On 12 November 2009 the Prime Minister made his first speech on immigration since February 2008. There are rarely any coincidences of timing in politics. Immigration is always rated highly amongst issues of interest to the public but the Guardian reports that private polling conducted during the summer by the Unite trade union showed that immigration is the single biggest issue leading natural Labour voters to defect either to the more extreme parties, such as the British National party, or refusing to vote at all.
The impact of the recession on employment and associated concerns about foreign workers, reports of Baroness Scotland’s employment of an illegal worker, the appearance of the BNP on Any Questions and the Home Secretary’s negative comments about Labour’s record have all combined to keep immigration in the media and provided a platform for the Tories to criticise Labour policies as ineffectual.
The Government has therefore recognised the need to reassert that it is in control by welcoming the contribution immigration has made to British society, confirming that it has been listening to the people and understands the issues, highlighting what it has achieved recently and rejecting Tory proposals for quotas as unworkable by reference to experience in the USA. Instead, the Government will tighten the existing points based system in order to manage and control migration.
The Prime Minister refers to the Migration Advisory Committee whose latest report had been accepted by Government (coincidentally) on the same day as the speech and that with the benefit of further training for the domestic workforce will be looking at further reductions in shortage occupations in the future. Examples cited by the Prime Minister are engineering roles, skilled chefs, and care workers. The time for a job to be advertised under the resident labour market test through a job centre will also be increased from 2 to 4 weeks.
He also re-affirms that the Points Based System will be extended to permanent residence and citizenship so that the right to stay permanently will no longer follow automatically after living in the UK for a certain number of years but will require a period of probationary citizenship and points-based test, with evidence of continuing economic contribution, of skills, of progress in English and knowledge of life in Britain. The right to post-18 education at the ‘home rate’, permanent social housing tenancies and some social security benefits will not be available to probationary citizens.
The Prime Minister also announced a review of student visas - to be conducted jointly by the Home Office and the Department for Business and to report in December. The review will look at the case for raising the minimum level of course for which foreign students can get a visa. It will also examine the case for introducing mandatory English language testing for student visas other than for English courses and review the rules under which students on lower qualification courses work part-time, especially those on short courses.
