Yesterday the government published its draft Immigration and Social Security Bill.
There were some good bits to it. The intention is to treat the rest of the world fairly and equally, with no special treatment for EU citizens. The aim is to encourage tourism and visitors. There will be no visas required for EU tourists coming here, and all tourists can stay for up to six months without the need for additional paperwork. Anyone gaining a place at a UK HE institution will be eligible for a permit. All those graduating from a UK university can stay for an additional six months to look for a job or to enjoy their time with us. These are important principles to assist our HE sector and tourist industry and show that the new global UK is outward looking and engaged with the wider world. Citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, the USA and Canada will be able to use the egates and faster entry system at our airports as EU people can today.
The proposals also include lifting the current quantitative controls on visas for people coming to undertake higher paid and skilled jobs in the UK currently applying to non EU citizens. The government argues that the UK is good at generating jobs and business activities and needs to be able to attract talent from all round the world to take up these opportunities. The provisional proposal is that such jobs would need to pay more than £30,000 a year to be free of controls.
The government is also suggesting a transitional system of allowing people to come in to work for up to a year at lower pay levels. They would not be eligible for benefits and would have to return home at the end of the year. The longer term aim is to stop inward migration to take low paid jobs, to seek to drive up productivity and pay and to give UK based individuals more chance of getting employment. Having access to fewer people from abroad willing to accept low pay should increase investment in machine power to do some of the tasks, and to make the remaining workforce more productive.
The Common Travel area with the Republic of Ireland is maintained, as before we joined the EEC/EU.
We read that the Chancellor and the Business Secretary are unhappy about any policy which reduces the flow of migrants from the EU into low paid employment. The Home Secretary himself seems unhappy about continuing the policy aim of reducing inward migration substantially in line with the Prime Minister’s often stated wish and with the Conservative Manifesto.
December 21, 2018
These sound like sensible proposals for the future. The objections to limiting the number of low paid or not having a net target miss the point that future immigration controls should reflect practical needs of the hosts not just those who employ those who come here to work.
December 21, 2018
It is a Tory fudge. Javid’s plan will allow low skilled immigration by the tens of thousands. His plan also takes note of the disastrous UN migration pact! When will it be made law not to criticise immigrants? We had this before. Sensible countries soundly rejected it saying it was a national policy decided by nation states.
The inspectorate said last month that by any stretch of the imagination there are no secure borders. Is this not Javids first? National security in the wake of two attrocities last year, where one bomber came in and out of Fance to suit himself. What has Javid done in his plan to make borders secure to control any form of immigration? Nothing springs to mind. Best he resigns in failing his national duty to keep us safe.
Moreover, he has promoted that asylum aseekers and refugees be kept in the community not detention centres. What does he think they will do if refused? Be lost like the other hundreds of thousands!
One year visas are simply stupid. Better still stupid man. If the Home Office admits to losing 56,000 illegal immigrants this year, 700 ex cons to be deported, what confidence should we have that these yearly visas will work or the HO have the capacity to ask them to leave! None. May lost over 200,000!
But let us be clear, immigration outside the EU has been running very high, why?
Come on JR, by any reasonable objective standard Javid’s plan is ridiculous and will fail. No target despite targets throughout every and all public services! Sustainable level, what an empty pathetic phrase to use. A losers target.
All hot air and pilfered. Worse we are still not safe and secure in our own country. No secure borders means he has no control over immigration either. Simple fact.
December 21, 2018
“The government is also suggesting a transitional system of allowing people to come in to work for up to a year at lower pay levels. They would not be eligible for benefits and would have to return home at the end of the year.”
Lack of joined up thinking here knowing how hard it is at present to expel non EU citizens who have overstayed their welcome. Presumably they will also enjoy the protection of the human rights laws such as the ‘right to a family life’ in the UK and whatever else the new UN migration pact will offer them. There is also no mention of removing those EU citizens who live here solely on benefits either.
Nothing to worry about though as incoming Home Secretary Diane Abbot will have a few different ideas of her own.
December 21, 2018
yep there is no mainstream party likely on the ballot paper offering a sensible immigration policy that is remotely close to the views of the decent majority of the country.
the parties are all being lobbied heavily by big business, not listening to individuals affected, and all hot beds of the same old small subset of views.
even the Dom Cummings of this world have been hoodwinked by the same old story from big business.
the political landscape is wide open to new political parties that actually take the time to listen and empathise to people like me
December 21, 2018
DRW,
Yes it needs to be automatic with very restricted get out routes to avoid returning home after one year. (An example exception I can think of is a prospective international student coming to work for one year in a low paid position to improve English, prior to paying for and starting a full-time education course).
Yes there is a problem with how families seem to be ‘created’…going home to find a spouse.
December 21, 2018
Yes. You wonder about either the brass neck or the stupidity of the person considering this aspect. Once again manifesto and the Leave vote being ignored and us treated as mugs.
December 21, 2018
We already have such a system: it is called Mode 4 migration, and since those who come here under it stay for just under a year, they don’t qualify as migrants in the statistics (which relate to those who come for more than 12 months). Much used by companies that specialise in contracted out services, the employees are exempted from national insurance and income tax as well.
December 21, 2018
Indeed.
