John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
We eased the driver shortage by training more people at home and paying them more. Is that not the right model for the scarcity occupations?
James Cleverly (Secretary of State for the Home Office):
My right hon. Friend is right. What we want is a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy. These proposals and the work that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced support that. Labour would do the opposite.
December 6, 2023
The proposals will have no effect.
There have been thirteen Conservative years in which this issue has not been tackled. Talking about what Labour will do is an old tactic that no longer works.
December 6, 2023
I am afraid that you are absolutely correct. Too little too late. +++
December 6, 2023
Indeed. Obviously Labour will be even worse, but that is not sufficient reason to vote Tory again after 13 years of blatant lies, betrays and gross incompetence. The man who promised to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands (and to deliver Brexit and serve the notice the next day, yet failed even to have a plan and pathetically just abandoned ship) is even back in Cabinet. Cast iron ratter, ālow tax at heartā but vast increases in reality one Lord Cameron of Greensill & Libya.
What on earth did Sunak think he was doing digging Cameron up. Electoral lunacy.
December 6, 2023
You are, of course, 100% correct, Peter. It is obvious that the Conservatives have one tactic and one tactic only – to pretend they haven’t been in charge these last 13 years. It is pitiful
December 7, 2023
Indeed this and to say āVote for us as Labour will be even worseā the latter is probably true but not sufficient reason after 13 years of gross failure. So how are Sunakās other four pledges coming on? Stop the boat people, growth, public borrowing, NHS waiting lists all four still heading in the wrong direction. He and Hunt claim to be cutting taxes but they must know they are still going up. No attempt even to cut government spending or the endless waste.
Suank has however halved the inflation that he and Andrew Bailey caused with their QE, the pointless lockdowns, vast government waste, lack of housing with increasing populationā¦1.7% when he became Chancellor up to 11%+ and now down to 4.7% over double the target.
December 7, 2023
Cameron in Lords saying UK will continue to be under laws from EU courts!! JR, your party does not want to control immigration nor anything else! Does Cameron, Sunak and Hunt realise we voted leave! Extreme remainers are currently undermining Brexit piece by piece. What are you lot doing about it?
December 6, 2023
They haven’t had to do much, Peter, whilst plenty of low-cost labour from the EU was coming in, taking these low-paid jobs but then requiring lots of benefits to survive and pay the rent. If more men worked in care this wouldn’t be an issue.
December 6, 2023
The actual policy announcement by Cleverly was that Tory govt want to have 500,000 immigrants a year entering our country! 450,000 legal and 50,000 illegal! Housing, public services anyone? Of that number only 1 in 5 work!
17,300 missing, not a clue who they are or where they are!
December 7, 2023
+1
December 7, 2023
LL,
High working productivity, my arse. Is Cleverly lying, incompetent or clueless?
December 6, 2023
Guido points out today UK must accept Rwanda refugees and the number is not announced! Rwanda gets to decide which ones we have!!
Your party have lost the plot. Quite rightly no one should trust a word your party/Govt. utters.
The actual policy announcement by Cleverly was that Tory govt want to have 500,000 immigrants a year entering our country! 450,000 legal and 50,000 illegal! Housing, public services anyone? Of that number only 1 in 5 work! Cleverly failed to mention that the govt can control those who come here but it is far more difficult to remove them- ECHR which the remainer Tories will not ever allow because it will breach EU sell out agreement and stop any chance of rejoining the EU.
December 6, 2023
Well who would have thought such a simple solution such as ensuring your own people are trained and helped into work, could fill any shortages.
I would like an apology to be issued to the heritage population of this land who have been called lazy, thick, unemployable and the rest, to justify the mass immigration certain politicians, their chums, big business and global entities wanted, and still do. We’re far from out of the woods on this issue.
It was never needed in the first place and the policy of making people benefit dependent and then cursing them has always sickened me.
December 6, 2023
Sir John,
You are of course correct however, I have noticed that, in recent years, education and training courses have become hugely expensive. Even the OU charge the same level of fees as the red brick universities.
I left school over half a century ago, but have since, always studied subjects that were of interest to me or useful for my vocation.
