these industries alone is estimated to be around 40,000 graduates each year. The
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has consistently warned other parts of
the government of the harm caused by imposing strict limits on immigration.
To tackle this, Labour should develop a skills strategy based on a full analysis of the
current nature of the UK workforce and how this matches up to the jobs required by
each industry. This research should analyse how these priorities will change with
technology and demographics, to name but two. The focus should be to up-skill and
retrain young UK workers and students to meet these requirements. However, where
skill gaps persist, there should be an immediate effort to bring in foreign workers for
a fixed time period, with flexibility to extend this based on fulfilling certain criteria.
“Where skill gaps persist, there should be an immediate effort to
bring in foreign workers”
In the past immigrants moving to Britain have worked in positions of benefit to the
wider community and the country. After World War Two, scores of Indians came to
the UK, many filling key roles in the service industry and working in factories. While
thousands of people from the Caribbean moved to the UK to work in core industries
such as British Rail and the National Health Service. The same principle can be
applied again.
International benefits
A US-style ‘green card’ system could be adopted in order to facilitate the new
workers, rather than the bureaucratic points-based, multi-tier system that currently
exists. With the card would come certain rights and responsibilities for each holder.
For example, some privileges (for example certain types of healthcare and legal aid)
could be tied to criteria such as completing an annual income tax return and not
engaging in criminal activity.
The elephant in the room in terms of immigration policy is the number of people
currently living in Britain illegitimately. There are approximately 600,000 people
whose right to remain in the UK has expired. Many of these are hard-working people
revolutionise.it
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