But why are the Chancellor and the Business Secretary unhappy about any policy which reduces the flow of migrants from the EU into low paid employment? Low paid migration lowers others wages (reducing tax take) and is a net liability to the revenue. It also puts huge strains on housing, schools, the health service, roads, social services, translation services, legal aid, the police, social cohesion …..
So we spend approaching 50% of GDP or our wonderfully inefficient state sector and yet the police and the defence forces cannot even shoot down a drone or two at our second airport. It is pathetic. Police assure us they will catch those responsible. How do they know this? They catch so few criminals currently rarely even trying. The culprit may not even be in the UK anymore it could be have been set up and preprogrammed or being remote controlled now from thousands of miles away now.
The position made even worse by lack of runway capacity due to daft dithering politicians and the green crap lobby all cheered on by the BBC types and many daft green politician. Environmentalist loons might perhaps be responsible for these drones too. Though it might equally be a foreign power.
December 21, 2018
Plus immigrant labour is far more likely to send their wages overseas rather than spend it in the UK. Even on the higher skilled scheme level of £30K PA some may well still be a large net loss to the treasury and a burden on tax payers. After schools, health, housing and the likes … are put into the computation.
December 21, 2018
It was reported that we are seeing an outflow of £21bn in remittances being sent home , Nigeria receiving £3bn.
December 21, 2018
Why should the taxpayer subsidise cheap labour? Why not make business train people from this country to meet their needs. In the US a company has to show why it is not employing a US citizen. This was before Trump.
Javid has failed his own manifesto commitment made in 2010, 2015 and 2017 to cut from,hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. He will not give a number.
Javid,faile,as,business,Secretary over the Port Talbot steel works, even though made it fly back from Australia he made a ham fisted mess of it. Javid as communities secretary decided to give councils a whopping 5.6 percent tax hike to pile on huge pressure to home budgets, plus add ons, contrary to manifesto. Contrary to successive manifestos. Without any efficiency drives or need to reform to make savings by making them unitary authorities. Despite repeated failures he is now Home Secretary where is first main policy paper is an utter disaster and, once again, contrary to the Tory manifesto! Is there any standards or point o the Tory party having a manifesto?
Comes across as okay but is intellectually challenged and has no strategic vision. Not a public speaker. His speech at the conference was dull lacking charisma, charm or any form of inspiration. His poor record sadly speaks for itself.
A career politician who will flip flop from being out to being in the EU, depending on how the wind blows. Now supporting May’s servitude plan to remain in the EU without a voice veto or vote!
December 21, 2018
Correct: the World Bank recently released its estimates of bilateral remittance flows for 2017. For the UK, these are estimated to have amounted to $26.8bn remitted to other countries in 2017, against $4.4bn remitted back to the UK from overseas.
December 21, 2018
Migration of all kinds of all kinds would only reduce wages, if jobs were all kept in a bag and doled out form a static supply. The economically active people who come to the UK increase the size of the economy and aggregate demand )While they may reduce wages locally such as arguably in hospitality of retail) overall they act as an upward pressure and more immediately increase the Nations ability to to borrow ( whilst swelling the exchequer as well)
The biggest drags on the admittedly imperfect EU economies are their swollen oldy demographic and over large welfare state In structural terms therefore the influx of young contributors is especially vital in balancing our dependent cohort with its reliance on a black hole of Health and Care spending
December 21, 2018
“Migration of all kinds of all kinds would only reduce wages, if jobs were all kept in a bag and doled out form a static supply.”
Nonsense how are you going to win a job on £ 15 per hour if there are loads of people prepared to do it equally well for £8? The supply is not static but the idea wages are not reduced by extra supply of Labour is total tosh.
December 21, 2018
Yay !
Wide did we ever bother with borders and the armed services ?
Think of the money we could save.
Yay !!!
We can even get rid of government. No country = no government !
Yay !!! and TRIPLE YAY !!!
December 21, 2018
On the drone nonsense, I don’t know what they are playing at because the technology exists to find out EXACTLY where that drone is being flown from and to hack into it and bring it down so, without being too conspiratorial, I suspect that there is another agenda at play here…..
On immigration, I fear that the Tory Party just doesn’t get it. I haven’t (yet) studied it in depth, but it looks like an updating of PBS. I just hope that they have factored in the cost of enforcement as I can see a coach and horse being driven through it. They will never in a million years be able to enforce the one year in one year out rule if previous pathetic performance were a judge.
They were hammered when a market exploded in fake documentation last time so they had better be prepared this time!!
Zorro
December 21, 2018
The Green Party should be calling for reductions in immigration. What harm is done to the environment to build the houses for these people? All that cement that is needed, generating so much CO2. How will they bring the building materials on site? Driven by lorry? More pollution.
Yet they have a policy to build 500,000 new homes. Once they are built, the occupants will need to be kept warm in winter. More fossil fuels burnt.
They should be calling for a planned depopulation of the UK, for the sake of the planet. To my mind, their policies don’t add up.
December 21, 2018
Are you sure? There was an item in the Telegraph on14/04/2015 at the time of the previous GE “Green Party manifest launch: Has there ever been a more dishonest political party?” where it was pointed out that the Green Party was calling for a reduction in the UK population. At the time it was condemned by the DT. So which is which, your take or the DT’s?
