A “new approach” to legal migration aimed at boosting the UK workforce’s skills before recruiting abroad will be taken by the incoming Government, Yvette Cooper has said.
In a swipe at the previous Conservative government, the Home Secretary said rising levels of legal migration in recent years reflected a “failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market”.
In a ministerial statement published as MPs left Westminster for the summer, she pointed to a rise in non-EU long-term migration from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023.
The number of work visas in the 12 months to March 2024 was, meanwhile, 605,264, or “over three times that of 2019”, she said.
“That reflects a failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market, meaning too many sectors have remained reliant on international recruitment, instead of being able to source the skills they need here at home,” Ms Cooper said.
The Home Secretary added: “This is why we are setting out a different approach – one that links migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies – so immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems here at home.
“This approach will be important to enabling delivery of the Government’s broader agenda.”
Under Labour, the Migration Advisory Council – which provides advice to the Government on where skills shortages can be filled by migration – will work alongside Skills England and other bodies as part of a new “coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy”.
The agencies will also work alongside the devolved governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales towards the same end.
Elsewhere in the statement, Ms Cooper said Labour would keep the Tory government’s minimum income requirement for a partner or spouse to be granted a visa, but did not commit to raise it in line with the previous administration’s intent.
The lower limit was raised from £18,600 to a £29,000 income per year by Rishi Sunak’s government, with plans to increase it eventually to £38,700 by an unspecified date in 2025.
Ms Cooper said in the statement there “will be no further changes” to the current limit until a review by the Migration Advisory Council is complete.
The Home Secretary also said the new Government would continue with a raft of other measures introduced by the Tories to quell legal migration numbers, including those aimed at reducing “the potential for abuse on the student and graduate visa routes”.