I would suggest the government look at the costs of further education courses for those that wish to better themselves or improve their prospects of better paid jobs. I suspect all the regulation and associated red tape within the education sector is what loads up the costs.
December 7, 2023
Cliff.
*Advanced Certificate in Bookkeeping (AAT) 23/24 Ā£1265.
*Level 3 Barbering 23/24 Ā£1645.
HNC Healthcare Professions’ Support 24/25 Ā£5700
You’d think the single parents, unemployed or unskilled would take these * up because:
“The AAT Level 3 is funded under the national skills fund level 3 free courses for jobs, which means that you can get a free Level 3 qualification if you:
are 19 or over and do not already have a Level 3 qualification
already have a Level 3 qualification or higher but earn below the National Living Wage annually (Ā£20,319 from April 2023)
already have a Level 3 qualification or higher but are unemployed.”
December 6, 2023
James Cleverly says your party in government wants a high-skills, high-productivity, high-wage economy. But we seem to have the opposite, after 13 years that it’s been in power. Surely that means your party has failed. It won two elections with very convincing majorities, yet couldn’t do what the Minister says it wants.
Excuse me for thinking it didn’t actually want that sort of economy at all, but rather it wanted the sort of economy we actually have.
December 7, 2023
The main skill needed by a politician and bent salespeople need are lots of words for āgoodā and lots for ābadā. Such as we want an efficient, first class, high technology, sustainable, integrated, reliable, high capacity, high speed, comfortable, clean, flexible, inexpensive transport system not an inefficient, cattle class, unsustainable, disintegrating, low speed, over crowded, unreliable, dirty, inflexible, unaffordable one that the opposition deliver.
December 6, 2023
So Victoria Atkins has decided not to pay junior doctors a living wage provoking a long christmas strike.
Perhaps Victoria (a lawyer) just cannot do simple sums. 1st year Junior Doctor get Ā£34k Gross with London weighting. This less tax, NI, pension cont, rent on a small london room in shared flat, council tax, water bill, professional fees (compulsory) typical interest (not even any capital) on their student debt, heat, light, commuting costs, lunchesā¦ nearly always leaves them a negative disposable income after a hard 40 hour+ working week.
Boat migrant arrivals are given more disposable income and they get free bikes, dentistry, special medical care, wifi and mobile phones too. The blame for any Christmas strike and shortage of doctors lies squarely at Mr Barclay, Ms Atkins and this Governmentās door. They and the grossly incompetently managed and run NHS will be fully to blame for any deaths or tragedies that arise.
December 6, 2023
Are junior doctors expected to live in grotty bed sits and end each years worse of than they were are the beginning of the year. Note that even a 35% increase for F1s would only give them Ā£150 PW more take home pay. This is just about enough to end the year equally poor as they started and then only if they lived very frugally in a bedsit or flat share.
December 7, 2023
A minister of state could at least brush her hair. Is she following Johnson that it does not matter what she looks like when representing our country!
December 7, 2023
Just pay them, they’re going to get it anyway. Then deal with the problem, train more of them, see what level of doctoring skills we are short of, change training courses. I know doctors who re-trained in middle age; we need much more of this, perhaps a route for army medics.
December 6, 2023
The Conservatives have done the opposite – until they were forced by having no option!
December 6, 2023
First Boris and Sunak relax requirements to double legal migration, now Sunak wants to tighten requirements to bring the numbers down to what they were before! Smoke and mirrors.
There is an example of a high skilled, high wage, high wage economy, without immigration and that is Japan.
December 6, 2023
Should read, high skilled, high productivity, high waged.
December 6, 2023
Hereās a novel idea just get the lazy couch potatoes off there arses and make them work back in the 70s if I refused to do a job allocated to me I didnāt get any benefits itās not flaming rocket science
December 6, 2023
What you propose Sir John requires the benefits system to be reformed and needs the stomach for a fight when the siren voices scream about hardship and “the children”
December 7, 2023
I’d say work or train in school hours on vocational skills in parenting occupations such as
nursery nursing,
*caring occupations and
*hospital lower-grade nursing (ward medic) training,
I’d make those courses fit around weekends when they don’t have their kids, and the other partner has them. I’d put men on them * and diversify the occupations.
