LONDON: Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Thursday to reduce the number of immigrants coming to Britain, saying she would draw up a plan to reform the points-based immigration system to train British workers. Will put the responsibility on businesses.
Official figures showed net migration had reached a record high of more than 900,000 in June 2023, far higher than original estimates, Starmer told a news conference to outline his commitment to reducing the numbers. Called, which he accused. Former Conservative Govt
High levels of immigration have become a hot-button issue in Britain. Voters fear strained public services cannot cope with such a large influx of people, while sectors such as health care say they cannot function without foreign workers.
“Failure on this scale is not just unfortunate… no, it’s a different order of failure… Brexit was used to turn Britain into ‘a national experiment’ in open borders,” he said. Starmer said. Press conference, referring to the 2016 decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
“Where we find clear evidence of sectors that rely heavily on immigration, we will reform the points-based system and ensure that applications for the relevant visa routes, whether the skilled worker route or Shortage occupation list will now come with new expectations on the training of people here in our country.
If businesses “don’t play ball”, they will be banned from hiring overseas workers, he said.
Introduced in 2021 by the Conservatives after Brexit, the points-based immigration system assigns points to specific skills and qualifications and only grants visas to those with enough points.