37:56] in the run up to the local elections which are going on in England.

[00:37:59] I'm going to go to the world.

[00:38:00] This time next week we'll know.

[00:38:01] And in fact, no, I think it by the time this podcast out,

[00:38:05] we won't know really.

[00:38:06] We'll have a sense of which way it's all going.

[00:38:08] But the point being that we were talking to you from the past.

[00:38:11] So we don't know. We don't know.

[00:38:12] Yeah. But we got a time travel is amazing.

[00:38:14] That's not confused, everyone.

[00:38:16] The fact is politics isn't up here.

[00:38:17] A lot of people looking at the local elections thinking

[00:38:19] this is going to be an indicator as to whether Rishi Sinek

[00:38:22] himself gets unseated, perhaps in the same way

[00:38:25] that the Scottish National Party have unseated their leader.

[00:38:29] In the run up to the right.

[00:38:30] And the question is if that is the case,

[00:38:32] if he fears that's going to happen,

[00:38:33] is he just going to call a sudden election?

[00:38:35] Well. And have done with it all.

[00:38:36] So we're going to have a look at the political landscape

[00:38:38] and get a sense of where we are after the local elections.

[00:38:41] Covingly going for a July election is the question.

[00:38:43] It's been rumoured, of course, everyone will be away

[00:38:44] on holiday. It's my help.

[00:38:46] It's my help.

[00:38:47] Yeah, certainly.

[00:38:48] We're left with those people who are unable to move

[00:38:50] and who can't travel.

[00:38:52] The elderly. They're funny enough.

[00:38:53] Works perfectly for them.

[00:38:55] Yeah. Right.

[00:38:56] Anyway, that's all coming up next week on.

[00:38:58] The Y curve. We'll see you then.

[00:38:59] Thanks. The Y. Curve.