An estimated global pool of over 600 million people will be able to apply under the Government’s new Points-Based System, Migration Watch UK reports today. Government estimates of the impact of the Points-Based System, it shows in a newly published analysis, have not even attempted to calculate the size of the potential labour pool outside the European Union.
Their new analysis estimates this to be at least 590 million.
In addition, the likely pool of EU nationals will be 77 million so employers will be able to draw on a worldwide pool of more than 667 million.
Past ‘door openings’ of the kind now planned have shown that many employers are all too ready to bring in overseas workers rather than invest in training or hiring Brits at decent wages.
The proposed system will, in addition, weaken current qualifying rules for citizens of around 80% of countries around the world and remove the cap.
Their analysis has found that, with a salary floor set at around £25,000, more than 7 million UK jobs would be subject to new or increased global recruitment.
Instead of weaning business off their remarkable addiction for cheaper non-UK labour, the government will, in effect, be encouraging employers to continue to overlook UK talent.
Migration Watch are concerned that employers are likely to double down on a disgraceful reluctance to invest in UK people (something highlighted repeatedly by the Migration Advisory Committee – but which has resulted in little corrective action from industry or from the government).
Government they say must use the Summer recess to think again. They must ensure that the new rules will encourage higher pay, better conditions and much more training of the domestic workforce. ‘Train, pay and retain’ should be the message that goes out to business.
Migration Watch UK has been proven correct in its many migration estimates since 2001.
By contrast an expert commissioned by the Home Office said just prior to the opening of the door to eight Eastern European countries in 2004 that ‘migration to the UK… is not likely to be overly large’. In fact, 700,000 migrants from these countries arrived in the space of six years.
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, points out that:
‘This scheme was drawn up long before the Covid crisis. Now, with unemployment heading for several million, we cannot simply blunder on with unlimited immigration from all over the world. Immigration could easily spin out of control as it did under Labour. The only way to avoid a crisis is to put a cap on the numbers and then adjust as necessary.’
He asks: ‘What is the point of taking back control over immigration only to hand it over to business?‘
They have previously found that, with a primary salary threshold set at around £25,000, more than seven million UK jobs would be opened to new or increased levels of global recruitment.
