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Tory post-Brexit plans to cap ‘low-skilled’ migrants condemned

The Resolution Foundation says the government's plans would ‘effectively end low-skilled migration’

PROPOSALS to limit the number of so-called low-skilled migrants after Britain leaves the EU were widely condemned today.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has said the proposals in the government-commissioned report by the influential migration advisory committee (MAC) could shape the government’s plans.

But the Resolution Foundation’s Stephen Clarke warned they would “effectively end low-skilled migration” while mid- and high-skilled migrants would be prioritised.

“This would represent a huge shift for low-paying sectors like food manufacturing, hotels and domestic personnel, where over one in five workers are migrants,” he said.

Jane Gratton of the British Chambers of Commerce argued against a “sudden cut-off” of skills from the European Economic Area and warned that sectors such as agriculture, hospitality and social care rely on migrants to fill shortages in “low-skilled” labour.

Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders, said the recommendations would “cripple” construction.

He said that the report “ignores the pleas of construction employers who have called on the government to introduce a visa system based on key occupations rather than arbitrary skill levels.”

The MAC report also recommends that EU citizens should not be given preferential treatment to those from non-EU countries.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who has long called for the government to treat non-EU migrants the same as EU citizens, said that immigration policy needs to be “based on our economic needs.”

This should be done while “meeting our legal obligations and treating people fairly,” she said, “which means ending the discrimination against non-EU migrants, especially from the Commonwealth.

“This is not what we get from the Tories, the party of bargaining chips, Go Home vans, and the hostile environment,” Ms Abbott said.

Left Leave chairman Robert Griffiths said that to give higher-skilled workers preferential treatment would be the “thin end of a very nasty wedge that would result in people being deemed more worthy than others.”

He argued that immigration policy should be “flexible,” taking into account the economy as well as humanitarian needs.

Mr Griffiths also questioned whether the practice of handing over £200,000 for a so-called entrepreneur visa or millions of pounds for a so-called investor visa would also be abolished to make the new post-Brexit immigration system fairer.

He described the practice as a “deeply reactive anomaly in the system that needs to be removed.”

On the subject of removing disparity between non-EU and EU migrants, Mr Griffiths said that it would be a good move to leave “the white fortress Europe” and that Brexit could help produce a “progressive and non-racist system in Britain” that other countries could follow.

A report released this week by anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate with think tank British Future — after conducting the biggest-ever public consultation on immigration, the National Conversation on Immigration — called for a level playing field for non-EU migrants.

British Future director Sunder Katwala said in response to the MAC report that the committee had failed to include the voices of the British public.

He said: “Neither the MAC nor the government has engaged the public in the choices we now face on immigration.

“That’s a serious oversight — the National Conversation on Immigration found an urgent need to rebuild public confidence and consent in our immigration system, and greater public engagement would help to do that.”

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