Labour’s shift on migration may assuage voters’ concerns – but risks harming struggling care sector
Labour and the Conservatives have been left reeling from Reform UK’s rampant success at the local elections.
And it seems both have taken a clear message from the insurgent party’s signature attitude towards migration.
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Polls regularly show the issue is a top concern for voters. While stopping the boats driving illegal migration is proving as difficult for Labour as it was for the Tories – the government has the levers to control legal migration much more directly.
This week, Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have decided it’s time to pull them, with their long-awaited white paper due to be published on Monday. But the trade offs involved in reforming the system certainly aren’t without controversy.
Speaking to Sky’s Sir Trevor Phillips to sell her plans to reduce visa numbers, the home secretary repeatedly talked about “restoring control”.
It’s no coincidence to hear her invoking the language of Brexit – highlighting the fact it was Boris Johnson who presided over the spiralling increase in migration after the vote to leave the European Union – and attempting to court the voters who believed doing so would close the borders to the influx of overseas workers.
“It’s about restoring control and order,” she said. “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut…
“That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”
The home office plan is to link the reduction in overseas workers with government efforts to get the economically inactive back into work. In future, only those with degree-level qualifications will be eligible for skilled worker visas.
Employers who want to employ lower-skilled workers, on a temporary basis, will have to demonstrate they are training and recruiting UK workers as well.
The home secretary says 180 occupations will be removed from the shortage list, with the shortfall filled by training schemes to fill the gaps with home-grown workers. Questions abound about how training schemes will marry up with immediate business needs now.
But it’s the closure of the specific care worker visa which is leading to the loudest alarm bells thus far.
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Reform: Immigration ‘should be frozen’
Many in the sector are desperately worried about pre-existing staffing shortfalls, unconvinced by government advice to recruit from a pool of 10,000 workers already in the UK on care visas.
Professor Martin Green, of Care England, said: “This is a crushing blow to an already fragile sector. The government is kicking us while we’re already down.”
But the government is determined to try and wean the economy off its dependence on overseas labour.
The increase in net migration is staggering. Before Brexit, the highest figure was 329,000, in the year up to June 2015.
But by June 2023, the annual number had soared to 906,000. While last year that figure fell to 728,000, following restrictions on dependents on care and student visas – the number is still strikingly high.
Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have decided there’s no room for evasion and have regularly issued dramatic apologies for the decisions of the past.
“The last government,” said Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on Sunday, as if he had no part of it, “made some very serious mistakes with immigration. They allowed it to be far, far too high…that was a huge mistake.”
But Mr Philp is characteristically full of criticism of Labour’s “failure” on the “radical reforms” needed.
He wants to see parliament voting for an annual cap on numbers, although hasn’t specified what that would be.
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Ms Cooper says migration targets have no credibility after years of Tory failures – but also acknowledged that she wants the numbers to fall “substantially” and “significantly” below 500,000.
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She claims the skilled worker visa changes will lead to 50,000 fewer visas being issued this year alone – a small proportion of that overall too, but a quick result all the same.
Will it be enough?
Reform UK are clearly delighted to be directing the government’s policy agenda.
Deputy leader Richard Tice told Sir Trevor “the Labour Party is talking the talk. Will they actually walk the walk? I actually think the people are voting for us because they know that we mean it.”
But the policy is a risk.
Assuaging voters’ concerns on migration could mean taking a serious hit to an already anaemic economy and struggling care sector. Not to mention the longer-term political decision to move the party firmly to the right.
A woman has been filmed cutting yellow ribbons tied to a gate in London, put up in commemoration of Israeli hostages.
When confronted by two bystanders near the gate in Muswell Hill, north London, the woman said: “I’m not committing a crime.
“If I am, then call the police and you let them know that you have an issue with this.”
In the video, a man branded the woman “a disgusting little human being,” to which she replied: “I think condoning genocide is disgusting.”
The bystander asked her: “So we’re condoning genocide?”
The woman then appeared to point at the ribbons and said: “That’s what this is.”
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Pic: X/@mirandalevycopy
The yellow ribbon has been used as a symbol of the plight of those taken captive since the 1979 US-Iranian hostage crisis, and has become synonymous with the hostages held in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
The ribbons are used as part of the ‘Bring Them Home’ campaign, which was introduced to raise awareness of the hostages’ plight and help amplify calls for the unconditional release of those still held by Hamas.
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Two years on from October 7 attacks
The Metropolitan Police told Sky News: “Officers have stepped up reassurance patrols in the Muswell Hill area, following reports that yellow ribbons were removed from fence poles.”
A spokesperson said the force was made aware of a video circulating online which “appears to show a woman removing the ribbons in Muswell Hill” at 4.25pm on Monday.
“Officers attended the location and are reviewing the footage to determine whether any offences, including hate crime or criminal damage, have been committed. Enquiries remain ongoing,” the spokesperson added.
Officers are asking anyone with information to contact the force.
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The incident happened just a day before the second anniversary of the October 7 attack, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 back to Gaza as hostages.
Israel says 48 hostages remain in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s offensive has killed more than 67,000 people in the region since 7 October 2023. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures, but says more than half of those killed are women and children.
Ineos, the chemicals group founded by Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has hit out at the government after cutting a fifth of the workforce at a factory in Hull.
The company said 60 skilled jobs were going at the Acetyls factory “as a direct result of sky-high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices, as importers ‘dump’ product into the UK and European markets”.
It called on the UK government and European Commission to impose trade tariffs on China, complaining that a lack of action to date had resulted in “dirt cheap” carbon-heavy imports flooding the market, making its products uncompetitive.
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Ineos said the US had protected its manufacturing base through effective tariffs and warned that further jobs would be lost across Europe unless the authorities followed suit.
The company, founded by Sir Jim in 1998, is Europe’s largest producer of essential chemicals for a range of products including aspirin and paracetamol, adhesives and industrial coatings.
It recently invested £30m to switch its Hull plant energy source from natural gas to hydrogen. Ineos claimed Chinese competitors were emitting up to eight times more carbon dioxide than its UK operations.
The Saltend plant in Hull. Pic: Ineos
“This is a textbook case of the UK and Europe sleepwalking into deindustrialisation,” the firm’s statement said.
“Ineos has invested heavily at Hull to cut CO₂, yet we’re being undercut by China and the US while left wide open by a complete absence of tariff protection.
“If governments don’t act now on energy, carbon and trade, we will keep losing factories, skills and jobs. And once these plants shut, they never come back.”
A Government spokesperson responded: “We know this is a tough time for our chemicals industry, who are paying the fossil fuel penalty, with wholesale gas costs remaining 75% above their levels before Russia invaded Ukraine.
“Our modern Industrial Strategy is slashing electricity costs by up to 25% for sectors including chemicals, and the UK’s independent Trade Remedies Authority has the power to investigate the impact of cheap imports if requested by industry.
“We recognise this will be difficult for affected workers and their families, and we continue to engage with Ineos and the wider sector to explore potential solutions that will ensure a viable chemicals industry in the UK.”
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