December 21, 2018
The law wage low skilled migrant policy has been disastrous for the country, not only has it resulted in driving up welfare costs, but it has also driven up costs like housing, which has also driven up welfare costs, essentially it has transferred from the employer to the state a whole load of costs, but it has also driven down productivity, for in depressing wage levels it has taken off the pressure on companies to invest in productivity.
December 21, 2018
What I struggle to understand is why businesses – large & small – pay deliberately low wages, safe in the knowledge that the Welfare State will top these wages up. Scrub that – that the taxpayer will top these wages up. In essence, that the taxpayer is subsidising their wage bill. Curtailing this would go a long way to cutting the benefits bill.
I’m not advocating driving those workers to food banks, or to go fulltime on benefits but SURELY businesses should not receive this subsidy, especially Big Business??
December 21, 2018
The helpful nurse from Spain who treats you earns less than £30k. So does the kind care worker from Poland who looks after your elderly mother. Along with many others they do jobs Britons can not do or do not want.
Many leave voters are old. Many NHS and care staff are European. It does not take a degree (which is just as well for most of you) to realise which Britons wlll stuff most from this policy best dubbed Tory Hostile Environment 2.
(Oh – the end of ‘free movement’ works both ways. You are all stealing wonderful rights from your children and grandchildren to appease your own generation’s hate).
December 21, 2018
Here’s a few youth unemployment statistics for you Andy: Greece 43%, Spain 33%, Italy 31%, France 20%. And yet you in your entitled way want you own children to be able to go to those countries and take jobs as a right ? Very selfish. If they get enough qualifications and have high enough skills they will still be able to go and work in the EU, just as I once went to work in USA.
December 21, 2018
Why do you think someone from the EU should have precedence over someone from Australia or Canada or the West Indies or China or Malaysia or anywhere else in the world?
December 21, 2018
@Andy; Many of those helpful nurses and care workers you cite also come from outside of the EU, it doesn’t need EU freedom of movement laws to fill such recruitment gaps. I do agree having a simplistic earnings rule and time limit rule that will do nothing but create a whole new recruitment industry to fill a revolving door is daft and has obviously only been included to appease the hard right for who any immigration (opposed to a guest worker) scheme is unacceptable.
As for your last point, many people chose to live and work outside of the UK, many in Continental Europe (long before the UK joined the EEC) but also in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. I know UK nationals who live and work in the middle east, the far east and the USA & Canada, not just the EU. Of course it tales commitment to do so, not just the ability to wake up of a morning and decide to up-stick and go live/work in Paris or what ever EU location!
December 21, 2018
And you can tell us all about ”hate”, can’t you, Andy?
December 21, 2018
The interesting thing about this debate is opponents of the govts proposal can never say who they would not allow in. At the moment we have unlimited immigration from the EU, extensive immigration from non-EU which for some reason can’t be controlled (extended families maybe). But tight restrictions on highly skilled people from non-EU countries. So non-EU graduates are being chased out, and employers looking for people are unfairly and damagingly discriminating against non-EU people in filling vacancies. There is nothing either fair, rational or desirable in discriminating in favour of EU citizens and against non-EU citizens, it’s simply a policy forced on you by EU membership.
December 21, 2018
You do seem very bitter and twisted. People who are here will still be able to stay and work, they are not being removed. Again, you try and stigmatise leave voters by claiming that they did not complete a degree. A lot of people who voted leave are graduates, and so what if some people are not, a lot of very skilled people do not have degrees.
Freedom of movement does work both ways, but only a tiny number study or work abroad in relation to the population as a whole, and they will still be able to study/work abroad after we leave if they are a marketable commodity!
Zorro
December 21, 2018
There is no evidence that British people do not want to work in nursing. Applicant numbers exceed the available training posts by large margin. Your policy of using trained staff from less developed countries is morally reprehensible and not sustainable.
December 21, 2018
Gross immigration of 625,000 last year. (7 x Wembley stadia @ 90,ooo seats)
Net immigration 248,000. (2.7 Wembley stadia) pa.
Andy says we do nothing. It’s not a problem.
Andy says it’s now racist to be worried about one’s own nationality being displaced. (We have nothing against foreigners.)
Dad was treated by 4 lovely English care workers prepared to turn out all hours for a pittance. Ditto the St Barnabus nurses.
Also (in their area and ours) we have English people doing crap jobs only EU citizens want to do – including staffing curry houses and Chinese restaurants.
Working class kids do not want to travel like Andy’s middle class kids do. They just want a settled community and stability to their lives.
December 21, 2018
According to Andy only Remainers worry about their children and grandchildren.
I can assure him that this is not the case.
In the Lincolnshire area young people (hit by EU competition) voted Leave in droves.
Alas, because they ‘do crap jobs that only EU citizens are prepared to do’ they are deemed thick and should not have the vote, according to Andy.
London Andy caused Brexit.
I’m alright Andy won’t understand Londoncentricity and the spiritual deprivation it’s caused elswehere because he’s trapped in the bubble.
Of course, Brexit has caught Andy completely by surprise.
PS
Andy lives in his Mum’s basement… on his own.
December 21, 2018
Brexit did not catch me by surprise at all.
If you ask dumb people a dumb question you get a dumb answer.
It was all perfectly predictable – as are the consequences.
