Net migration figures are "not what people who voted for Brexit voted for" | Sir Edward Leigh

I suspect the treasury is has been quite relaxed about this in the past because they boast that were growing the economy as fast as Germany their idea of growing the economy is simply to have more more people in the country and what's happening with this huge levels of net migration is that average earnings are actually going down we're not increasing productivity we're just lowering the wages of everybody in the country just by taking the easy way out by importing people from all over the world this is not what people who voted for brexit versus four okay it's quite a lot going on here when it comes to what these figures are actually showing and you know I think in some ways the government will you not not be horrendously worried about it what these figures overall what we're looking at here is that there have been you know a number of people coming to the UK and this is not it's it's worth just saying this is not we're not just here talking about people who've arrived in the UK illegally we're talking about people who've arrived on Ma Mass the net migration figure which stands at 67200 for the last year to June 2023 now in June 2022 it was 67,000 and it's it's worth noting that the December estimate has been increased to 745,000 so that is an incredibly High number all of these are but what the on who put these net migration figures together is saying is that while it's too early to say whether this is a start of a downward Trend the figures do indicate that there is a slowing of immigration and coupled with increasing immigration so it's not overall the worst possible picture although the numbers are still incredibly High when you start to look though at where people are coming from so where people are arriving in the UK from that's where this starts to get a little bit more difficult for the government because what we're talking about here is people who are arriving you know a lot of these figures of people arriving on Health and Social care visas and those numbers have increased 10 percentage points in a year from 23% to 33% now that will worry the government because it it demonstrates that there are a lot lots and lots of people coming into the country to plug gaps in employment which we clearly need but which is tipping over that figure into a pretty high number and when you actually look it's it's also increasing the number of dependents who are arriving here so of those who are arriving on a work-related Visa that 33% I just mentioned it equates to 322,000 arrivals 169,000 of those are the applicants and 154,000 are dependents so people who with the people who are coming to do those jobs now perhaps not surprising because if you're working in Health and Social care you tend to be female you may well have a family you may have children that you want to bring with you but what it does do is it means that the number of people arriving here is increased not just by people who are coming to work but also by their families too yeah but it's a problem on two fronts though isn't it if the government and it has has defined a success as bringing them bringing the number down significantly that's that's not happening the trend may be slightly dipping but it's still very very High not not and it hasn't fallen enough for government ministers to say we are winning the argument the argument they've set as their own litmus test well this is where this is where this gets really interesting because I've been speaking to home office officials today and you've just said there John very clearly the government's ambition is to cut the number cut the net migration figure and the person I've just spoken to has said well it's not about cutting the number it's not about just wildly slashing the number of people coming to the UK it's about control they said to me we promised people control we never promised that we would slash the number to zero we said we'd stop the small boats and we've got a separate problem going on with Rwanda but I find that really fascinating because while a polling does show that people want control you are right that most people interpreted that as cutting the number down when you speak to people behind the scenes in government there is a clear recognition that the number of people arriving is too high but there's also recognition that the NHS needs people to fill employment gaps that's undeniable and without them we're all stuck waiting longer for GP appointments and trying to get through you know the the NHS system what the person I've just been speaking to has been saying though is that there is a problem in Social care and that you know and I quote this person saying they have evidence that some social care providers are giving visas out like sweeties where people join the sector they come over to work here and they then move on to a much more lucrative job and I've been looking up some of the the stipulations for a health and care worker visa and they might give us an indication of where the government could go next week because we expect that they will announce some tighter restrictions or at least an indication that they're going to try and and restrict more tightly some of these visa requirements the salary for example on a health and care worker visa you need is just £20,000 the average social care salary in the UK is between 30 to 45,000 depending on where you are in the UK so that is very clearly quite low compared to what you might expect in the sector there's also an allowance within the rules from the government that you can work in another job for up to 20 hours so perhaps we could see next week when we expect James cleverly to make a statement in the House of Commons about these numbers an indication that the government might try to cut you know cut down on external work work that's not in the sector maybe they'll look at salaries maybe they'll look at dependence all of these things they could consider to reduce that number coming into the UK in that way it's reallyy interesting Kate and I said a lot of store by your your your predictions of future movements in politic you tend to get these things well I don't want to jinx it but you do do tend to get these things right I have to say I do not buy the idea of the government saying I'm sure they are saying this I by the argument that it was never about numbers it is true that since brexit the brexit argument was we need control and now it said that brexit was about taking control whatever happens subsequently but the promise of getting numbers down precedes brexit by really quite a long a long way and the government has never repudiated the ambition of getting numbers down and we recall the original Pro was by in the Cameron days Teresa may she applied the principle of getting numbers down absolutely ruthlessly and even too ruthlessly for some of her fellow ministers and since then there's been no no we're no longer interested in numbers again it's just about control and matching things up I think we have seen a shift from subsequent governments get you know away from this idea of a Target so we haven't seen them repeating a a numerical Target for net migration the reason for that clearly is because it's impossible to achieve but I think what we are starting to hear is this shift to an idea of control and why that matters because particularly when it comes to this issue of illegal migration so people coming to the UK from uh you know crossing the channel illegally we've also had some figures out today on that and it does seem to show these are obviously independent figures that illegal Boat Crossings are down 16% on the previous year and that you know arrivals arrivals are actually lower now that the figure suggests is down in large part of the agreement with Albania the returns agreement with Albania but what may well be interesting to people is that we're still seeing 88% of those arrivals are male the majority are Afghans but also Iranians too there's been a real increase in Turkish Nationals four times higher