Cleverly to announce big hike in salary requirement for migrants as part of measures to cut immigration
James Cleverly, the home secretary, will unveil a package of measures intended to bring down net migration after figures hit a record high, PA Media reports. PA says:
He is expected to tell the Commons this afternoon that the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker from overseas will be significantly hiked to around £38,000, a Whitehall official said.
The increase from £26,200 a year for migrants coming to Britain was said to feature in a wider package to be announced as Rishi Sunak comes under huge pressure.
The prime minister has vowed to “do what is necessary” to bring down net migration in the wake of an official estimate saying it had reached a record of 745,000 in 2022.
Key events
Here are tweets from two experts sceptical of the JL Partners polling highlighted earlier (see 10.19am) about how Reform UK is eating into the Conservative party vote.
From Keiran Pedley, a pollster at Ipsos
Reform UK by election performance 2019-23 parliament
Average performance
2023: 3.65%
2022: 2.18%
2021: 2.58% (inc. 6.6% where Richard Tice stood in Bexley & Sidcup)Obviously ‘where’ by elections are is important.
But they’ve broken 5% twice this parliament. Food for… pic.twitter.com/Ly6FhQHxlX
— Keiran Pedley (@keiranpedley) December 4, 2023
From the FT’s Stephen Bush
That isn’t the biggest reason to be highly sceptical of this JL Partners’ study: that’s (completely unexplained) decision to exclude at least five regular UK pollsters, including one (Ipsos) which has the lowest Reform score, but it is one reason: https://t.co/ztt8RZH99F
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) December 4, 2023
Hunt rejects thinktank’s claim UK economy suffering from ‘broken leg’, saying it’s more of sprained ankle
During his Q&A at the Resolution Foundation conference, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was asked about the thinktank’s claim that the economy was suffering the equivalent of a “broken leg”. He said he did not accept that description. It was more of a sprained ankle, he said:
Sometimes we forget that other countries also have the things that they need to improve.
I think we shouldn’t lose confidence that we do some things absolutely amazingly. I know he’s controversial in other ways but when Elon Musk was here three weeks ago, he said there were only two centres in the world for AI, San Francisco and London.
We’ve got a lot going for us, so if we’re going to go into dealing with the sprain, rather than the broken leg, then let’s do so from a perspective of positivity.
Robert Booth
MPs have launched an inquiry into the state of children’s social care in England amid growing warnings children are suffering from a lack of foster carers, and that private companies are profiting from the taxpayer by charging up to £63,000 a week for single social care placements.
The House of Commons education select committee launched the inquiry with figures showing the number of children supported by social services is up 30% since 2010 and the number of care leavers facing homelessness is on the rise.
The committee chair, Robin Walker, said the MPs would ask “whether the government needs to go further and faster” with changes to how the country’s most vulnerable children are cared for.
Last week, the Guardian reported a warning from councils that they are being “held to ransom” by private care providers, as it emerged the taxpayer has been paying as much as £3.3m a year for single children’s social care placements. The Department for Education has identified “looked-after children market failure” as a key risk.
And today, child protection experts called for an urgent nationwide hunt for thousands of new foster carers after a net loss of 1,000 families in the past year and a record number of children being placed far from home.
The inquiry will get under way in earnest in 2024 and evidence can be submitted until 15 January.
This is what Jack Elsom and Ryan Sabey say in their Sun story about the announcement that is coming this afternoon on measures to cut immigration.
The PM is expected to dramatically hike the salary requirement for overseas workers to £38,000 alongside further limits on them bringing family.
He has been under enormous pressure to get tough after figures showed 745,000 came to Britain last year …
The current minimum salary for foreign workers is just above £26,000.
And this is what Charles Hyman and Ben Riley-Smith report in their Telegraph story.
It is understood that the number of dependants that social care workers are allowed to bring into Britain will also be scaled back.
