The Cap on Migration: How’s that working out for you Mr Cameron?

Immigration, immigration, immigration. It’s always an election issue and last year’s General Election was no exception. Enter Mr Cameron with his shiny new policy designed to rid the UK of its ‘immigration problem’: a cap on migration.

It plays well in the Daily Mail. It seems like a simple approach; just put a limit on it! Looks like he’s on to a winner. Err.... not quite.

There are many problems with the cap on migration. Firstly the majority of immigration to the UK comes from within the European Union and therefore can’t be limited. The UK signed up to a treaty when it joined European Union that agrees to freedom of movement within Europe. So if British people want their holiday homes in Spain or their Châteaux in France they have to accept that EU citizens can come and live here too. Without a complete withdrawal from the EU (which admittedly many Tories would favour) there is simply no way David Cameron can limit the largest single source of immigration to the UK.  

But this doesn’t seem to have deterred Mr Cameron. Instead he is pushing on with his pledge to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. He has already begun by looking at Tier 1 and Tier 2 migration. This means he is looking at limiting highly skilled workers and workers who come to fill jobs in shortage industries.   

Which leads us to the second problem. No one (except Daily Mail readers) actually wants to limit high skilled and shortage industry workers, because their contribution to the economy is very valuable. And from reading the number of exceptions to the cap in migration in the Government’s policy (for example they have excluded all intra-company transfers, which currently make up a large proportion of Tier 2 migration) it’s not clear that the Tory Government really even want it.  

This is one of the few truly uniting issues. I was a meeting about this Cap on Migration a few months back hosted by the Scottish Government and not one single organisation around the table thought the Cap was a good idea. This meeting included, among others, the Scottish Government, Local Government, the CBI, the federation of small businesses, the NHS, the oil industry and of course the trade unions. It is difficult to get us all to agree so wholeheartedly on anything but Mr Cameron has managed it.

Despite almost united opposition against this policy the Government are continuing on and will be limiting foreign students to Universities and Colleges and family reunifications next. These areas, of course, come with their own moral and economic problems. Not least of which is the amount of funding that Universities and Colleges receive from foreign students, which must be valuable as the Government seems to think there is a funding crisis in higher education, hence the introduction of £9000 a year tuition fees.

The final problem with the cap in migration is that it may not even work.  Mr Cameron is interested in net migration which is the total number of immigrants entering the UK minus the total number of emigrants leaving the UK. We have already seen the difficulties he has limiting immigration but he has absolutely no control over emigration. The levels emigration is primarily affected by the amount of British citizens who leave to go and live abroad. So if lots of British people decide tomorrow to up and leave and seek work in Australia (or anywhere else) Mr Cameron could reach his target on reducing net migration without lowering the numbers of immigrants entering Britain at all.

But equally if British people decide they don’t fancy leaving this year, for whatever reason, then net migration will rise. Interestingly this is actually what has happened.

After the Tories came to power they introduced a temporary cap on migration primarily to stop lots of people coming to this country before the real cap was in place. Despite the temporary cap on Tier 1 and Tier 2 migration, net migration has risen from 196,000 to 215,000 people. This is primarily because of a decrease in emigration not an increase in immigration.

It does make you wonder though. What is the point of this expensive, difficult to run and economically costly cap on migration? It doesn’t even work!

Helen Martin - STUC

What is going on with Boris Johnson?

Boris Johnson seems to have become the voice of reason in the Tory Party. I can’t really believe I have just written those words but I keep seeing him coming out against the Tory Government saying things that I actually agree with!


A couple of weeks ago we welcomed Boris to the There is a Better Way campaign when he came out against Tory plans to curb the deficit by cutting deeply into public spending and instead held up Ed Ball’s approach as the more sensible way forward.

Boris even came out against bankers bonuses calling it a ‘combustible contrast’ if public sector workers lose their jobs while witnessing ‘the spectacle of the banks doling out hundreds of millions of pounds in Christmas bonuses to the very people who, collectively if not individually, were responsible for the financial crisis.’ Wise words indeed from an unlikely ally.

And last week Boris came out again against his own party this time in relation to the cap on immigration. Boris correctly states that this cap is ‘likely to have a significant negative and disproportionate impact on London and put the economic recovery at risk by creating skills gaps and placing London at a competitive disadvantage in the global competition for talent and inward investment.’

Again we find ourselves in agreement but we believe the negative consequences of this policy are not just limited to London.

Scotland depends on highly skilled migrant workers coming from outside the EU and needs people to move and settle here, bringing skills and expertise that adds to that of the domestic labour force.

The cap on migration causes issues for businesses operating in sectors where there are skills shortages, and places pressure on our public services, particularly the NHS where migrant workers are playing a particularly valuable role. It also places enormous strain on our universities which will not be able to maintain the current number of lecturers coming from outside the EU, never mind access visas for the new talent they wish to attract.

A cap on migration will affect our competitiveness at a global level and puts at risk inward investment from companies wanting to relocate to the UK. It may also increase the likelihood that some businesses will leave the UK, which is certainly to the detriment of British workers.

Boris Johnson recognises these things which is why he has come out against his party’s policy.

The Government, however, don’t want to see the risk they are taking. Instead they are blinded by ideology and a rhetoric that says immigration is a bad thing and refuses to see the contribution that migrant workers make to this country.

The cap on migration is just another example of how the Tory Government will hold firm to a policy regardless of whether it works and even when there is a united opposition against it.

But all we can do is try to make them see sense, even if it means agreeing with Boris.

Helen Martin – STUC