Reply It was a good question to ask, and the people answered it sensibly and after due consideration.
December 21, 2018
Tosh. We are fine with selective quality immigration, but control needs to rest with the UK and not an open door to anyone EU regardless of merit or need!
People will still be able to work in the Europe, they did well before the dire anti-democratic and evil EU was constructed.
December 21, 2018
Andy
Is there NO subject of which you are not ignorant?
1) There are virtually no nurses from Spain, most overseas nurses are from Malaysia and Africa
2) Of the 4% of NHS staff that are from overseas the majority are from India, Malaysia and Ireland. So no the EU doesn’t really contribute much to the NHS
3) Average salary of a nurse is £32400
None of the imported nurses have nursing degrees unlike British nurses who are forced to go to university . See the problem yet Andy ?
Oh and Germany has just opened up immigration to non EU citizens, so your kids are safe now Andy they can leave you and live in Germany.
December 21, 2018
ps Andy
Today we have published agreements with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and with Switzerland on protecting citizens’ rights and resolving withdrawal issues as the #UK exits the #EU. More countries that your kids can escape to to get away from you.
Hope they dont treat you how you claim to treat your mum
December 21, 2018
Libertarian,
And there are no subjects on which you do not have an opinion , sometimes substantiated and sourced and other instances rather unsubstantiated and not well argued or documented
December 21, 2018
hans
Another pointless post from Mr Clueless
Oh and there are lots of subjects that I’m not interested in.
The day you provide one shred of evidence or a link to any of your posts we’ll through a party
In the meantime go and google the NHS staffing site, all the data is there
December 21, 2018
Oh dear Andy, degree or not, you seem to have trouble with joined up thinking! As Lifelogic points out above, the influx of low-paid workers ensures a lowering of all workers remuneration – including, surprise surprise, Nurses and Care workers. Without this influx wages would need to rise to ensure sufficient employees in any sector. Might lead to another look at efficiencies in said sector too!
December 21, 2018
Yeah. It does not work like that.
Because the same Tory bright sparks who told you Brexit is a good idea – tell you taxes are a bad idea.
And nurses do not get a pay rise unless you pay more tax. Which you won’t.
Still I have private healthcare. I hope you all enjoy hanging around in hospital corridors when you get sick. It’s what you voted for.
Reply Wrong again. We say high tax rates are a bad idea because they mean less tax revenue and a less prosperous society! If you wish to be part of a democratic debate you should seek to understand those you disagree with, whilst respecting our right to hold our different view. I do not accuse Remain supporters of being stupid or evil in intent.
December 21, 2018
What twaddle – read between the lines or lips – it is called politics – the NHS and Care sectors will still be wide open to suitable Europeans.
Get a life
December 21, 2018
Yes – but they will not want to come to care for elderly xenophobic Brexit voters. Never mind – you can all look after yourselves instead.
Improved productivity!
December 21, 2018
The only hater I regularly read on this board Andy is you! I’m not in the generation you hate so much but I find your posts quite unnecessarily combative, offensive and rude.
We do need to explore why young men and women who can’t find other work in the North East, for example, and in some areas of London and can’t take the training and gain these many necessary nursing jobs. The key is lower-cost affordable accommodation on a nursing starting wage of £22,128 and the government need to balance the two around the entire United Kingdom; from April 2019 we expect the British government to SORT THIS OUT without just sucking out the brightest and best from elsewhere, perhaps just perhaps our NHS will have to make MORE EFFORT to recruit from our schools and colleges as they used to.
December 21, 2018
You could always make up the difference between the cost of their services and the tax they pay.
December 21, 2018
Of course the nurse is already here, and has the right to stay here after Brexit. There are also provisions for allowing more migration for lesser paid shortage occupations.
You should note that 75% of British emigrants reside outside the EU, with the top destinations being English speaking countries. There is no need for freedom of movement EU style to emigrate for work, study or to retire. What you do need is a good knowledge of the local language (or the ability to rapidly acquire that), and suitable qualifications and ambition to work or live abroad.
Here’s a list of the World Bank’s estimates of the top locations for British emigrants as at 2017:
Australia….1,195,150
United States….696,896
Canada….624,411
Ireland….281,100
New Zealand….272,071
Spain….258,965
France….188,161
South Africa….123,764
Germany….107,005
Thailand….85,850
December 21, 2018
Interesting stats. This shows the utter tosh written above about opportunities for future generations. You don’t need the UK to be in a political union with a country for people to have the chance to work and study there. One positive of all this bad tempered Brexit debate is the actual facts are getting out there!
December 21, 2018
I almost look forward to seeing your posts, just to see what bile you’ll spew out.
Perhaps if huge numbers of people hadn’t come in from countries with lower wages etc to do low paid jobs in this country, we wouldn’t have a generation or two of people who fund their lives with benefits. And the wages of those low paid jobs wouldn’t have been pushed even lower without large numbers of people willing to take them because, in comparison to their home countries, it was a damn’ good wage.
December 21, 2018
These all seem like sensible and balanced measures. Now when we have full employment and rising wages but stagnant productivity it is understandable that the Chancellor and business secretary don’t want to do anything which might reduce growth. However this will not always be the case and at some point in the future people will be glad to be able to have in place a flexible system for controlling immigration. Even now it will be a good idea to encourage business to get used to being short of cheap workers and to start investing more in raising productivity.