Home Office figures showed that visas granted to foreign health and social care workers more than doubled to 143,990 in the year to September. Those migrants brought in a total of 173,896 dependants.
The total number of NHS and social care visas may also be limited, as proposed by Mr Jenrick under a five-point plan to reduce net migration.
The fifth proposal is expected to increase the minimum £18,600 income required for a British citizen to bring a spouse or dependant into the UK on a family visa.
There will also be an overhaul of the shortage occupation list, under which companies can pay foreign workers in shortage areas 20 per cent below the going rate.
Sources said it would be “widely scrubbed” with a high bar set for any exceptions. There had been concerns that ending the exemption for care workers could worsen severe shortages in the care sector.
These proposals are largely in line with measures that Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, has reportedly been pushing No 10 to adopt. But Jenrick reportedly favoured raising the minimum salary threshold for a work visa to £35,000. Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and Boris Johnson, the former PM, have both been pushing for £40,000 to be the minimum salary threshold.
Sunak to announce major package of measures to cut immigration later today
Rishi Sunak is going to announce plans to cut immigration today, it is being reported.
The Sun says he will announce that the salary threshold for people wanting to got a work visa to come to the UK will rise to £38,000. The Daily Telegraph is reporting something similar, quoting a Whitehall source as saying: “People will be surprised at how strong a package it is.” This is from the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith.
🚨EXCLUSIVE
Major package of policies to reduce net migration being unveiled *today*
– Big rise in minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas
– Scaling back of health+social care visas
– Overhaul of shortage occupation list
With @charleshymas https://t.co/fJogFgKWZO
— Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) December 4, 2023
It has been confirmed to the Guardian that the announcement is coming later today.
Q: Why do you think the UK still has a productivity problem when it is good at innovation?
Hunt says productivity is driven by a combination of human capital, businesss investment, regional factors, and “total factor producivity”, which includes the ability to innovate.
The UK has been good on the latter, he says. It has been less good at investment. And, on human capital, it has been good at university-level skills, but not so good at vocational skills, he says.
Q: What will you do to support people in debt?
Hunt says he has promoted the mortgage charter to help people struggling to pay their mortgage.
Minton Beddoes is now taking questions from people in the audience.
Q: Are you worried about the impact of spending cuts on the creative industries?
Hunt says he sees the creative industries as an area of national advantage.
He says there has been an increase in film-making in the UK. The film industry is an offshoot of the technology industry, because special effects are so important.
And he says public service broadcasting is central to what makes the UK attractive.
Q: How can you claim to be the party of planning reform when your MPs keep blocking planning reform measures?
Hunt says all parties have to manage their MPs.
But he claims that, for the last year for which full figures are available, housebuilding numbers were higher than under Labour.
Hunt claims UK has potential to become ‘most prosperous 21st century economy’ because of innovation record
Jeremy Hunt said the UK could be the “most prosperous” economy this century because of its “untapped potential”.
Speaking at the Resolution Foundation conference, he said the industrial sectors that would grow the fastest were the ones “where we are doing really well”. He said:
If I was going to choose one country in the world that had the most untapped potential to become the most prosperous 21st century economy, it would be Britain.
He said the UK had a technology sector that was “double the size of Germany’s, three times the size of France”. Accepting that improving productivity was a key challenge, he said:
If you ask why it is that we’ve grown faster than Germany since 2010, despite their higher productivity, it is because we are actually stronger on innovation. If we could solve the productivity bit, there would be no stopping us.
Q: Ministers keep changing posts very often. Do you accept that volatility is a problem?
Hunt says that volatility is not a good thing, but he says it was a consequence of Brexit and the parliamentary problems that followed that.
He says he wants to see more stability going forward.
Q: What about institutional reform. The Economist recently published an article saying it was too short-termist.
Hunt says he normally agrees with the Economist, but he suggests he did not agree with that article. He says the argument might be right historically. But he says since he has been at the Treasury he has found it very pro-growth.
