Changes to immigration rules announced by Starmer

[OneAmberFinch]

Full white paper here is extensive and announces changes to all avenues of migration - basically their approach to resolving the issues of massively increased migration from 2019-2023/4.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf

And Starmer's commentary on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce810e3z6dkt

Handful of headline changes: default timeline to get ILR to go to 10 years instead of 5; abolishing new care worker visas; raising skills threshold for Skilled Workers back up to graduate level; increasing minimum grades required for student visas; various bits and pieces around English language requirements among several other policies

They probably were but how is having even more people here who haven’t paid into the system helping one iota

What do people think of as enough paying into the system to get ILR? That won't be taken away retroactively. Just curious. 40% tax bracket? 45%?

You could have plus vetting on any humanitarian schemes which could be as low as the electorate decide. A quota.

It’d take opting out of laws first which takes mandate and a GE.

@TheHouseofGirthit’s not just tax bracket (which needs to be consistent over the years required to qualify), but about your ability to contribute and support yourself more generally. Aus and NZ make people have a medical before they get in. It’s quite calculated.

And for those who say we need low wage people now and it takes ages to train our own, well, that argument was being made 14 years ago in the coalition years - if there had been investment then, if we’d rebalanced our higher education sector to give us the skills we needed, people would be trained now.

I have private health care, as do many SW. I also paid an NHS surcharge ( never used the NHS).

@TheHouseofGirthit’s not personal to you though. There are lots of low wage immigrants for whom this is not the case and letting them have ILR creates a big long term liability in terms of the services they may require. Lots of other countries do try to ensure this is managed by requiring a medical to get in at all.

Not saying it's personal. Am only asking what criteria posters think should be applied to keep high paid talent. Which does exist.

The thing that is hanging over high earners or global talent retention is the EU and FOM.

The UK can conclude a deal with the EU in certain sectors that are needed. It doesn’t necessarily need to widen access to ILR. It looks like it will narrow it. It could equally conclude deals with other jurisdictions to address shortages or requirements for certain sectors.

None of this is to suggest that the UK will ever have FOM with the EU again.

I think @TheHouseofGirth 's question is a good one and worth discussing. I'm not sure I know the answer to it.

A net tax contributor for yourself + dependents is presumably bare minimum.

I think it's important to clarify though that the question isn't "who should be allowed to get ILR/settlement". Plausibly one could suggest, I'm just making this up but say, 10 years to settlement but as long as your tax contributions over the last 24 months were being 20% higher than median for your family situation, you get a quasi-settlement where you have extended time to find a new job, and a streamlined work permit approval, but you're not entitled to any benefits.

People in IB or high tech etc don't care about not getting to access UC but they care a lot about being able to stay in the country long enough to last for recruitment cycles for their senior or exec level positions which might take several months to negotiate.

I also think 1 year to get citizenship post settlement is crazy. But philosophically I feel citizenship should be at the level of, like, I'd join the army and die for this country. I know quite a few people who just see the passport as a paper citizenship that they don't care about. In my experience this is more common among high earning "global elite" type people who are otherwise good contributors but I think it's still not great to ask so little of people.

Why do you think 1 year post settlement for citizenship is crazy? Plenty of born citizens wouldn't join the army and die for their country.

Eastern, we have a refugee quota not to keep down numbers but to ensure we bring in enough refugees, as we do not get enough asylum applications. New Zealand.

Thanks for saying the country that’s very interesting. I wasn’t aware. I was going to ask if you had many people try to arrive by crossing and it seems you’ve had a few but they’ve been turned back.

I understand why the system we have looks so uncontrolled and reliant on criminals selling movement, I have experienced the norm of control o/s and I feel the same.

Rwanda agreed to take around 500 per year for 5 years, how is taking 1 or 2 % of all x channel migrants a "deterrent"?

Migrants not seeking to cross the ch are not housed in tents, perhaps if they were housed properly, they wouldn't be seeking to come here??

So who is patrolling these razor wire encampments? you happy to have one near you, housing lets say 10,000 migrants? or do you propose 100s of such camps, dotted all over the country?

