Migration Watch UK slams new Government proposals saying it could lead to increase in immigration

Migration Watch UK have just been in touch with the following communication:

The government have acknowledged what we have been saying for months – their immigration proposals may well drive an increase in immigration

– see new Home Office Impact Assessment.

Such an outcome would be anathema to 30 million people who wish to see immigration reduced.

Far from getting immigration under control, all sorts of new avenues will be opened.

It is now also clear that the Covid-19 crisis will lead to a very high level of unemployment, yet the proposals pose a serious risk to the prospects of British jobseekers and workers in the current climate.

Ministers and MPs must remember that, following the 2008 financial crisis, it took six years for the number of UK-born workers to regain its pre-crash level, while the number of workers born abroad increased by more than a million as employers sought out cheaper overseas labour.

As the Immigration Bill receives its second reading in the House of Commons, the government would be wise to amend their immigration plan in order to:

(a) have in readiness powers to impose a cap on work permits. This must be capable of being done at very short notice as the courts would rule that all applications in the pipeline should be decided under the previous rules.

(b) postpone indefinitely the “new entrant” route that gives employers the simplest work-around to avoid meeting headline salary thresholds.

(c) retain the long-standing requirement that jobs first be advertised in the UK. This is a vital safeguard for jobseekers that will be especially important during a period of high unemployment. Employers must do all they can to take on workers already in the UK.

d) Maintain the general salary threshold for high-skill workers at the level of £30,000 and the qualification criterion at the present degree level.

Commenting, Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said:

”The government seem to be sticking to immigration proposals that have been overtaken by the Covid-19 crisis. As their own impact assessment suggests, the proposed system may well drive an increase in immigration. This is absolutely not the time to be opening six million jobs to new or increased international competition. And it is simply wrong that jobs should no longer have to be advertised in the UK before being opened up to recruits from around the globe.”

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