December 21, 2018
Growth eh thats achieved by having people come to the UK whose sole economic activity is to buy goods, use services with UK tax payers money? As Dr Tim Morgan has pointed out since 2003 every £1 of incremental GDP has been bought with a borrowed £5.19 .
December 21, 2018
Ouch.
December 22, 2018
Yes,I have pointed that statistic out before.Tim Morgan’s work is refreshing and deserves to be better known.
December 21, 2018
we most certainly do not have full employment, we have had sustained measures to massage the unemployed figures, that is not success
December 21, 2018
Iain Gill
Total drivel.
We have a massive skills shortage , 833,000 unfilled full time jobs ( todays ONS figures)
There are more than 32 million people employed, the largest number ever
Construction, Accountancy/bookkeeping and IT digital are the three hardest areas to fill jobs
The Unemployment figures are calculated using the ILO international standard
There are 1.36 million unemployed
499,000 unemployed are 16-24 year olds
Long term unemployed stands at 1.1%
We currently have 4.1% unemployed , the lowest unemployment has been is 3.4% and that was 1940-45
December 21, 2018
The employment stats are a huge success of the coalition and Conservative govts. Mainly due to tax and welfare reform, as well as to the economy being £100bn larger than the BoE and the Treaury said it would be should there be a leave vote. Credit where credit is due.
December 21, 2018
Growth in GDP per cap or just in GDP?
December 21, 2018
If the Chancellor, Business Secretary and Home Secretary are all against the new policy, who exactly in the government is proposing the policy and responsible for it’s execution?
December 21, 2018
I also want to know who in government is proposing £30,000 salaries and why exactly? Is it £30,000 in London and less elsewhere because of the cost of living? Is this the money required to be earned by a family in the UK to not receive benefits? Just how did this total get created?
What is the 2018 median wage for an under 25-year-old worker in the UK and the total amount they can earn before becoming entitled to Housing benefits and working tax credits?
We are going about this all wrong, didn’t Boris and the Leavers propose freedom for workers to take unfilled vacancies but no top up benefits for a period? I thought that’s what DC went to Europe to propose and they blew him out?
December 21, 2018
Brussels and Berlin
December 21, 2018
Though I may disagree with elements of the migration plan what I am pleased about is that it is being set solely by the UK government and can be changed by subsequent governments.
Couple of questions for our Remainer friends here:
In the Irish governments no-deal plans, which are quite significant, they have allocated no money at all to imposing a hard land border with NI. Why not ? We have been told repeatedly that the backstop (remaining in CU) is the only way to avoid this. So why aren’t they planning for one ?
The UK is also spending money planning for WTO/no-deal. So plainly this is a real option and not a unicorn to be slaughtered. So why don’t you want this as an option on your next referendum ?
December 21, 2018
Contrary to the outrageous false claims made by Theresa May about her ‘deal’ this policy could not be implemented immediately after we had left the EU because we would still remain subject to EU law, including the law demanding unhindered and unlimited free movement of persons, until we had emerged from her oxymoronic ‘status quo’ transition period during which nothing would change, that is if we ever emerged from it.
After that period of stasis, not transition, well, like everything else it would be a matter of what had been negotiated and agreed for our future relationship with the EU, and there is no guarantee that the UK government would achieve any its negotiating objectives as laid out in the non-binding political declaration.
Indeed if Theresa May was still notionally in charge of our side of those negotiations, while in fact still behaving as though she was at least partly on the other side, then we could be pretty sure of another rubbish ‘deal’ which she would try to impose on us.
Historically we would now be well into impeachment territory:
https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/impeachment/
“Impeachment is when a peer or commoner is accused of ‘high crimes and misdemeanours, beyond the reach of the law or which no other authority in the state will prosecute.’ It is a procedure that is ‘directed in particular against Ministers of the Crown’. The first recorded impeachment was in 1376 and the last in 1806. This procedure is considered obsolete.”
December 21, 2018
I dont understand why it is thought that people will willingly leave the UK after a year, when we know that there are thousands already here illegally, who have no intention of leaving.
December 21, 2018
You have just censored an article which of course is your right as it’s your blog but this is pertinent and from today’s ruling by an panel of experts into Boris Johnson’s article on the Burka and I quote
‘The expert panel found him “respectful and tolerant” and defended his writing style saying he had a right to use satire to make his point. It further stated that censorship was “unwise” and that It said that the Conservative Party’s Code of Conduct did not “override an individual’s right to freedom of expression”.
–
I’m not Boris Johnson. He’s one of the few Tory politicians who will enter into debate on these issues but for reason Redwood, whom I like a lot, finds it easier to simply censor his readers for political convenience
Thanks John
December 21, 2018
Can’t our government get anything right? Don’t they look at successful schemes used by other countries?
December 21, 2018
No. And no.
December 21, 2018
Sounds like ‘nothing has changed’. Not surprising since May has signed the migration pact. And six months for a holiday? How many people can pay for that? Oh just a minute, they’ll get a job, and find a girlfriend/boyfriend and… you know what…. and guess how many will go back?
December 21, 2018
@Lifelogic – yes, what have been effectively infinite inflows of immigration depress wages. The statistics scream that fact. They also push up housing costs.
