Advisers caution that boosting UK skilled labor may not necessarily reduce immigration
The chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee also predicted that net immigration could be down to around 300,000 ‘in the next two or three years.’
Training more British talent alone “does not guarantee a reduction in the reliance on the immigration system,” the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has said.
MAC Chairman Professor Brian Bell said that while net immigration had been “unusually high” between 2021 and 2023, recent figures indicate it is falling.
“Whilst we are expecting net migration to fall further, we would caution the government against seeing linking immigration and skills policy as a one-size-fits all approach to bringing down net migration and encourage them to continue to consider individual circumstances within sectors,” Bell said.
The new Labour government has set out to end the over-reliance on international recruitment by upskilling the homegrown workforce, including reforms to the points-based immigration system whereby companies employing foreign workers must also train British people.
Pay and Conditions
The committee noted that between 2021 and 2023, immigration increased mainly as a result of international students and non-EU work immigration through the Skilled Worker route, “most notably in health and care occupations.”
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Even with recent tighter restrictions on carers bringing dependents to the UK and stricter enforcement of the “genuine vacancy test” applied to Skilled Worker visa applications, heath and care “remains a main driver of work visa numbers.”
Health and care is one sector that the MAC suggests could receive better recruitment engagement from Britons if pay were improved.
Report authors said: “If the government want a functioning health and care sector, with lower reliance on immigration, more still needs to be done to fill roles domestically through increased funding to improve pay and conditions.
“This important trade-off must be considered when designing migration policy and a point we have repeatedly made.”
Responding to the report, migration minister Seema Malhotra said: “Net migration quadrupled in the past five years and we have been clear that we will get the numbers down and restore order to our broken immigration system as part of our plan for change.
“The independent Migration Advisory Committee will play a central role in this, providing impartial analysis to underpin our joined-up approach to link skills, migration and labour market policy and ensuring immigration is no longer used as an alternative to homegrown talent.”
Domestic Skills Strategy
Starmer has repeatedly promised to “reduce immigration—legal and illegal,” but has stopped short of setting any targets.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in Downing Street for a Cabinet meeting in London, on Nov. 5, 2024. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
This plan will likely be derived from the White Paper which will be released some time in the New Year.
Taking questions at the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper referenced the MAC’s report and repeated the government’s argument that immigration policy needs to be linked to domestic skills strategy.
“What we need is a new system that means we are better linking the immigration system with requirements for training, for skills, [and] looking at the UK labour market,” Cooper told fellow parliamentarians.
The minister said the government’s White Paper will set out how to bring net immigration down and present a coherent approach to the labour market.
“So you have a proper medium term strategy for sectors, instead of … a sort of free market approach to the labour market and to migration, which is effectively a free-for-all for employers to be able to just recruit from wherever they wanted to,” she said.
300,000 a Year
While net immigration last year was at a record high, figures covering the period of the previous Conservative government’s administration before the election suggest the number is falling.
In the year to June 2024, net migration fell to 728,000, which is a 20 percent drop on the previous 12 months.
Bell said that this trend on net immigration figures is “very clearly downwards” and he expects the trend to not only continue, but “accelerate in the next year or two.”
The MAC chairman predicts that net immigration could fall to 300,000 “in the next two to three years,” and remain at that rate for the next 10 to 20 years.
PA Media contributed to this report.
