A million here, a million there…soon you’re talking real numbers. And a million people in a single year is pretty well what we got in 2023, when the net migration figure was 903,000 – so the overall figure (not taking account of people leaving) was getting on for a million. The figures for last year were edging towards three quarters of a million … net. That is why Sir Keir Starmer has been on the stump today to announce a crackdown on “every area of the immigration system”, a “clean break” from the “broken measures” of the past.
The proposals are set out in a White Paper. They include a freeze on care home recruitment from abroad, a requirement that migrants’ families must speak English before arriving, an increase the time migrants must spend here before they can obtain UK citizenship to ten years (except for those who contribute to the economy), a reduction in low skills visas by “up to” 50,000 a year, a requirement that graduate visas for overseas students should go to those in graduate level jobs – quite a low bar, these days.
Quite how these measures will affect actual migration figures is anyone’s guess. The Government has avoided putting anything so crude as a cap on numbers, but there are parts of the economy – and this paper has identified hospitality as a sector particularly dependent on low cost workers from abroad – which have become addicted to foreign labour. In the care sector, workers from abroad are less likely, for instance, to take sick leave, which makes you wonder about our lot, given that flu viruses fall on everyone alike.
Of course the proposals are welcome. They are also risibly overdue. Sir Keir can, however, take comfort in the fact that the complaints from the official Opposition about them being not-far-enough can be batted away with a kindly reminder of what happened under the Tories.
Yesterday the former Tory minister, Steve Baker, told Radio 4 that a previous chancellor – who sounds uncannily like George Osborne – told him that the secret to growth was high immigration, lots of housebuilding and easy credit. Well, they went for two of the three and look where it got them. The Tory problem is that the tacit – unspoken – understanding with Brexit was that “taking back control” would mean lower levels of immigration, not fewer Europeans and hundreds of thousands more from outside the EU. That, Boris, was not the deal.
Time limited visas should be the rule, without the right to bring family dependents
The real opposition here, of course, is Reform. Sir Keir has denied that he is responding to Reform on this one, and if this column could come with additional sound features, it would at this point include a comedy-show laugh. The primary reason why Reform did so well in the local elections is immigration; it may also be the reason why Reform is edging ahead of Labour in London, despite its diversity.
You may find me unduly cynical about politicians’ promises and if so there’s a reason. Back in 2004 I had a little chat with a Home Office official about the number of Poles who were likely to come to the UK after joining the EU. He gamely stuck by the official estimate of 10,000 people.
Now I yield to no one in my admiration for the Polish community but I thought this was frankly rich. I offered him a tenner that this wouldn’t come to pass. I had a good laugh with my Italian friend in the local café about it. But the press officer wouldn’t take my offer, which is a shame. When it came to Brexit, some 1.1 million Poles opted for the right to remain in the UK.
But back to the present. The difficulty with implementation is, post-Covid, that people who live here aren’t wholly sold on the notion that if, as St Paul put it, you don’t work, you don’t eat. That is to say, there are an awful lot of Brits who are, without changes to the benefit system, incapable of filling the gaps that migrant workers fill. In the care sector, I know from my mother’s case that what you need from care workers is practical common sense and compassion; other things can be added by training, which takes weeks, not years. But even when wages are over the minimum wage it’s hard to attract British entrants. That needs changes in welfare.
I would also cut the link between the right to work and the right to claim citizenship, indeed the right to the indefinite leave to remain in the UK. In the agricultural sector there are seasonal workers who come here for a few months of the year and then return. In other sectors, time limited visas should be the rule, without the right to bring family dependents. That would put paid to the notion that a migrant automatically qualifies as a citizen, though some may well do so.
As for more far reaching measures, I’d refer you to an excellent paper by the conservative leaning think tank, Policy Exchange, ‘Why is it so hard to get immigration figures down’ by former Home Office official Steve Webb which includes the suggestion that there should be an auction for limited high skills visas, the proceeds of which should go to raising wages in the care sector.
Let’s see if the Government’s measures bring down immigration by hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands. Because it’s change on that scale that is necessary. Yet it’s welcome, in that it’s an indication that even for nice, liberal people, talking about immigration numbers is no longer off limits. That’s a start.
Melanie McDonagh is a London Standard columnist