The Chancellor and the Business Secretary hear and listen to business voices. But surely both the business and the human analysis clearly indicate that excessive immigration is actually damaging to society and buisness. Yesterday’s headlines were rightly about the increase in homeless deaths, but at the same time people were still yelling about how evil it is to limit immigration.
One tweet I saw complained about the poor welcome our country gives to immigrants. How can we give a good welcome to individuals moving to the UK when (a) under freedom of movement we don’t know how many are coming, and (b) a million arrive every three years?
Recent immigration policy, in the freedom of movement framework, gives government a cop-out on education policy. The government does not have to bother to try to educate enough doctors, nurses, engineers, maths teachers, because people will come from outside the UK. For goodness, sake, the government surely must run the country so that it can stand on its own two feet, better still, lead in the world and set a good example.
There is a Swiss government study which sets out that immigration is a net cost over time. I skim read, but I saw no inclusion of costs of extra hospital, school space etc. in the study.
December 21, 2018
Mostly sounds reasonable.
“…..the Chancellor and the Business Secretary are unhappy about any policy which reduces the flow of migrants from the EU into low paid employment. The Home Secretary himself seems unhappy about continuing the policy aim of reducing inward migration substantially ….” They should improve planning to make more local people available ….
Long term, the government has to replace the advice – given it seems to permit uncontrolled migration – that couples should have a maximum of 2 offsprings. This has damaged families and resulted in a lack of workers, we are told.
December 21, 2018
Or limit what was once upon a time called Family Allowance to two children only. I cannot understand that people can have as many children as they wish, safe in the knowledge that they’ll never have to pay for them out of their own pocket!
December 22, 2018
I would agree that limiting family allowance to 2 children is sensible – but when we are being told that we don’t have enough people in this country to do necessary jobs, perhaps this quota could be 4 children per family, born to British parents, and not brought in from elsewhere.
Being able to support, properly, any children brought into this world has to be established as a moral obligation.
The hype around the planet being unable to support large families has been proven to be just that – What a con that was, when the establishment was planning to flood us with immigrants that produce huge families.
December 22, 2018
UK birth rate is low – 2.6 births per couple, I think, for (sorry, hate using this word but…) indigenous. For most migrant families, it’s two or three times that. We keep having it rammed down our throats that we need mass immigration for the NHS and to care for our sick & elderly. But who will look after those when THEY grow old and sick – a new wave of mass immigration?
Keep the limit at two – after that, if you want more, you pay for them.
December 21, 2018
More customers for the NHS then.
I have no problem with people coming here on some sort of managed scheme (yet to be fully outlined), if only they were made to have their own medical insurance, as I have to if going abroad.
December 21, 2018
“and would have to return home at the end of the year.”
What I find worrying is the mechanism here – how to ensure that they do return home after the year. Traditionally, authorities have been lax and incompetent in expelling people who shouldn’t be here and applying a heavy hand attracts the snow-flakes and do-gooders. Eventually, we come down to identity cards…..
December 21, 2018
Good morning
It should be much higher than this ! I would make it £45,000 at least, as the original figure just about encompasses most jobs, particularly those in the South East and London.
Well they do need to keep the poor in their place. And Scrooge was supposed to be a character in a story ?
The six months for tourists is too high. 3 Month max per year, 6-9 months if you apply for special visa.
We will need to be able to revisit and review this at some later date.
Finally. Can we ban all foreigners from entering our country who have criminal records please ?
December 21, 2018
I have no doubt whatever migration policy is decided upon it will be a failure.
There has to be a determination for a plan to succeed, in addition to it being well thought out and implemented. I am not convinced such a determination exists within our government.
I still welcome migration being under UK control. Then, when and if failures occur we know who to blame and can vote accordingly when the time comes.
December 21, 2018
“The Common Travel area with the Republic of Ireland is maintained, as before we joined the EEC/EU.”
This should only apply where an Irish citizen has a grandparent who was born in Ireland born before a certain date (like applies to commonwealth countries) otherwise you will see it as a gateway for any EU citizen and asylum seeker to get into the UK.
December 22, 2018
And that Irish citizens do not have a vote in elections. How much would that have skewed the Referendum result?
December 21, 2018
This issue of immigration and filling unpopular jobs is not as easy to solve as would appear at first sight – hence the disparate voices coming out of government.
One thing that irritates me on bloggers’ comments here are accusations of lying by the PM and other ministers, when in reality, we should be recognizing the complexity of the issues they have to deal with. By all means disagree, but without credible evidence, it would be nice if people imagined themselves in these lead roles, and ask themselves how they’d manage.
From my lifelong association with farmers and growers (and as an amateur grower myself), I can tell you that the price of vegetables is already amazingly cheap. And were there to be a sudden halt to immigrant labour (which is in some ways desirable) the public would soon squeal if prices went up to realistic levels.
E.g. My home-grown sprouts having finished, we bought a couple of 500 gm bags this morning for 30 pence each. Considering the work that goes into their production, they would not be expensive if they cost twice that amount, or even £1.00. I do not know how the growers manage it, but certainly, cheap labour is a big factor. It’s Christmas, and we have so much to be grateful for!
December 21, 2018
I later checked, and noted the 30 p was a ‘loss leader’ – normal price £1 neatly crossed out! Much more realistic.