December 6, 2023
The Conservative Party is now being run by overt globalists. Itās is being fronted by smoke and mirrors for the profit of low grade internet corporates like food and product delivery companies.
The age of Thatcherite populism is completely dead. Just like the Thatcherite revolution a new party will replace the Conservative Party.
December 6, 2023
The whole point of a whole segment of the Brexit philosophy was to get British people off their benefits, sofas and mickey mouse courses and into work. The government has signally failed to do that these past 7 years. It needs replacing eventually with one which does.
December 7, 2023
Mickey mouse cources & degrees that come with Ā£50k + of student debt 50%+ of which is never repaid. Plus three years loss of earnings. Then they come out are realise it had little or no real value.
December 7, 2023
It was working; people were contributing at least 16 hours; then COVID struck, and people suddenly realised just how much Universal Credit was and reduced hours.
December 6, 2023
A non event, keys to Westminster tossed to the others.
December 6, 2023
Westminster in total does not work!
There are far too many liars and those with self interest, so many that the good politicians are drowned out.
December 6, 2023
Of course we need a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy. But what we desperately need just now are exports, exports and more exports. Not more “experts” in the civil service on high grades earning huge salaries and non-contributory, index linked final salary pensions – locking in deep fiscal grief for the future
December 6, 2023
Labour would do the opposite to what ? Doesn’t he mean Labour would do exactly the same as the Conservatives have spent the last 13 years doing ? What we know for certain is that in some fantasy world where Sunak was re-elected he’d immediately ignore all these various pledges and do the exact opposite himself, because that’s what he does.
December 6, 2023
We know what they will doā¦
Nothing!
Ohā¦or will they cut immigration figures to the tens of thousands?? š
Anyway, I thought that there was already an arrangement with Rwanda in place….benefitting R more than us?
Naturally!
December 6, 2023
Hi sir John
It’s not the legal migration that’s a problem it’s the illegal migration the illegal small boats which we have paid France
400 million pounds to stop the channel crossings there is more than ever coming
There are still illegal migrants coming on lorrys from Calais. Why should families
come with students from abroad that we are to have to pay for
Get some of the lazy scivers off their back sides in this country and the make believe sick and disabled.
For example : there is a couple claiming disability driving around in a new
Range Rover every three years, they know how use the system.
Thank you
December 6, 2023
Governments should foresee shortages before they bite.
This government acts only after it is nearly devoured in a desperate attempt to save its own life.
December 6, 2023
Thinking back to the example of a shortage of, say, asparagus pickers.
They need 5 minutes training. You can’t simply pay them more because that would have an impact on the shelf price of asparagus to the point where nobody would buy it (the reason the minimum wage doesn’t really work – which is why part-time work is often offered to get around such anti-market rules).
The answer is automation. So why don’t the growers see that?
Perhaps because the technology doesn’t exist yet. So – why is that? Perhpaps they’re effectively competing with the low wages which make up the current cost base of the growers, so there’s no market for new technology (or not one that’s sufficiently lucrative).
In such a case, is the answer a govt prize approach? If govts have to intervene, perhaps the best way to do it is to encourage tech where it’s needed in an economic sense. They’ve done it before in other walks of life.
So if the govt were to offer a cash prize for the first company (or individual) to create a cost-effective machine which can pick fruit/vegetables, perhaps that would be the right kind of intervention. Ā£10 million would be a big incentive and in terms of the cash being splurged elsewehre, it’s tiny.
December 6, 2023
OT:
https://order-order.com/2023/12/05/sunaks-rwanda-plan-small-print-includes-uk-accepting-rwandan-refugees/
Shows that the new treaty with Rwanda has two major problems:
1. āAll transfer requests by the United Kingdom shall require approval by Rwanda prior to any relocationā
2. “The Parties shall make arrangements for the United Kingdom to resettle a portion of Rwandaās most vulnerable refugees in the United Kingdom”
December 6, 2023
What about a comment about the Resolution Foundation-LSE/CEP report (04/12/2023) āEnding stagnationā (economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org)?
