HIGH-EARNING professionals are expected to be excluded from British immigration curbs expected today from home secretary Theresa May.
Ms May is due to announce that just 24,000 people from non-European Union countries will be allowed to settle in the UK between now and next April until ministers finally decide on a permanent limits.
The decision to impose an immediate but temporary limit was taken by the home secretary after she was persuaded by home office officials that the early announcement in the past by Labour ministers of restrictions merely prompted a peak in immigration numbers. The demand for an immigration cap was a very popular Conservative Party policy during the election, although the office of budget responsibility has warned that restrictions will cut economic growth.
Immigration to the UK fell by 9 per cent to 503,000 in the year to September last, compared to the year before, while the number of immigrants coming from central and eastern European countries inside the EU fell to 45,000 from 100,000. The numbers of economic migrants fell again in the first three months of this year, down by another 15 per cent.
However, net immigration to the UK, the difference between the numbers arriving and leaving British shores in the year to last September, fell to 142,000, down from 160,000 the year before for the corresponding period in 2008. More than a million of the jobs created during Labour’s 13 years in power were taken by immigrants.
Some Conservative MPs have become more doubtful about immigration caps since the election, leading Liberal Democrats deputy prime minister Nick Clegg to remind Conservative ministers at a cabinet office meeting last week that the Liberal Democrats had opposed the Conservative approach during the election, but had signed up for it, nevertheless, in the programme for government.
Following the pressure from business organisations, Ms May is now minded to set up a system that draws heavily from the points-based system imposed by the Labour government before it left power which would heavily restrict unskilled immigrants from non-EU countries, but with fewer restrictions on globally attractive talent.
Work visas would also be made available on a quarterly basis, rather than yearly, to aid companies that have a sudden need to fill key vacancies.
Indians fear that they will be the ones to suffer most from the curb.
Describing the plan as “illogical”, Amit Kapadia, director of the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme, said: “Any such cap will affect Indian professionals because most non-European Union migrants to the UK come from India.”
Meanwhile, proposals being worked by the secretary of state for work and pensions Iain Duncan-Smith, who is under pressure to cut welfare spending and to encourage unemployed people living in council homes to move elsewhere to get work and keep their rights to a council home, have been roundly criticised by Labour Party leadership candidate Ed Miliband, who said they were “frankly disgraceful”.
Under the proposal, people agreeing to move for work would go to top of the housing waiting list in their new district. However, Mr Duncan-Smith’s remarks have already been compared to Norman Tebbit’s “get on yer bike” message to the unemployed in the 1980s.
Ironically, Mr Duncan-Smith inherited Lord Tebbit’s former seat in Chingford outside London.