December 21, 2018
The “new” policies have all the problems 0f the ICT visa route you covered so well in the past, but subsequently went quiet on.
These policies are as bad if not worse than the ones already in place.
I am really disgusted that the political class, the migration advisory committee, the home office, and all the rest have got it so badly wrong.
This will come back to haunt this country in years to come, in the not to far off years too.
Again getting the basics correct on this is necessary for at least part of the political spectrum to show some real understanding of the issues and put sensible policies forward.
Using these policies which could have been written by the worst of big business is disgusting.
I am sorry John politics is failing the people this is nowhere near good enough.
December 21, 2018
People of talent and skill do not always earn more than £30,000 PA.
What steps are there to motivate that portion of the 1.6 million unemployed who can work.
In many cases, the NHS for instance, the need for more nurses and doctors is a direct result of importing 250000 PA for the past twenty years or so. You are on a merry go round.
There appears to be nothing about removing the estimated 2000000 illegals. This bill appears to be the product of a May touchy feely socialist party. Like the curate’s egg only good in parts.
December 21, 2018
The HE sector should be selling their courses on the basis of the quality of them, it should stand alone on that, they should not be given the additional wheeze of flogging an immigration status to the country as well.
As I have said on previous posts, the Javid proposals will lead to higher immigration and are unworkable. Dose anybody have any faith in the Home Office being able to kick out low skilled migrants after a year and not let them back into the country for the year after that?
Please don’t treat us like fools , we have seen it all before.
December 21, 2018
If the Home Secretary carries on like this he won’t be so popular with the membership. I thought he wanted to be.
December 21, 2018
No, the membership of the Tory Party is terminally thick.
December 21, 2018
The figure of £30,000 is negotiable, so expect business lobby groups to whittle it down to a lower figure. The level of a skilled worker is only set at the equivalent of one ‘A’ Level. Hardly high-skilled.
Once in the country the low skilled workers will be very difficult to remove. The scheme should only allow new workers in once the old workers have left the country i.e. a cap. Having signed the UN Migration Pact our Government does not intend to reduce net immigration. This White Paper contradicted the Pact so which is it? You can’t satisfy both.
People keep telling us we need more workers because of demographics. This argument doesn’t make sense. Comparing the workforce now to previous generations – Woman now work rather than being full-time housewives, women now work until they are 66 rather than retiring at 60, men now work an extra year. We may live longer on average but the population is healthier. Needing extra workers is a myth put out by business wanting to depress wages. If you really do want to increase workers then the Government should look at the perverse effect of the benefit system. How many benefit recipients only work 16 hours just to get the maximum money for the least amount of time worked?
I’m afraid we are being conned yet again with this Government paying lip service to the concerns of the public.
December 21, 2018
Sloppiness on control of numbers is mismanagement.
December 21, 2018
All I know is that here, where I live, there are many large sheds and mobile homes springing up in back gardens ( a friend had people living in the next door shed).
Ordinary semis appear to be multi occupancy.
Some poor soul is sleeping rough on a local roundabout ( said to be a safe place to camp because in full view of traffic).
Big new, expensive houses are being crammed into the most improbable places where they are most likely to cause even more traffic congestion and population pressure.
Everywhere looks tatty and unkempt and all the local services have shut down. The place is no longer recognisable. It is not home any more.
The roads are too busy and it is often impossible to park.
For many years the govt has talked about and promised to bring down immigration numbers.
They have not succeeded ( they promised big business cheap labour) and now we know exactly how truthful they always tend to be regarding their intentions.
Why should we trust them on their promises to limit mass immigration??
Mrs May protested new house plans in her constituency and won! Not so for the rest of us! And soon it will be illegal to even discuss these matters.
December 21, 2018
JR,
Why, do you keep talking about the Conservative Party manifesto?
Most of the promises outlined have already been broken or not delivered at all
December 21, 2018
Off topic.
For the general public the behaviour of the Commons in spending nearly an hour discussing whether or not Jeremy Corbyn had said to himself “stupid woman” reached an all time low. Pure Gilbert and Sullivan, but taken seriously.
December 21, 2018
He should have said it out loud in a heavy French accent like Rene Artois,the cafe owner from TV’s vintage comedy,’Allo ‘Allo.Now that would have gotten a laugh!
December 21, 2018
“We read that the Chancellor and the Business Secretary are unhappy about any policy which reduces the flow of migrants from the EU into low paid employment.”
I’m unhappy that the Chancellor and Business Secretary aren’t associating this low paid employment as one of the causes of homeless UK born workers sleeping in bins in London and other major Cities (last nights news) and dying on the steps of Parliament (yesterday’s news). If they want cheap labour in London then the workers need somewhere affordable to stay, how does your Chancellor and Business Secretary square this circle? UK workers don’t have the networks that kit out houses to accommodate 5-15 people at a time without the HMO’s, licences etc.
December 21, 2018
A Bill having ‘some good bits to it’ is a low standard, even for a 1st draft.
A competent operator would achieve nearer Right First Time toward Excellence.
December 21, 2018
It’s dishonest to have a net immigration target if the system has no means to achieving the stated number.
We’ve never come remotely close to reaching the alleged ‘target’ and I’ve never met anyone, apart from politicians, who cares about the ‘tens of thousands’ figure.