What about a comment from a Thames Valley MP about the present and future state of Thames Water (news.sky.com 05/12/2023 āThames Water pays Ā£37.5 m dividend amid debt pile and pollution finesā, ft.com 05/12/2023 āThames Water to be investigated over financial stability and dividendsā).
Where is the scrutiny of parliamentarians about the Ā£535 m shareholder loan at 8% interest (to be paid by TW customers)?
December 7, 2023
Hefner, why don’t you set up your own blog? You could link it to your name here and if anyone is interested they could pop across.
December 7, 2023
He won’t do that Tracy.
Just passive aggressive post quoting some odd left wing think tanks is his policy.
And posts attacking Water companies forcdaring to pay a dividend.
December 6, 2023
Talking about Labour again.
*Sighs*
Just because we’re not voting Tory again doesn’t mean we’re going to vote Labour either. Please stop banging on about Labour.
We have to reject the Tories. We have to signal (by voting Reform) that we didn’t reject the Tories because they were too right wing.
No. A vote for Reform is not a vote for Labour. It is a vote against the Tories. I have never witnessed such decline in this country in my entire life.
December 6, 2023
This statement by Cleverly is of course in direct opposition to government actions over nurses, doctors, train workers, …
December 6, 2023
It is just a shame that many of the ‘One Nation’ Conservatives do not share this view. These Lib Dem lites would rather uncontrolled mass immigration carried on forever more.
What these ‘One Nation’ Conservatives still seem unable to grasp is that there is no longer such a thing as a ‘safe’ Conservative seat. By continuing to go against the grain of public opinion will do them no favours, come next year.
There is even a good chance of Maidenhead falling to the Lib Dems, unless Theresa May gets away from her unpopular ‘One Nation’ stance.
If various Ministers want to resign over the policy, them let them. They won’t be missed by the public. Finally we may – and I say may – see policies that the majority of the public want to see – that are long overdue.
December 6, 2023
It is not clear from the answer that Cleverly has understood the point of the question. The Tories do need to be concerned about their failure to create a high added value economy commensurate with those of many of our continental peers but that is not the same as addressing the failure of the market to fit people into the jobs that are vital to the smooth running of our economy without importation of new people or goods that we could produce here but are inhibited from so doing by artificial constraints on resources.
December 6, 2023
Peter , We need a huge change . Bring Farage back from the jungle ! .
December 6, 2023
If they can make Cameron FS, they can make Farage PM
December 6, 2023
He may want a high skilled highly paid, productive economy but his measures will produce the opposite. There is no incentive to invest in the UK’s human capital. On the contrary his scheme makes it cheaper to employ immigrants. In Australia an employer not only has to pay for the visa but also has to pay a large levy into the Skilling Australians Fund. The employer is prohibited from arranging for anyone else to pay the levy. Cleverley’s scheme incentivised employers not to invest in training and not to employ a Brit. Not clever at all. In fact it is utterly perverse.
December 6, 2023
Clearly the past and present systems to try to encourage those who are out of work to get a job has failed.
Time to try something new, after 13 years you would think the penny would have dropped with Ministers.
Over 1,000,000 people entered the UK in the last two years, yet we still have the same sort of vacancies, and those who say they cannot work has gone up !
The whole system needs a radical re-think.
December 6, 2023
Actually 1.2 million arrived just in the last year but 500,000 left. Hunt is doing his best to encourage more to leave of course.
December 6, 2023
A drastic reduction of benefits would bring a lot of people back into work and discourage a lot of benefits scroungers from abroad from coming here in the first place.
December 6, 2023
The Germans may have found a solution to their migration problem:
“Roderich Kiesewetter,Bundestag deputy:”The grief of Ukraine is that 600,000 men are taking refuge in the EU and in Germany alone there are 220,000 Ukrainians eligible for military service which is equal to 10 divisions.The EU and Germany should appeal to them to return to Ukraine”the politician said to Die Welt.”
Last week I saw Russian observer drone footage of women on the front line in areas where the fighting is intense-it didn’t stop the operator calling in a FPV drone to obliterate their dugout.War is,after all,war.
