Migrant workers were firmly in the spotlight this weekend, with politicians from all sides proposing tougher curbs on immigration into the UK.
Last week, the Office for National Statistics reported that net migration hit 745,000 in 2022, a revision of the previous figure of 606,000 and a record high.
Conservative MPs called the numbers “unsustainable and “unacceptable”. In response, immigration minister Robert Jenrick has drawn up a set of proposals that he argues would reduce these figures dramatically.
These include a required minimum annual salary of £35,000 and potentially scrapping the shortage occupation list, which offers a lower salary threshold to qualify for a visa if applicants are in skills-shortage trades.
Currently, in order to qualify for a skilled worker visa, a worker would need to be paid at least £26,200 per year, or £20,960 if on the shortage occupation list.
In May, the government also announced it would remove the right for international students to bring dependents unless they were on postgraduate courses designated as research programmes.
Migrant workers
Prime minister Rishi Sunak is also keen to bring migration figures down to more sustainable levels, claiming the clampdown on student dependents is the “single toughest measure that anyone has taken to bring down the levels of legal migration in a very long time”.
Jenrick’s proposals are yet to become policy, but Unison leader Christina McAnea has already claimed they could “collapse” the social care system if they become reality.
She said: “For too long, the government has sat back and watched as the NHS and social care grapple with a monumental staffing crisis. Both sectors are many thousands of staff short, social care desperately so.
“Migrant workers are propping up a crumbling care system that the government has refused to fund properly.”
McAnea said that anyone calling for a cap on numbers or restrictions on the recruitment of essential workers “has no understanding of the healthcare system and the pressures it faces”, accusing ministers of “playing to the gallery” and “demonising” migrant workers.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper suggested that, should Labour come to power in the next general election, it would also increase the salary threshold to gain a visa, based on recommendations from the migration advisory committee (MAC).
Labour would abolish the 20% discount on the threshold for shortage occupation list workers, it said, and would limit the ability of companies that do not pay “fair” wages to recruit from abroad.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman, who was sacked from her cabinet role earlier this month, called the revised migration figures a “slap in the face to the British public who have voted to control and reduce migration at every opportunity… when do we say enough is enough?”
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph today, Braverman has claimed she struck a “deal” with the prime minister that he would support her tougher proposals on immigration in exchange for her backing him in the Tory leadership contest last year.
The report said her four-point plan included raising the salary threshold to £40,000 and closing down the graduate visa route.
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