UK businesses should “look to British labour” rather than relying on immigrants to fill jobs after Brexit, a minister has said.
Ahead of its annual conference, Confederation of British Industry (CBI) chief executive Tony Danker has called on the government to use immigration to solve the UK’s labor shortage, saying it must be “practical ” in this matter.
And he said taking this approach would help the UK economy grow.
But Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick disagreed, telling Sky News’ Kay Burley that businesses should look closer to home first.
Politics Live: Sunak faces calls to allow more immigration
Brexit prevented many foreign workers from being able to work easily in the UK and businesses are struggling to recruit, particularly in industries such as hospitality, which have relied heavily on European staff in recent years.
Despite four quarterly declines this year, global vacancies remain high at more than 1.2 million.
From August to October 2022 they were 429,000 (54%) above pre-pandemic levels in early 2020 and 32,000 (2.7%) more than a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Danker, who will give a speech at the CBI event later, told Sky News: “This should be a very simple system. What are the jobs we need to cover, number one?
“Number two: do we have British workers to fill them? And number three, if we don’t, we use fixed-term immigration – just fixed-term visas to plug the gaps until British workers are ready to do the work.
“That’s not how our immigration system works today, and that’s why it’s not helping us with our growth problem.”
Image: Tony Danker will also call for action on the Northern Ireland Protocol
Jenrick said the government would “listen to the business community” and was “aware of certain skills shortages”, adding: “We want a pragmatic and sensible relationship with business.
“But overall our ambition is to reduce net migration. We think that’s what the British public want. That was one of the driving forces behind the vote to leave the European Union in 2016, and it’s just not true to say that we” I’ve taken a kind of closed-door approach since then.”
Jenrick pointed to schemes such as visas for health and social care workers, saying that last year more than 300,000 work visas were issued “to people who had a certain standard of living so they could look after themselves and not be too dependent on the state” and would cover the so-called shortage occupations.
“I think that’s the right approach, rather than using less skilled workers,” he added.
Image: Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick says businesses should look to train British workers
“And if I were a business manager, I would look at the British workforce in the first instance, seeing how I could bring local people into my business, train them, empower them to do the work.”
The minister also said there were five million “economically inactive” people in the UK, “and the government’s first duty is to help as many of them as possible into the workforce”.
Chancellor’s statement ‘incredibly welcome’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to attend the Birmingham conference and deliver an innovation-focused speech of his own, just days after his chancellor unveiled £25bn of tax rises.
Danker will hail the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement as “incredibly welcome” and thank him for “staying the course” on infrastructure projects such as HS2 rail and Sizewell C nuclear power station.
But he told Sky News the autumn statement was about stabilizing markets, not how the economy will grow, something he hoped the prime minister would talk about later.
And with the UK seemingly destined for recession and stagnant growth, he will say in his speech that more needs to be done.
“The painful reality about growth is that you can’t stimulate it overnight. That’s what the mini-budget failed to do,” Danker will tell delegates.
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Concerns about Brexit will also feature in his speech, with the CBI chief expected to urge changes to regulations and red tape, saying: “I know that some Tory politicians today feel that this issue is the fault of europe
“But the biggest regulatory barriers facing businesses today are based on British laws, created by a British parliament and administered by British regulators.”
Danker will also point to the ongoing dispute with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“Turn the tables, make the deal, unlock the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. I tell the Brexiteers that the best guarantor of Brexit is an economy that grows. Their biggest risk is one that doesn’t,” he will say head of the CBI. to say.
“Now I know some of these things are not going to be popular with politicians.
“But while I have no problem with the government making tough decisions to bring stability, I want it to also make tough decisions to grow.”
“No to Brexit Swiss style”
His remarks come amid reports over the weekend that the government is seeking to maintain a “Swiss-style” relationship with the EU to free up trade.
Brexiteers have reacted angrily to the rumours, but Downing Street has flatly denied it and Jenrick echoed that sentiment this morning.
He told Sky News: “I don’t know where the story came from in the Sunday papers. It’s not one we recognize and we’ll stand by the relationship we’ve secured.
“This does not mean that we are not interested in improving our trade relations with the European Union or indeed, in my area, our security and migration partnership with the European Union.
“But we’re not going to reopen the discussions we had a few years ago. We have a fixed vision and we’re moving forward on that basis.”