To the last Ukrainian,then, and we are getting close,despite Cameron going to Washington to beg for more tens of billions for “them”.
December 6, 2023
off topic.
Tariffs on electric vehicles traded between the UK and EU will be delayed for three years, the European Commission has proposed. It comes after carmakers on both sides of the Channel warned they were not ready for the change to post-Brexit trade rules planned from January. The rules were meant to protect the EU car industry, but the 10% tariffs were likely to lead to huge costs.
EU member states still need to approve the plan.
The Commission said the “one-off extension” would protect the bloc’s car industry which was still struggling with the impacts of the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and competition from US subsidies.
It added that car battery production had been slower than expected.
EU “rules of origin” due to come in from January would have required EU and UK-produced electric cars to be largely made from locally sourced parts to qualify as being tariff free.
The idea was to protect the European industry from cheap imports from countries such as China, which has become a dominant force in the global electric vehicle (EV) market.
However, the rules would effectively have meant that electric vehicles would need to have batteries produced in either the UK or the EU. And carmakers in both regions warned that many would struggle to meet the new criteria due to the slow pace of local battery production.
Industry bodies raised concerns that the rules would cost European manufacturers Ā£3.75bn over the next three years. There were also fears that steep tariffs could make electric cars more expensive to produce and potentially push up prices. The UK government had called for the rules to be postponed.
December 6, 2023
We read that many of these people we hire and train have no loyalty to the UK and are ready to up and move for more money anywhere in the World, It’s sunnier in Dubai, the visa lasts longer in the USA and the wages are better in Canada and Australia. British people trained in these jobs have more familial loyalty to their local areas.
A woman called Annie in the Guardian claimed she was working 15-hour days but only earning Ā£1500 per month. Even on minimum wage 15 hours = Ā£156.30 per day. So that Ā£1500 suggests she only does 7 days per month and has brought her husband and daughter with her. Her husband is learning to drive so he can become a care worker, but it doesn’t say if he is working now or if they are claiming universal credits. Always just half a story.
The truth is benefits are so high, too many UK citizens don’t need to work at all in the real economy, and yes, I do know people who have lived solely on UC for forty years.
December 6, 2023
We are witnessing the decay of the UK. Massive immigration of alien cultures who do not respect ours demonstrates we are now totally unable to protect our country and our values.
This is the consequence of allowing the left wing 5th column takeover of initially our educational establishment and then our Parliament, civil service, judiciary and many institutions, for the Left know only how to destroy. The history of the last century shows the path we are on to a Marxist autocracy with Net Zero destroying our economy and the ending of democracy with diversity replacing meritocracy, the rule of law replaced by the rule of lawyers and inclusivity meaning that since no-one may be offended, the end of free speech.
December 6, 2023
I understand that the immigration minister has left the government…
Kinda proves that the government has lost its way…
December 6, 2023
He’s switched off the lights but left the gates open
December 7, 2023
you mean the WELCOME lights on the cliffs at Dover?
December 6, 2023
A drastic reduction of benefits would bring a lot of people back into work and discourage a lot of benefits scroungers from abroad from coming here in the first place.
December 6, 2023
I don’t think the benefits level is the main problem. I think a lot is the way that housing (doesn’t) work in the UK. Social housing traps a lot of people in parts of the country where there are simply no jobs, and there is no way for those people to take their housing subsidy closer to the jobs market. We sustain housing that a free market would have left to be empty, simply cos we like subsidising social housing. We would be better subsidising needy people than subsidising bricks and mortar in the wrong places.
Social housing tenancies block anyone working away from home on temporary contracts, as leaving the home empty for more than X weeks is banned. This prevents the tenants working the way the market demands. This again is a crazy situation. If I have a house in Essex, and the only job I can get is a temporary contract in Scotland living in a B & B… then taking that job is completely normal, and there is no reason why my house should be threatened as long as I pay the rent, that’s what people outside social housing do.
A lot more Brits could take jobs if employers were incentivised to train them, at the moment the incentives are on employers to train foreign imported workers cos it works out a lot cheaper than using Brits.
and so on.
