Lower migration and the tax gap: raise taxes or ease restrictions?

[Mouldemort]

James Cleverly introduced some serious restrictions on immigration, which Labour have upheld. Mahmood is going to introduce further restrictions. This has had the effect of reducing immigration substantially and forecast immigration (yes, even taking account the new method of counting.)

Immigrants, especially new immigrants, are disproportionate contributors to the UK's tax take, because they tend to be high earners and have no recourse to public funds. The low earners (who have mainly been blocked) are the bedrock of social care. The decrease in immigration has been more that the Chancellor planned for, so that leaves a substantial tax gap - at least £4bn and possibly £6.5bn annually.

Note this is from the Times, not a bastion of leftist thought.

So the question is, what do we do about this? Are you willing to pay higher taxes to pay for the shortfall? Should we lift restrictions on immigration to keep taxes lower?

Rejoining the single market or at least the customs union might help, but the same people who oppose higher taxes also oppose immigration and a closer connection the the EU

"Falling migration numbers could cost the chancellor as much as £7bn in fiscal headroom as he writes his first budget, The Times has been told. Government insiders believe that John Healey, who already faced an uphill battle to balance the books next month, is likely to have an even bigger challenge after immigration significantly undershot projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated last month that the success of Shabana Mahmood’s reforms, which have seen net migration cut to the low hundreds of thousands, could cost Healey some £4bn. Labour sources familiar with the budget process, however, said that the figure was now closer to £6.5bn. The OBR’s migration forecasts have been consistently higher than real numbers in recent years. Treasury officials, who have long expected Mahmood’s reforms to cause a hit to headroom, described the number as “pure speculation” but did not deny that Healey would have to contend with a larger funding gap than expected because of falling migration"

"At the same time, the OBR also observed that a ‘low migration’ scenario would – even after taking account of reduced pressures on public spending – push up borrowing by about £14 billion per year in 2028-29, considerably more than the cost of a 2p cut in National Insurance contributions, and raise the debt to GDP ratio – the government’s key fiscal target – by about 2.5%, or about £75 billion"

"In the short term, the biggest impact will be on social care, already struggling with workforce pressures and years of underfunding. Over the last two years, only a very large influx of migrant workers – 70,000 new starters in the last year – has saved the sector from an even deeper crisis. If the fall in visas issued is sustained, and there is not a large infusion of taxpayer funds, prospects are bleak."

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/falling-migration-john-healey-headroom-zsw9rdcnr

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/immigration-is-falling-but-the-economic-cost-may-be-high/

@5MinuteArgument

There did use to be a requirement for employers to at least pay lip service to trying to recruit locally through the Resident Labour Market Test.

Boris Johnson abolished this requirement along with any other controls, such as employers even having to pay minimum wage to immigrants.

The NHS then started contracting with foreign countries such as Nigeria, so that entire departments’ nurses came from abroad. The verification process was so slack that nurses were able to use proxies to take their competency tests.

The process has supposedly been tightened up, but given at least 2 recent scandals I can think of, who knows.

This is just part of our utterly mad immigration system where we train our own staff to a high level of competency, then force them abroad to make way for people from countries where you can lie and cheat your way into a job, putting patients at huge risk.

Absolutely. If we don’t other English speaking countries will.

I agree, it's just crazy. An absolute scam. We need to train our own resident workforce and recruit them for the work that needs doing.

The idea that the NHS recruits so heavily from abroad because it wants to recruit 'the best' is just laughable.

Out of interest, is there a reason why you are opposed to training and recruiting young British people to take up the roles as doctors and nurses in the NHS?

Why is it laughable? The health care workers we train are departing for the US and Australia in droves. Why would we train more so other countries can benefit?

Do you have any idea why they are leaving in droves?

Would you suggest we stop training them at all? why should we subsidise US and Aus?

@Blossomtoes

It’s laughable because British trained junior doctors, 7 years into their training, I believe, were having to compete for their next placement against half the world, before the rules changed this August.

Because foreign doctors were so desperate to come to the UK, they would apply even if it was a downgrade for them. So British students were at an immediate disadvantage.

They had no choice but to go abroad if they wanted to continue their training.

@Blossomtoes

Hospital departments now have contracts to recruit all their nurses from abroad. So British trained nurses cannot get a job and also have to go abroad.

Sounds like an urban myth to me. Unless of course you have some evidence.

@BIossomtoes

Straight from the horses mouth, the people who actually work in these hospitals. The government has just made legal changes this year, 2026, to prevent it.

There’s immigration and immigration.

Highly skilled immigration from Europe, Japan, China, India and parts of Africa? All for it. More immigration from Albania, Somalia, Afghanistan? No, I am not for it.

Let’s close off routes from high risk countries, be honest with ourselves about specific demographics and whether they are an asset to Britain, and improve immigration routes from countries where the immigrants are skilled and desirable.

It’s insanity because we are constantly told we need immigration for the NHS and economy, yet despite many millions of immigrants apparently both are in worse shape than ever. It’s clearly not working for whatever reason.

Madness

The Medical Training Prioritisation Act 2026 bans hospital departments from block recruiting nurses from overseas.

Some sensible legislation at last, after many strikes from junior doctors.

It won’t improve matters for newly qualified nurses immediately though, because hospitals just shut down level 5 recruiting when money is tight. They still have to bring in all the block booked nurses.

A lot of these nurses were recruited en mass from Nigeria. So the NHS was deliberately recruiting huge numbers of nurses from a country that already had a desperate shortage of nurses.

That’s anecdote. You clearly have no evidence.

I have just given you the name of the legislation that was brought in this year to stop this from happening! Look it up! It specifically stops NHS block recruiting nurses from abroad to fill entire wards. NHS can still recruit nurses individually from abroad.

Look up the 10 Year Health Plan.

In 2024, 50% of newly hired nurses and midwives came from overseas. This is not anecdote!

This year it is half that, and the aim is for it to drop to 10%. This is largely because the government has stopped financially incentivising recruitment from abroad, and has raised the standard of language requirements.

Anecdotally, it was also a seriously bad look for NHS trusts to be recruiting 50% of its nurses from abroad, while new British graduates couldn’t get a job.

I have dutifully looked it up. It doesn’t include nurses nor does it provide evidence of block recruitment of overseas staff. Try again.

Yes, exactly, that's why Labour have changed the rules, they have that much sense at least.

Glad to hear the Labour government has had an outbreak of common sense.

Although some of the comments on here give an idea of the intransigence of the pro-immigration lobby. They seem to want our own young people to be replaced by overseas workers even if there is a cost to that, ie loads of young people out of work, a mental health crisis, increased housing costs, strain on our services, depletion of our natural resources and pressure on our environment.

Yes it’s pervasive.

Anyone with any common sense in the Labour Party will have to do battle with the left wing of the Labour Party who seem to see any suggestion that immigration should be curbed as a rallying call for rabid racist right-wingers.

And also they need to fight off all the vested interests, lawyers, big companies etc who have their fingers in the immigration gravy train.