The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 12 May.
“With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a Statement on the Government’s White Paper on restoring control over the immigration system.
Five months ago, the figures were published which showed that net migration had reached a record high of more than 900,000 under the last Conservative Government—a figure that had quadrupled in the space of just four years. That was the consequence of specific government choices made from 2020 onwards, including introducing what was, in effect, a free market experiment on immigration: encouraging employers to recruit from abroad and loosening controls in different areas, but without any requirement to tackle skills and labour shortages here at home. Those choices undermined the immigration system and the economy too.
This Government are making very different choices. We made it clear at that time, just as we set out in our manifesto, that this Government would restore order and control to the immigration system, not only bringing net migration substantially down, but boosting skills and training here at home. The White Paper we are publishing today does exactly that. It is built on five core principles: first, that net migration must come down, so the system is properly managed and controlled; secondly, that the immigration system must be linked to skills and training here in the UK, so that no industry is allowed to rely solely on immigration to fill its skills shortages; thirdly, that the system must be fair and effective, with clearer rules in areas such as respect for family life, to prevent perverse outcomes that undermine public confidence; fourthly, that the rules must be respected and enforced, including tackling illegal and irregular migration and deporting foreign criminals; and, fifthly, that the system must support integration and community cohesion, including new rules on the ability to speak English and the contribution that people can bring to the UK.
Our United Kingdom is an interconnected and outward-looking nation. Our history and our geography mean that for generations, British people have travelled overseas to live and work, and people have come to the UK to study, work, invest or seek refuge. British citizens draw on heritage from all over the world, and that has made us the country we are today. Through many years, our country has been strengthened by those who have come here to contribute, from the doctors in our NHS to the entrepreneurs founding some of our biggest businesses and those who came through generations to work in jobs from coal mining to caring for our loved ones or serving in our Armed Forces—people often coming to do some of the most difficult jobs of all.
Our trading nation, world-leading universities and strong historical international connections mean that migration will always be part of our country’s future as well as our past. But that is exactly why immigration needs to be properly controlled and managed—and it has not been.
Overseas recruitment shot up while training in the UK was cut. Lower-skilled migration soared while the proportion of UK residents in work plummeted. In 2019, 10% of skilled work visas went to non-graduate jobs. By 2024, that had risen to 60%. Employers were even given a 20% wage discount if they recruited for shortage jobs from abroad, actively discouraging them from paying the going rate or training here at home. Educational institutions were allowed to substantially expand the number of overseas students, without proper compliance checks. Social care providers were encouraged to recruit from abroad with no proper regulation, so we saw a serious increase in exploitation, deeply damaging for those who came to work here in good faith and for the other workers and responsible companies being undercut.
The rules and laws that are supposed to underpin the immigration system were too often ignored. By 2024, returns of people with no right to be in the UK were down by more than one-third compared with 2010, and of course criminal gangs were allowed to build an entire smuggling industry along our borders, undermining security and creating a crisis in the asylum system. Later this year, we will set out further reforms to asylum and border security, and to tackling illegal and irregular migration, building on the new counterterrorism powers in the Border Security, Immigration and Asylum Bill that is before the House this evening, because no one should be making these dangerous crossings on small boats.
This White Paper sets out how we restore control to the legal migration system so that it is sustainable and fair and works for the UK. First, we are overhauling the approach to labour market policy, so that for the first time, we properly link the immigration system to skills and training here in the UK. Where there are skills or labour shortages in the UK, immigration should not always be the answer to which employers turn. The long-term failure to tackle skills shortages, bring in proper workforce planning, get UK residents back into work, or improve pay, terms and conditions here at home is bad for our economy as well as for the immigration system, because it undermines productivity and growth. We will lift the threshold for skilled worker visas back to graduate level and above, removing up to 180 different jobs from the list and increasing salary thresholds. For lower-skilled jobs, access to the points-based system will be limited to jobs that are on a new temporary shortage list, including jobs that are critical to the industrial strategy, but that access will be time-limited; there must be a domestic workforce strategy in place, and employers must act to increase domestic recruitment.
