Labour’s new immigration plans won’t beat Reform

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Keir Starmer said yesterday that Britain would “finally take back control of its borders” as he published a white paper designed to bring down net migration significantly by the next election.

So what? That’s Reform in the rearview mirror. Starmer criticised people who “will try to make this all about politics”. But it’s through the lens of politics that the prime minister will be judged and he has staked his leadership on an issue that outfoxed his predecessors. The problem is that focusing on legal migration sets up Starmer to lose the debate and slow the economy, given that

• small boat crossings dominate immigration discourse despite being statistically trivial in the context of the overall number of people coming to the UK; and
• legal migration makes up most of that number and has a positive fiscal impact.

The pitch. Starmer warned that the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies. As part of what he called a move towards a “controlled, selective and fair” system, the prime minister promised to

• impose a 10-year settlement route, with exceptions for “high contributors”;
• raise English language requirements for people moving to the UK;
• tighten the skilled worker criteria; and
• scrap visas for overseas care workers.

‘The link doesn’t hold.’ Starmer tried to anticipate the argument that higher levels of migration boost the economy by pointing out that growth was stagnant under the Conservatives when net migration was close to a million people a year.

That may be true, but growth could have been even lower. The Office for Budget Responsibility scores higher net migration as an economic benefit that reduces government borrowing because those arriving in the UK are typically of working age. The overall impact is small.

Who cares? Inward mobility has particular significance in sectors such as social care, where nearly a third of workers are migrants. Relaxation of immigration rules for care workers in February 2022 reduced vacancy levels from 164,000 that year to 131,000 in 2024. That still amounts to a vacancy rate of 8.3 per cent, compared with 2.8 per cent in the wider economy.

Someone needs to care. Without funding for better pay, these vacancy numbers will rise. Care England, which represents independent providers, said the government was “kicking us while we’re already down”. The sector is projected to require 540,000 more staff by 2040.

Not enough. The government would argue that it wants to make the migration system work better for Britain and its economy. As such, it has promised to increase the number of people arriving in the UK on “high talent routes”. But it is not reducing the cost of work visas.

• Visa fees rose across the UK by 126 per cent between 2019 and 2024.
• Upfront immigration costs are up to 17 times higher than the international average.

Case in point. The Francis Crick Institute, which hires two-thirds of its researchers from abroad, is spending nearly £800,000 a year on visa fees.

Running scared. Starmer is desperate to head off the threat of Reform UK, which is triumphant after the local elections and polling ahead of Labour.

Reducing net migration is doable – it fell by 20 per cent between 2023 and 2024, and upcoming figures are likely to show another drop – and Starmer has avoided setting targets so as not to fall into the same trap as previous leaders.

But tackling legal migration doesn’t deal with the frontispiece of anti-immigration sentiment. Nigel Farage claimed yesterday that 250 men were “already crossing the Channel by 8am”.

It may not please the public either. Polling by Focaldata shows that half of voters want to see an overall reduction in immigration, which quickly runs into the reality that

• only 17 per cent want to see a fall in the number of doctors from abroad;
• 18 per cent a fall in the number of nurses;
• 22 per cent a fall in care workers; and
• 29 per cent a fall in students.

Lessons from abroad. Spain proves there is a different way. Its economy grew by 3.2 per cent last year as it responded to low birth rates by squaring with its people and championing immigration. Roughly 87 per cent of jobs created across Spain last year were filled by migrants or people with dual nationality.

What’s more… Calculating the fiscal impact of net migration in the UK is complicated by information gaps about migrants’ earnings and their use and delivery of public services. Until there is better data, the issue will remain a political piñata.