The Future of the UK Immigration

3 Sep 2024 , 11:42 AM

By Mr Yash Dubal, Director, A Y & J Solicitors, London, United Kingdom

The dust is beginning to settle in the UK and the future direction of immigration policy under the new government is starting to take shape.

The Labour Party is now in control in the House of Commons, having swept aside the previous incumbents, the Conservative Party. Rishi Sunak has been replaced by Keir Starmer. The hostile rhetoric around immigration which became a hallmark of the Conservative’s electioneering has been replaced by measured pragmatism. The new ruling party is still committed to reducing net migration to the UK, and so the change of leadership will still have an impact on many Indians who are considering a move to live and work in the UK. However, Labour’s approach to the subject appears less about knee-jerk restrictions and more about long-term planning.

Lately, the British government released a stark figure. More than a third of British job vacancies cannot be filled by British workers because British people lack the necessary skills. Labour argues that this skills gap has been one of prime reasons why UK employers have turned to the international labour market.

Accordingly, Labour has announced the creation of a new organisation called Skills England, which will work with industry bodies, education establishments and employers to identify the most acute skills gaps and plug them. It will do this by training mostly young workers.

“We are going to make sure that there are highly motivated, ambitious, talented young people who want to work in your business,” Mr Starmer told industry leaders. “We are going to fire up the training of more UK workers and match people’s aspirations with more opportunity.”

Meanwhile Britain’s new Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, Jacqui Smith, admitted that there hasn’t been a coherent skills strategy working partnership with industry before in the UK and explained that the strategy would help attract British people to work in sectors such as the care sector and construction, both of which rely on overseas workers.

The Labour Party acknowledges the importance of immigration and the contribution it has made to British society and the economy. It supports the current points-based system but has vowed to reform it to reduce net migration.

The Labour government has also pledged to help strengthen wages and conditions for workers in skills gap industries, in an effort to attract more domestic applicants for roles, and will crack down on workplace exploitation.

On the face of it, these measures may sound disheartening to anyone who is thinking of applying for one of the UK’s numerous work visa routes. But there is plenty to be positive about. Visa applications are already dropping in the UK thanks largely to restrictions already in place. There is little doubt that the use of migration as a political football in the past year of electioneering in Britain has discouraged many from fulfilling their dreams of a new life in the UK. Instead, people have looked elsewhere, particularly to the US. Now in the UK, headline grabbing manifesto promises are moot and the real work starts for the government to meet its promises. In the US on the other hand, immigration will increasingly become an election issue, with Donald Trump especially playing the anti-immigration card to woo voters.

In Britain, migration has been historically high for the past two years and the reduction in migration is merely an adjustment back to normal levels. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, net migration was 184,000, in 2022 it was 2022. The UK Office for National Statistics predicted last year that the figure would settle at around 245,000. The skills shortage remains and Labour’s plans to train UK workers to fill these roles will take time. It takes several years to become a qualified electrician, nurse or computer programmer, for example. In the meantime, employers will remain reliant on overseas workers.

In fact, there are other fundamental issues with Labour’s policy to train domestic workers to plug gaps in the workplace in addition to the fact that it will take years to establish. The first is demographic. The policy to upskill British workers relies on an army of new, presumably young, workers. But Britain has an ageing population. The average age is around 40 and rising. According to the UN, by 2029 more people in the UK will be leaving the workforce than entering it. This leaves me to wonder where the UK government aims to find the army of new workers it will need. Then, if these workers appear, perhaps drawn from the 2.83m people not working due to long term sickness, they will have to want to take the jobs on offer. Many of the most acutely understaffed sectors have been struggling to find workers for years and have not been able to attract domestic workers, so it remains to be seen what will change to make these roles suddenly attractive to young British workers. One solution will be higher wages, but this then assumes employers will have enough money to boost their payrolls.

I suspect that however many people Skills England manages to train and filter into the workforce it will not be enough, and overseas workers will remain a key part of the UK’s success.