Whether or not migrants should come here depends on whether they’re worth having. The resultant number might be zero, or it might be many hundreds of thousands.
These published criteria seem to satisfy those requirements. But given the staff shortages in the NHS it might be worth dropping the salary requirements to £23,000 for NHS staff and keepin it 20% less than for everyone else.
The VITAL criteria, however, is that unless and until, they become UK Citizen migrants MUST NOT become entitled to ‘in work’ benefits, social housing, accrue state and public sector pension rights, or be able to vote.
That reform alone will regulate the numbers to most people’s satisfaction. And, had the EU agreed to it, when Cameron did his ‘renegotiation, we might have voted to Remain.
If a million multi millionaire businessmen, highly skilled engineers, doctors, nurses professional sportsmen and entertainers etc etc turned up next year and said they wanted to live and pay their taxes here, I’d be thrilled.
December 21, 2018
The government is importing at least a quarter of a million EXTRA people every year. This explains why my small Cornish village is getting 5 dozen houses it doesn’t want. It explains why my surgery is over subscribed. It explains the local schools being full and the general hospital being under pressure all the time. Now we learn that this silly situation is to continue.
December 21, 2018
The provisional proposal is that such jobs would need to pay more than £30,000 a year to be free of controls.
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Average wage in the UK is £34,000. The average tax payer doesn’t cover their state services for the simple reason there is a deficit. You need to be earning £38,000 a year to break even.
For dependents that also applies.
Why the 30,000 number? You are still forcing other people to subsidize employers and migrants when by simply setting the number to break even, that goes away.
Remember that £38,000 break even ignores the big number, pensions
December 21, 2018
Looks like completely open borders in practice to me. There seems to be no limit on the number of people this execrable government wishes to stuff into this country.
December 21, 2018
Do the Home Secretary and the Chancellor not realise that what they suggest is “EU Open Borders”? and a reason why many voted to leave the Brussels cabal? To allow unlimited numbers of low paid EU migrants into this country is surely against the reasoning for our leaving the EU? Whose side are these Ministers on?
December 21, 2018
Not our side that’s for sure. Doubt if many of them even look at things in human terms. We are just votes and units of labour to be replaced and abandoned at will.
December 21, 2018
Is now the time to take the moral high-ground and unilaterally make an offer to EU citizens living in the UK that they can stay here and will be treated the same as UK citizens?
Put a flag in the sand and see if the EU match it…
December 21, 2018
So we’re going to be getting more Saudi princes here so they can spend in London, great..in any case all of this tourism is overrated anyway and there are so many other places to go..people won’t want to be tossing about in their minds whether they should go somewhere because of the possibilities of visas or trouble with immigration at borders, a bit like me, I hate going to the US now because of all of the form filling paperwork and huw haw that goes along with it, in fact I downright refuse to go. As I say there are so many other friendly places to go where foreigners are welcome for just being who they are. Nobody wants to go where they do no feel wellcome, or as they say in the US, alien
December 21, 2018
It is better to have an under supply of labour in a boom than an over supply during a recession.
December 22, 2018
Beautifully put.
December 21, 2018
Britons who marry foreign citizens must have their priority returned previous to the Immigration Act 1973. Current EU legislation gives preference to any member of the EU27 marring a non-EU citizen to live in the UK over a British Citizen marrying a Canadian for instance. We have to remain outside the UK until several conditions are met that do not apply to the EU27. Immigration Act 1973 was implemented prior to joining the Common Market to pave the way for EU priority – it separates non-EU immigration into the UK from EU immigration. That Act needs to be revisited.
December 22, 2018
The English people are sick to death of immigration. We are sick to death of watching our towns and cities change before our eyes. We are sick to death of being treated by the right merely as interchangeable economic cyphers and by the pathological left as a source of “racism” and “hate”. We are sick to death of being lectured on tolerance by hypocrites and cheap virtue signallers who are totally intolerant of us. We are sick to death of never being listened to, never being consulted, never being considered as the people we are. As we grow more tired of all this so we grow bolder. Brexit was a warning to the political class that there must be change. The political class is not listening. The boldness will, therefore, increase.
December 30, 2018
Beautifully put. I’d add that on the ultra rare occasions we are ‘consulted’, we are subsequently told we didn’t really mean what we said. I talk, of course, of the Brexit referendum.
December 22, 2018
JR: “The intention is to treat the rest of the world fairly and equally, with no special treatment for EU citizens. ”
How is it fair, to force British tax payers and pay it to non British people anything at all?
What obligation do British tax payers have at all to any foreigner?
JR: “Treat the world fairly”
5.9billion people are owed fairness from 60 million British. Of which only about 25 million pay any tax. Why?
Are you insane?
December 22, 2018
We don’t need anymore net immigration – our island is overcrowded.
Other smaller west European countries manage perfectly well with a smaller population. We need to train the indigenous population in the appropriate skills, and wage competition will allocate labour to where it is most effective. We can survive with an economy based on our current population size.
Any short-term demands for specialist labour can be met within a net zero immigration/emigration turnover.
It is our young people who are paying the price for the vast uncontrolled immigration which has created the housing shortage and consequent increase in costs. And we can’t keep covering our countryside in more and more building.
Its time we had a referendum on the amount and type of immigration.