Vote winner there!!!

Any ideas on the sanitary arrangements required? basic medical, cooking & recreational facilities?

EU migrants coming here and living in caravans etc were working, seasonal and earning a lot of money, they weren't imprisoned but in cases where they were badly treated, thats down to UK lack of enforcement of our own employment laws.

I find our immigration rules quite draconian and sometimes counterproductive, but, unlike the UK, they are aimed at protecting NZ citizens. NZ citizens have the right to a family life, for example, which ordinary UK ones patently do not, as they quickly find when they try to return home with their foreign spouse. In NZ my foreign spouse could buy a house with me but most migrants cannot, because housing stock is limited, etc etc. It's a very different approach.

That does sound different, I’d not change all things but there’s been heavy investment in the don’t question uncontrolled crime supported entry here. Accusations of pretty much anything (racism, far right, culture wars) so it can continue.

A lot of people make money from it and it’s hard to change. Politically it’ll be the outlier party that does it so there’s a lot of people not wanting to be out of jobs.

If the UK manages to get out of this cycle then people won’t believe how much calmer and controlled it is. They won’t vote it out again.

Right. Even one of my neighbours, at a low level- affable older chap and aghast at this and that going on in this country etc etc, a stalwart of the cricket club and wears a poppy etc etc, but bought a little "house" for renting out, divided it into three units (seems more like storage units from the photo) and rents it out to the Borough Council to house asylum seekers. Making a very tidy income apparently and the council do all the maintenance, upkeep, keeping it constantly occupied and so on. Would he really like them to change a thing when he is making bank from the status quo? And he is small fry profiting at the lowest level.

Have you looked at the numbers of x channel boats pre-Brexit?

Yes - I have discussed it multiple times.
Have you seen this chart from the European Commission?

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Asylum_applications_-_annual_statistics

415,000 first-time asylum seekers in 2020 - 873,000 in 2022, over 1 million in 2023, over 900,000 in 2024. Do you think Ursula von der Leyen or anyone else should resign?

As far as I can see, Chris Philp was parliamentary under-secretary for immigration, in his first ministerial role, rather than a senior minister at the time. He wouldn't be my first choice for Home Secretary but I guess he's fine for a shadow ministerial role. I would need to listen to the whole of the conversation he had, not just an edited clip in any case.

Philps confirmed there were no plans, agreements, research on immigration when the UK left the EU

I don't think he did - this House of Commons Library report was published before the general election in 2019 - highlighting that only 7% of UK return requests under the Dublin Regulation 2015 - 2018 resulted in a transfer back to the EU - whereas the UK accepted 33% of requests (mostly family reunion requests).

The research refers to policy proposals of the May Government’s Immigration White Paper and also refers to 'contentious' reform proposals for the Dublin Regulation which the UK did not want to opt in to;

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/what-is-the-dublin-iii-regulation-will-it-be-affected-by-brexit/

I

Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride says leaked recording of Chris Philp, of him admitting the UK can't return asylum seekers to Europe post-Brexit (despite promises made at the time), is "blindingly obvious".

We are talking about the UK, not EU asylum applications.

So back on track - according to you, Philp is incompetent/lazy/unsuitable to be a minister, either Shadow or in Govt?

Doesn't say much for Sunak or Badenoch who appointed him into these roles.

Mel Stride also backs up Philp.

I think it’s confirmation bias. Which is a strange one when it’s politicians that some will usually avoid believing. All the actual figures are there. But they do need to be read and realised.

Well, there certainly seems to be a reluctance to believe the Shadow HS and the Shadow Chancellor from the Tory supporters here on MN

Both were very clear on Dublin - that Rwanda was the response to being out of Dublin, though lets look again at how many deported under the Rwanda scheme?

Two of the most senior posts on the opposition benches, its not "Confirmation Bias" its "blindingly obvious" to quote Stride.

As the Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Carsten Linemann said in the quoted article on this issue
"The data speaks for itself”

Just reading the numbers is enough.

It’s all publicly available.