compared to the year before of Turkish Nationals Crossing uh the channel so maybe we will see again a returns agreement or some kind of agreement particularly with those groups where they are coming from a safe country so the UK could try and cut those numbers too yeah the story's going to develop next week in quite a big way when we get these policy ideas out there we've had a good a good glimpse of what's coming I think there from you stick around because we can talk now to Edward Le sir Edward Le conservative Member of Parliament welcome to you sir Edward good afternoon what's your thoughts on the statistics I think they're deeply worrying for the government and for the conservative party the fact is these are enormous numbers of people coming into our country we've got 6 million people um who are living here already who are not working on benefit we've got all these Care Home providers uh paying dirt poor wages as your H commentator said handing out visas like sweeties the way to solve it is that if you come in this country you must earn average UK earnings of around £33,000 a year so it's deeply worrying right so just taking that idea the one that you put on the table there if if it was just about being allowed into the country if you earn over 30 odd thousand well that would exclude well pretty much all of the workers who are coming here to to make the care sector work and the care sector you've heard it uh as well as we have the cas says if that were to happen they would be out of business they'd be ruined what do you say to them well I say that the people uh who run the NHS who run these Care Homes should pay proper wages so that people British people who are already here want to work in these perfectly good jobs and we cannot just have a situation where year after year we get huge numbers of net migration because the these people are not earning proper salaries it's I'm afraid that this is a a bit of a crisis for us because people feel very strongly about it and if we do nothing uh people like the Reform Party are waiting to stand in all our constituencies and to hammer on it so we as a government we have to do something and do it very urgently and it I suspect the treasury is has been quite relaxed about this in the past because they boast that we're growing the economy as fast as Germany their idea of growing the economy is simply to have more more people in the country and what's happening with this huge levels of net migration is that average earnings are actually going down we're not increasing productivity we're just lowering the wages of everybody in the country just by taking the easy way out by importing people from all over the world this is not what people who voted for brexit voted for okay I hear your your point about political pressure and we can all recognize that I can hear your concern about poverty wages I think we can recognize that too in the real world care workers in homes up and down the country are not going to be paid £30,000 or anything like it if that were to be imposed you would lose those workers you would have none to come in to fill the vacancies those Care Homes could not operate they would simply closed down because homegrown labor won't do those jobs well I mean that's the wrong question well how can we live in a country where you're not prepared to pay people a proper wage to work in a in a really important job I mean you know if this is a question of government funding we just you can't run a country on the basis that every year you have net migration of six 700,000 people and I mean we haven't even talked about the dependence yet why are we lying in these students if you come in as a student fair enough you should come in as a proper course a real course when you finish your course you should go home why do you need to bring dependence in if you come in as a care worker if you come in as a care worker it should be be on a proper wage skills wage and then when you finish your job you go home and you don't bring in your dependence because otherwise the country I mean we talk about the crisis in housing and planning and Roads and everything else and services and the NHS you I I repeat this is a copout and an easy way of dealing with what I accept is a crisis yes in the willingness of people to work in care okay I want to bring in our political letter of Kate Mah but but just just in passing as I understand it the overse students who come come here on student visas have got a very good record of leaving when their their visa time expires but Kate McAn well actually the ons figures the most recent update today does show that there is a rising Trend where people who come on a student visa are now increasingly staying on after their visa and they are bringing more people with them when they arrive in the UK and I think there is also a concern about people shifting to a work visa from a student visa but that would be legitimate that wouldn't be overstaying wouldn't it no at the moment there rules do allow for that but I wonder whether we might see some kind of action from the government to try and clamp down on that because some of the numbers of people arriving with uh students for example are quite high from in 2022 the number of dependents for example was 6% arriving with students it's now 25% so you can see that there has been an increase there and I think that the government will recognize that if we see an increasing trend of people who are coming to the UK I mean that the Visa allows the visa rules do allow people to stay here to work but if you're arriving and then moving onto a different type of Visa I think there will be some action and there has been some already taken to try and stop that there could be furthered Edward Lee you seem pretty much convinced that your party is going to suffer from this at the next election well I think it's quite worrying for us because what happens if the Reform Party stands in every one of our constituencies and gets 10% of the vote I mean we could just be pacing a landslide labor Victory and the sad thing is that labor would be even worse worse than us they they're quite relaxed about immigration they're quite relaxed about the country changing forever they think a lot of the people will vote for them so I mean it would just be absurd for us to pave the way for a labor government by giving an excuse to the reform candidates to stand in all our constitu and say migration is out of control and we haven't even started talking about uh in this program about illegal migration the government two years ago should have stopped the votes by getting out the Human Rights Act and the refugee convention they're Frank not on top of this issue so it's the trouble is is with conservative minded voters strong conservatives who believe that a conservative government is about strong immigration control that is what they've been promised by successive Prime Ministers and successive prime ministers have failed to stop this problem because as you say they are worried about care homes in the NHS but just P own people get those six million people who are not working at the moment into jobs wellp paid jobs s Lee conservative MP thank you and Kate thanks a lot let's talk again a bit later on on the program well I'm John pan and if you found that interesting we are here each day Monday to Thursday 5:00 till 7:00 on drive and from 7 till 8 p and Friends where we discuss the big stories of the day each day on 's radio

Channel: Times Radio

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Keywords: Times Radio, migration, net migration, brexit, immigration, uk migration, uk immigration, migration crisis, brexit immigration, illegal migration bill, uk immigration news, eu net migration, uk net migration, net migration uk, illegal immigration, net migration stats, rexit migrations, new uk immigration news, brexit news, uk immigration news 2023, uk immigration news today, immigration news, brexit latest, eu brexit, uk record net migration, nigel farage brexit

Id: zJXzTNJueQA

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2023