We will also expect workforce strategies to be drawn up more widely in higher-skilled areas where there is overreliance on recruitment from abroad. To support that work, we will establish a new labour market evidence group. It will bring together skills bodies from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council and the Migration Advisory Committee to gather and share evidence on shortage occupations in different parts of the country, and to highlight the role that skills, training, pay and conditions and other policies can play in improving domestic recruitment, so that increased migration is never again the only answer to the shortages that the economy faces.
This new approach means that we also need to act on social care. The introduction of the social care visa led not only to a huge increase in migration, but to a shameful and deeply damaging increase in abuse and exploitation. When proper checks were finally brought in, 470 care providers had their licence to sponsor international staff suspended, and 39,000 care workers were displaced. Overseas recruitment to care jobs has since dropped, but it must not surge like that again. It is time we addressed the domestic issues, including with a proper fair pay agreement, to show respect to people who do some of the most important jobs in the country. We are therefore ending overseas recruitment of care workers. It will continue to be possible to extend existing visas, and to recruit displaced care workers and people on other visas, with working rights, who are already in the UK.
Alongside the new visa controls and workforce strategies, we will increase by 32% the immigration skills charge paid by employers who recruit from abroad. That money will be invested through the spending review in supporting skills and training here in the UK. We will ensure that Britain continues to attract the brightest and best global talent by enhancing visa routes for very high-skilled individuals, top scientific and design talent, and people with the right experience to support growth in key strategic industries.
International students bring huge benefits to the UK, supporting our world-leading universities and bringing in top talent and investment, but we will strengthen compliance requirements and checks to prevent visa misuse. Too many people on the graduate visa are not doing graduate jobs, so we will reduce the unrestricted period from two years to 18 months. Those who want to stay will need to get a graduate job and a skilled worker visa, so that we ensure that they are contributing to the economy.
Our rules on work visas are based on the contribution we expect people to make when they come to our country, and we will consult later this year on new earned settlement and citizenship rules that apply the same approach. We will extend the principles of the points-based system, doubling the standard qualifying period for settlement to 10 years, but there will be provisions to qualify more swiftly that take account of the contribution people have made. As the ability to speak English is integral to everyone’s ability to contribute and integrate, we will introduce new, higher language requirements across a range of visa routes, for both main applicants and their dependants, so that family, too, can work, integrate and contribute.
The system for family migration has become overly complex. Policies have increasingly developed around case law, following court decisions, rather than being part of a co-ordinated framework set out by Parliament. We will set out a new, clearer framework to be endorsed by Parliament, which will include clarification of how Article 8 rules should be interpreted and applied, to prevent confusion or perverse conclusions.
We will review current community sponsorship schemes that support recognised refugees, and we will continue to take action against trafficking and modern slavery. We will shortly appoint a new Windrush commissioner to ensure that the lessons from Windrush continue to be learned, and so that the Home Office ensures that its standards are upheld.
The rules must be respected and enforced across the board. We will bring in stronger controls where there is evidence of visa misuse. We are rolling out e-visas and digital ID. There will be better use of technology to monitor when people are overstaying on their visa, and to support an increase in illegal working raids. Already since the election we have increased returns, and we will go further.
Those who come to our country must abide by our laws, so we will develop new procedures to ensure that the Home Office is informed of all foreign nationals who have been convicted of offences—not just those who go to prison—so that we can revoke visas and remove perpetrators of a wide range of crimes who are abusing our system.
We are already reducing the number of visas granted this year; updated figures will be published before the end of the month. We are increasing returns. Over 24,000 people were returned in our first nine months in government; that is the highest number of returns in a nine-month period for eight years. The impact of the changes regarding skilled worker visas, care worker visas, settlement, students and English language requirements is expected to be a reduction in visas of around 100,000 a year. On top of that, the new workforce strategies, immigration skills charge and family and asylum reforms will bring numbers down, too. As the Prime Minister has said, where we need to go further to restore a sustainable system, we will.