Labour’s shift on migration may assuage voters’ concerns – but risks harming struggling care sector

Published

2 months ago

May 11, 2025

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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.

Politics live: Care homes face ban on overseas recruitment

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.

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.

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.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

6 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.