Immigration minister Robert Jenrick and shadow Stephen Kinnock debate work-related immigration policy
The House of Commons held an interesting debate last week on the need for a temporary recovery visa to tackle the UK's shortages of workers and skills. There were contributions from both the immigration minister and the shadow immigration minister, with both agreeing a points-based system was the way forward. Immigration minister Robert Jenrick rejected the call for temporary visas.
Image credit: UK GovernmentThe House of Commons Library produced a helpful 30-page report here ahead of the debate. See also a report released last month by Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee which recommended that the Government should introduce a temporary recovery visa for industries where there is clear evidence of labour and skills shortages.
Tuesday's debate in the Commons was led by former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. He called for an easing of immigration rules, saying that hospitality and tourism businesses in his constituency in Cumbria are unable to operate to their full capacity because they cannot recruit enough workers.
Farron said the current work visa situation does not support the labour needs of areas such as the Lake District, and there is a need for a flexible work visa, similar to the youth mobility scheme, for a wider range of countries, particularly in Europe.
With Labour continuing to show a sizeable lead in opinion polls, the debate provided a useful opportunity for an update on Labour's immigration policy. Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock spoke in support of a points-based system for migrant workers and said there needs to be more focus on "home-grown talent". He also confirmed there would be no return to EU free movement under a Labour government.
Kinnock told the Commons: "I would like to set out the Labour party's approach to work-based migration in the UK. In a nutshell, we support the principle of a points-based system for migrant workers. I will not need to remind hon. Members that it was a Labour Government that introduced the points-based system in 2008 for immigration from outside the European Union. We are clear that there will be no returning to the free movement of labour that was a feature of our membership of the European Union, but we are equally clear that we need to build on and improve the points-based system currently in place."
Kinnock said Labour's long-term ambition is to ensure that all businesses and public services recruit and train as much home-grown talent as possible to fill vacancies before they look overseas.
He explained: "For instance, we need to train more home-grown doctors, hence our commitment to doubling the number of clinical placements and to setting out a five to 10-year workforce plan, which is desperately needed when we consider the 7 million person waiting list and the huge issues with workforce shortages and challenges. We know that if we just turn off the tap of migrant labour, without the appropriate workforce structures and adequate training and recruitment in place, our public services will deteriorate and our businesses will struggle to meet our wider economic ambition to make, buy and sell more in Britain. In the end, it becomes a crutch, with more and more jobs eventually disappearing overseas."
Kinnock added that Labour were well aware of the flaws in the current points-based system and the Government is failing to balance the need to encourage businesses to recruit and train home-grown talent with the need to use migrant labour to address short-term pressure points in the labour market.
"The fundamental weakness is that the Government's economic migration strategy is not joined up, so they will struggle to meet their economic and public-service priorities. For instance, we feel that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and the Skills and Productivity Board are not as integrated as they could be in making decisions on the shortage occupation lists," the shadow immigration minister commented.
Kinnock said that the answer to the call from some sectors for temporary work visas was to "get the system working properly, with more flexibility".
Explaining Labour's thinking, he continued: "At the heart of that should be a three-way dialogue, led and convened by the MAC, drawing together representatives from employers speaking for the sector, trade unions, and relevant Government Departments, to look at the sectors on the Migration Advisory Committee's shortage occupation lists in detail. That dialogue would be the mechanism through which decisions are made around the short-term visa schemes, such the seasonal worker scheme, the youth mobility scheme, and new ideas, such as the temporary recovery visa, which is being debated here today. The three-way working group would not only look at the shortage occupation lists but set conditions that companies that have sponsorship licences would need to meet on workers' rights. We are worried that the current points-based system is also failing when it comes to the enforcement of labour standards."
Speaking for the Government, immigration minister Robert Jenrick said he wanted to correct the impression that the UK had a restrictive visa system. He said the UK was welcoming very significant numbers of people to work and live here as a result of the Government's visa system.
Jenrick stated: "It is important to say at the outset that an impression has been given during the debate that the visa system is highly restrictive, enabling few people to come into the country, and that essentially migrant labour has been cut off as a result of policy decisions. That really is not true. We have a comparatively flexible work visa system, and the Home Office granted over 330,000 work-related visas in the year ending June 2022, including—I will come to this in more detail in a moment—just over 96,000 health and care worker visas to support the NHS. We have more than doubled the number of eligible occupations for skilled worker visas so that more than 60% of jobs in the UK economy are now eligible. Over 48,000 employers are now on the sponsor register, and we encourage others to join."
On the specific subject of the debate, Jenrick backed the points-based system and said he did not think that introducing a temporary recovery visa was the right approach: "The points-based system is the right way forward. It supports UK businesses to recruit workers with the skills that they need from around the world, and it is broader than the previous immigration system, with many more jobs now eligible, stretching across all the key sectors of the British economy."
Jenrick continued: "Many of the sectors that have called for a recovery visa, some of which have been discussed today, including hospitality, haulage and construction—all sectors for which I have sympathy … Some of them are essentially calling for a general immigration route, allowing recruitment at or near the minimum wage for roles that have only relatively short work-based training requirements. It could be a choice for this country to welcome workers to that type of role, and other parties may make different choices from us, but it is important not only that we are guided by the Migration Advisory Committee's recommendations, but that we think carefully about the skill and salary thresholds of people coming into this country."
The immigration minister added that the Government wants to encourage the British economy to be more productive, with better use of automation and more innovation, rather than being "hooked on the drug of relatively low-paid and low-skilled migrant workers".
Robert Jenrick agreed with Stephen Kinnock that the correct approach involves UK businesses doing more to recruit and retain domestic workers and thinking about improving their productivity, rather than seeing immigration as the long-term solution.
Jenrick concluded: "We really need to encourage businesses to play their part by investing in and developing the UK's domestic labour force, rather than relying on immigration policy as an alternative … That does not mean we should not think carefully about the sectors that face particular challenges. We are alive to those issues and want to adopt a pragmatic approach, but that approach has to be a two-way street."
Closing the debate, Tim Farron said he was concerned that the Government's position showed they had allowed political considerations to overwhelm economic and practical ones.