In many ways, today is no different to any other time when it comes to immigration. It is still one of the hottest topics in debates, speeches and manifestos; nobody can seem to agree on anything; and little appears to be different despite the Government’s repeated pledges to be ‘tough’ on immigration.
The latest net migration figures, released on 25th February 2016, showed the difference between the number of people leaving and arriving was 323,000. Putting it kindly, this is some way off the ‘tens of thousands’ the Home Secretary had pledged to reduce it to.
Now the Prime Minister has jumped into the murky waters of the immigration debate, when he put migration at the heart of his EU negotiations.
So, if we move past the confusing spin and deluge of figures surrounding migration, where are we today?
Student Visas
The problem we are seeing is that in the Government’s efforts to crack down on immigration, they are making life more difficult for easy targets, and not necessarily to the benefit of the UK.
One of these areas is non-EU students. We have witnessed a steady decline in international students, and particularly Indian students, wishing to study in the UK. There has been a 25% reduction of Indian students recruited to British Universities.
This has been influenced by the reform of post-study work visas, restrictions of part-time work during study, and fears amongst universities that students who have been offered places may have their visas rejected.
The Home Affairs Select Committee said that students should not be considered migrants and thus not included in the net migration figures.
Universities are one of our finest exports, and a significant part of our soft power. Is this really what the Government wants from its immigration policy?
Skills Shortages
We are also seeing negative knock-on-effects from the Government’s policies relating to skilled non-EU workers. The Government has set a cap of 20,700 skilled workers per year.
When the monthly quote from the cap was reached in June 2015 it caused numerous problems, where employers who had fulfilled the same criteria as those applying in the previous month were unable to bring in skilled workers who had a definite offer of a job. Those refused included engineers, IT professionals, accountants on graduate training schemes, teachers and nurses (who are thankfully now on the shortage occupation list).
If we take a second look at this policy, we will see an arbitrary cap, the aim of which is to assist reduce migration to the tens of thousands. However, the cap is 6% of the latest net migration figures. Comparatively it is peanuts, but it causes huge hassle for British businesses.
Furthermore, by preventing businesses from hiring non-EU workers – who they are looking to due to skills shortages in the UK – they will only look to hire from EU countries, which are not subject to the cap. The government needs to look again at this.
A Holistic Approach
These are only two examples in the monumental issue that is immigration, but they show that the process and the architecture by which we manage immigration is off-kilter.
Pursuing a target which is a million miles from achievable is not the way to manage immigration. The Prime Minister has got his ‘break’ on benefits for EU migrants, and we will see what affect that has. He should be commended on one particular point, where he ended the loophole where EU citizens followed different rules in bringing non-EU spouses to the UK.
However, what we need is a sensible and more thoughtful approach, with a holistic understanding of what is best for our country, and discarding the blinkered manner in which immigration policy has all too often found itself managed.