UK Immigration: Policies of Conservative Party and Labour Party for immigrants – Investing Abroad News

By Yash Dubal

Immigration has been one of the key issues in this year’s British general election campaign, with all the main parties pledging to reduce net migration from the record levels the country has seen over the past two years.

It looks increasingly likely that after the country votes on July 4th Rishi Sunak will no longer be Prime Minister. The Conservative Party are set to be wiped out at the polls and the Labour Party will win an outright majority. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will be the Prime Minister.

So what will the change of government mean for those considering a move to live and work in the UK?

Importantly, the tone of the debate around immigration in the UK will change. Increasingly under the Conservative Party, the language around immigration became hostile and the debate over immigration became toxic.

Immigration has been one of the key policy points of the British general election with genuine concerns about the record high levels of net migration. To shore up its core support base of people on the right of the political spectrum, the Conservative Party played to these concerns and sometimes reverted to rhetoric that many felt was anti-immigration. Many potential working migrants looking at the UK as an option were concerned by what they saw and chose to relocate to other more welcoming nations, such as the USA or Canada.

The truth of the matter is that while restrictions have been put in place on some visa routes, Britain still provides many options for those with the right skills who want to move there to work. And the nation has always welcomed migrants who want to work and contribute.

And although the Labour Party remains committed to lowering net migration by reforming immigration policy, if it does win the election, the toxicity around the migration debate will likely disappear. The party’s politics are centre-left and any immigration restrictions are likely to be more pragmatic than some of those proposed by the Conservative government.

The main thrust of the Labour Party’s proposed immigration policy, as outlined in its election manifesto, is to implement ‘a fair and properly managed immigration system’ and to reduce UK business dependency on workers from overseas to fill skills shortages. To do this a Labour government will increase incentives for businesses to train local workers.

Other measure could potentially mean a cap on numbers, or further refinement of the Immigration Salary List (ISL), which was introduced earlier this year to replace the Shortage Occupation List.

Labour also pledges to strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), which is the independent body that advises the government on immigration policy. MAC recently recommended keeping the Graduate visa route following a commissioned review, so it is likely this will remain, which means employers will still be able to employ overseas graduates without having to meet salary thresholds.

Other manifesto pledges include a proposed crackdown on employers and recruitment agencies who abuse the immigration system with a vow to ban those found flouting the rules from hiring workers from abroad.

The key to Labour’s proposed overhaul of legal immigration will be the party’s aim of linking immigration and skills policy. In essence it will train domestic workers to do the jobs that overseas workers are employed to do. The party is determined to end what it calls the ‘long-term reliance on overseas workers’ in some parts of the economy. It plans to do this through training initiatives and domestic recruitment. The Health and Social Care and construction sectors are specifically mentioned.

However, this is not as impactful as it sounds for Indian workers for two reasons. The first is the assumption there is an untapped vein of British workers who are ready to step in, get trained up and fill the roles currently being taken by migrant workers.

Historically high vacancy rates for jobs in the sectors mentioned suggest this isn’t the case. Secondly, if there is an army of potential health care workers and builders, they will take time to be skilled up. On average it takes a minimum of three years to train as a nurse and a minimum of two years to train as an electrician. In the meantime, Indian workers are free to take those roles.

According to a recent report from education think tank Edge Foundation, the number of skills shortage vacancies in the UK doubled between 2017 and 2022 to 531,200. There is no reason to assume that the figure has not risen since. That constitutes over half a million workers that a Labour Government will need to find and train.

Skill-shortage vacancies were most prevalent in Health and Social Work, Business Services, and Wholesale and Retail, with Construction, Information and Communications, and Manufacturing sectors exhibiting higher proportions of skill-shortage vacancies relative to overall vacancies.

All these sectors need workers with the right skills now, and with perhaps the exception of wholesale and retail, they all require a level of training, much of which will be multi-year (retail has effectively been priced out of the overseas worker market anyway due to the rise in the salary threshold for Skilled Worker visas).

The conclusion to draw from all this is that although there are pledges within the Labour manifesto, in the short to medium term the party does not have much room to manoeuvre beyond the changes already introduced earlier this year by the Conservative Party in terms of immigration reform. Bringing in restrictive measures too soon will put even more strain on sectors already struggling with shortages. This means there is still a supply of jobs for migrants and still a demand for migrant workers.

If Labour can pull rabbits out of hats and does find the workers in the UK needed to fill skilled roles domestically, training this hypothetical army of workers up is a long-term endeavour, and in the meantime employers will still have to look overseas.

(The author is the Director & a Senior Immigration Associate at A Y & J Solicitors, London, United Kingdom)

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of FinancialExpress.com. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited.