A good start to immigration

First published in the www.dissexpress.co.uk & www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk on Thursday, February 6, 2020.

In previous columns for this paper, I have touched on the libertarian approach to immigration. In essence this states that the freer a market, the easier it should be for people to live and work within it from outside.

At its most basic, an immigration policy needs to be set on the basis of achieving a country’s short-term and long-term economic and social prosperity.

But I’m enough of a realist to know that just as a truly free market cannot be conjured up overnight through the time it takes to reduce the weight of state bureaucracy and inertia, so the delivery of a more libertarian immigration policy must be a process and not a single event.

Now that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has published its report and the Government moves towards publishing its new Immigration Act, it is time to revisit this issue.

Firstly, let me state what I’m against. 

I do believe that UK businesses should better invest in training and developing their existing staff, rather than relying on an endless supply of overseas workers. But it will take time for some sectors to be less reliant on this employment sugar rush. The British Chambers of Commerce Workplace Training & Development Commission, currently at its evidence-gathering stage, promises to offer some interesting solutions to this situation.

I’m opposed to an immigration policy beholden to explicit or implicit racial or other prejudices. The European Union’s rigged fortress approach has meant that workers and their families from outside its borders, including those in Commonwealth countries, have been discriminated against by reason of their place of birth and/or location.

But that also means that the current and future British Governments must never repeat the mistakes of previous administrations and preside over the statist incompetence and discriminatory cruelty of the Windrush scandal, whereby British citizens were deprived of their livelihoods and many deported to countries of which they knew little.

I am also opposed, and always have been, to the dogmatic obsession with absolute immigration numbers that so characterised the Theresa May years as both Home Secretary and Prime Minister. Such inflexibility worked for no-one: businesses, service users or consumers.

That said, the British Government has been far more sensitive to the needs of those EU citizens and their dependants legally here than have European countries towards British expats. The settled status scheme is both compassionate in itself and astute in terms of retaining a much-needed existing workforce.

I am also mightily impressed with the more liberal – if not yet libertarian – approach being taken by Boris Johnson and the ideas of the MAC, which I hope will be adopted sooner rather than later. 
This Government has announced that a fast-track visa will be introduced this month to attract the world's leading scientists, with no cap imposed on the numbers able to contribute to our economic success and social dynamism.
This is a good start.
The  Government would do well to build on that, heeding the MAC recommendations by cutting the salary threshold for skilled migrants from £30,000 to £25,600 for those coming to the UK with a job offer.
This could make it easier for teachers, NHS employees and people at the start of their careers to qualify. 
The MAC suggests that a points-based system should only be introduced for specific skilled workers in specific sectors arriving here without a job offer.
However, with the exception of healthcare, I also believe that neither of these groups should have full access to public funds and services unless they have completed at least five years of continuous employment. Should they respectively become unemployed or fail to secure employment within six months of arriving, then their visas must be revoked immediately.
Now we are free of EU regulations, an immigration system described above would help this country move forward in a way that effectively incentivises effort and success and which contributes to a stronger economic and social fabric for the future.

Ends.