December 6, 2023
Jenrick’s resigned over Sunak’s failure to take a hard line on the criminal migrants and as a result his Premiership is effectively over.
We’ve possibly got to suffer another year of this farce, and no doubt another million legal immigrants and 40,000 criminal ones ….. unless sufficient real Conservatives can summon up the “courage” to put in letters of No Confidence or even better, vote against him in a Vote of No Confidence.
December 6, 2023
the majority of the parliamentary Conservative party are not actually Conservative. and they are all too far removed from the majority of decent people in the country. Labour are worse, but nobody can vote for the Conservatives now. the country is crying out for a new political organisation with common sense policies which will seem alien to people in the metro elite political bubble.
December 7, 2023
Donna,
No. The gross number is 3.5 million in two years!! When these numbers are let in it is not known how many will leave!! This is Tory planning for you!
December 6, 2023
Well, that reply was sweet. He agrees with you.
December 6, 2023
I see Jenrick has resigned. I think this is a good opportunity to give Call Me Dave the job of Record Immigration Minister.
It is high time we had someone in Immigration to get the numbers up so we can get a bit of growth to increase the tax take and keep the plates spinning.
December 6, 2023
I’m sorry to have such a long memory for political speeches but ~60 years ago Harold Wilson called for a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy. Many interest groups disagreed. We didn’t get one under either party.
It’s even harder to implement it now because of a declining resource base. Energy is the lifeblood of industrial society but UK peak coal was in 1913, peak North Sea oil and natural gas extraction in about 2000.
Simon Michaux (Geological Survey of Finland, GTK) and others have shown that developed country ‘net zero’ plans will not work. A GTK report set out the problem in 2021. JR might like to find out if DESNZ civil servants are busily working on this behind the scenes. I have my doubts.
December 7, 2023
Cheap, reliable on demand energy is vital for the economy yet Suankās Gov. has a net zero policy to hugely harm this provision. Oliver Dowden even telling us to stock up on Candles as the governments heavily tax payer subsidised & intermittent renewables de-stabalise the grid by deluded government religion & design.
December 6, 2023
John and to many of the commentators above,
I feel the social contract with British people as well as our economic system including education, professional development and employment is broken.
We need to raise up wages and skills across the whole pyramid from the unskilled and low skilled jobs to those higher up. Immigration is the enemy of all workers as it depresses wages and reduces the number of vacancies available to UK citizens. Employers should be obliged to take UK citizens and contribute towards the education system by sponsoring people through university. People here on study visas must go home. People here on work Visas should go home. Yes they bring their families currently and it is extremely disruptive if they have small children taken from India and put in a British school for several years to return to India, but that is what they have signed on to.
I am a higher earner and work damned hard for my money. Half of that disappears in tax and most of what is left goes to covering the fact that my wife who teaches in a primary school is on the living wage, a son in supported living still requires some financial help to get by, another in University requires living costs and another working in retail again needs financial support to pay their living costs. So we are in broken Britain where no matter how hard you work you cannot get ahead. If you do want to save then the banks pay less interest than inflation and the FTSE is pretty much flat or going backwards.
The key to growth is having a skilled workforce, in making stuff in the UK rather than importing it from abroad. Is in having cheap and reliable energy to power industry, offices and homes – the answer is coal power !!!! Ask China and India! (Damn the climate fictional problems and the control freaks of the UN whose science-fiction and mis-reported events is used to justify economic suicide and oppression of people.)
People need to feel part of a social contract. This is between people in a community. It is also between companies and the people they employ and the education system that should be feeding them with good workers. The companies should sponsor university and training college and academy placements ! The government should provide tax incentives for the companies to do so. The government should be doing the same for the NHS. We should be paying teachers, teaching assistants (who do the same work as teachers and who are on the living wage) and others reasonable salaries. We are all getting poorer in this country.
As you say John we need to upskill everyone. We need to make stuff here. We need to grow food here. We need less woke ESG nonsense that is harming us; less climate restrictions which is making it harder to do business in the UK and making us uneconomical and poverty stricken. We need an end to legal and illegal immigration and make it harder for people to stay.