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Rishi Sunak has been warned by a major immigration body to avoid focusing on reducing the number of people coming to the UK amid national workforce shortages in key industries.
The Independent Migration Advisory Committee has urged the Prime Minister, who wants an overall reduction in net migration, to instead co-operate with the private sector on how to manage and address shortages in the labor market.
In its annual report, the committee called for piloting a rural visa scheme to help send workers to populated parts of rural areas.
But he has warned against reopening many visa routes to the UK, saying it would reduce incentives for employers to adjust pay and working conditions to attract workers.
The report is published on Tuesday as Sunak is expected to announce measures to curb the number of people claiming to be in the UK after arriving by small boat.
Under heavy pressure from Conservative backbenchers to come up with proposals to remove bottlenecks in the immigration system, the Prime Minister is expected to announce ways to reduce the number of people waiting to process their asylum claims.
It is understood Sunac will say measures will be introduced to help reduce the number of people arriving from Albania.
Net migration reached 504,000 in the 12 months to June 2022, an increase of 331,000 from the previous year, government figures showed. The increase is due to recently introduced visa routes for citizens of Ukraine and Hong Kong, as well as an increase in the number of foreign students.
In October, Sunak’s official spokesman said he would try to revive overall migration reduction targets. “It is important to fulfill our manifesto commitments. The Prime Minister is very clear about this. And it also relates to net migration,” the spokesperson said.
Tuesday’s report said: “We would caution the government against focusing too much on specific net migration numbers, and any change in target needs to be consistent with the government’s fiscal rules.”
The committee noted that rural population created problems “when local areas no longer have sufficient population to sustain private and public sector facilities such as schools or shops”.
The knock-on effect can also damage national food supply chains and accelerate the decline of industries that sustain rural economies such as fishing, agriculture and hospitality.
The committee recommended a pilot scheme to offer rural visas to people entering the UK so the government could see if new arrivals were willing to live in rural areas.
“If the pilot evaluation found that migrants migrated elsewhere after their visa residency terms expired, this would suggest that migration was, at best, a short-term solution to the rural population,” the report said.
Other recommendations in the report include a revised minimum rate of pay for care workers, higher than the “national living wage” of £10.42 an hour from April, and more joint thinking between government and the private sector to tackle the shortage. labor market.
MAC Chair Professor Brian Bell said: “The UK finds itself in recession. Yet with rising rates of economic inactivity and large numbers of job vacancies, it would be tempting to imagine that a quick fix could be achieved by relaxing some of the restrictions on immigration work routes.
“But such changes are rarely temporary and will reduce employers’ incentives to adjust wages and working conditions to attract workers from unemployment and inactivity.
“At the same time, the government needs to proactively manage and address shortages through effective strategy implementation and joint thinking across the government and private sectors.
“A high-wage, high-skills economy has long been talked about but we currently see little sign of this being implemented through current government policy.”
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