Liz Truss’s controversial plans for UK immigration

Liz Truss faces anger from key cabinet colleagues after pushing ahead with plans to increase immigration as part of her drive to grow the UK economy.

The Sunday Times’ political editor Caroline Wheeler reported Truss is “facing her first cabinet row” over “wide-ranging reform of Britain’s visa system to tackle acute labour shortages and attract the best talent from across the world”.

Both Wheeler and Rajeev Syal, home affairs editor of The Guardian, claim the prime minister intends to lift the cap on seasonal agricultural workers and broadband engineers, key to fulfilling the government’s pledge to make full-fibre broadband available to 85% of UK homes by 2025.

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Truss will also look to make other changes to the shortage occupations list, which will allow key sectors to recruit more overseas staff. She could also ease the English-language requirement in some sectors to enable more foreign workers to qualify for visas.

What’s the cabinet’s problem with the approach?

Truss’s belief, set out in her growth plan, that “migration, in particular skilled and high-skilled migration, plays an important role in economic growth, productivity, and innovation” faces “strong resistance” from cabinet Brexiteers, including the Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, Wheeler reported.

In an interview with The Sun ahead of Tory party conference, Braverman said Britain already had “too many low-skilled migrant workers and very high numbers of international students, who often brought dependents with them”.

The PIE News, which provides analysis for professionals in international education, reported that in the year ending June 2022, 486,868 sponsored study visas were granted, including dependants, 71% more than in 2019 the last full year before the pandemic.

“Those people are coming here, they're not necessarily working or they’re working in low-skilled jobs, and they’re not contributing to growing our economy,” Braverman said.

Her comments were echoed by Badenoch, who told a free-market think tank reception at Tory conference: “We need to look again at resolving our productivity issues and that means using capital better, not just getting cheaper and cheaper labour.”

“Kemi’s brazen and deliberate speech last night all but confirmed major Cabinet divisions over the plan” said Guido Fawkes. Open divisions at the top of government has led the business community seeking to employ foreign staff to accuse ministers of sending “mixed signals”, said The Guardian.

What’s the public’s view on immigration?

Immigration has long been an emotive issue in British politics, featuring heavily in the Brexit referendum in 2016 where concerns over numbers of immigrants played a crucial role in Britain voting to leave the EU. Since then, however, it hasfallen down voters list of priorities.

An Ipsos-Mori poll earlier this year found just under half of Britons (46%) think migration has had a positive impact on the country, compared to just three in ten (29%) that disagree. The proportion of people wanting to see immigration reduced continues to decrease over time, the polling found.

While the numbers of EU workers have fallen since the Brexit vote, this has been offset by an increase in the number of non-EU workers coming to Britain. According to the Office for National Statistics, net migration to Britain totalled 239,000 in the year to June 2021.

Despite this, “businesses across Britain have been struggling with a massive labour shortage since Covid” said The Sun. UK Hospitality say record staff shortages are costing the industry £21billion in lost business and £5billion in lost tax.

Much of that has to do with restrictions introduced on visas following the UK’s departure from the EU. Since January 2021, most workers must be paid at least £25,600 a year for an employer to sponsor a visa, “causing problems for employers in sectors such as agriculture, hospitality and some manufacturing, where lower wages are common” said theEconomic Times.

Immigration may have “cooled as an issue since the Brexit vote” agreed The Spectator, “yet the potential for increases in migrant numbers to reverse this trend, even in the middle of a labour shortage, will be another test of whether Brexit was a vote merely for control of immigration or for low immigration”.

What about illegal immigration?

“Guido doesn’t have a problem with skilled, legal immigration, it is the illegal immigration which is concerning” said Guido Fawkes.

According to The Telegraph, Braverman is planning tougher action to crack down on illegal Channel crossings, with a record 32,800 migrants making the journey so far this year. Specifically she will target migrants who claim they are modern slavery victims after admitting that small boat crossing are “out of control”.

Key to the government's strategy to combat illegal migration is continuing Boris Johnson’s controversial scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which Truss vowed to "support and extend" during her leadership campaign..

Writing in i news, Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta ComRes, said polling implies “that the policy has had the impact on perceptions that the Government’s critics thought it may; that the plan will not necessarily stop migrants trying to cross the channel and that the cost of the plan does not present value for money”.

“However, on the government’s side, the proposal does have net support, and therefore it seems that having a plan, even with flaws, is better in public opinion terms than appearing to have no plan at all” he added.