MIGRATION-BRITAIN: Doors Open for Brains and Money

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar 10 2006 (IPS) - Under a new policy Britain will open its normal immigration channels only to those with money and extraordinary skills.

The new policy follows a toughening of asylum rules earlier which has brought a sharp fall in the number of applications. In effect Britain is now closing its doors to almost all the sort of people who came in so far as immigrants.

”The whole driver behind the system is the needs of the UK economy,” Immigration Minister Tony McNulty told IPS.

In pursuit of that the Labour government proposes to introduce a points- based system similar to that in Canada and Australia. This will be set across a five-tier system with the top two tiers for skilled workers and entrepreneurs. ”Tier one and two can lead to settlement in the UK,” McNulty said.

Tiers three to five for low-skilled workers, students and temporary workers will not lead to settlement, though that could be allowed for students in some cases, McNulty said.

But even for the top skilled workers categories, the government has proposed a minimum income measured in pounds sterling for applicants. That clearly sets the rules in favour of applicants from developed rather than developing countries.

”Earning power will be a key criterion but not the only one,” McNulty said. This can be seen in the context of applicants from some countries who have income levels ”that reflect their skills in those terms,” the minister said. ”There has to be a degree of comparison to the labour market in their own country.”

But the inclusion of specific income levels in pound sterling mean that the new system will present immediate advantages to migrants from developed rather than developing countries.

This bias extends into the low-skilled categories as well. The days of any significant migration from the developing world seem to be over with new limits on migration of unskilled workers from outside Europe.

”There will still be room but there won’t be as much room given that we need principally to address the concerns of the economy and the UK workforce having their ability to grow and develop,” McNulty said.

”The scheme is skewed against lower skilled migrants from developing non-European Union countries,” Habib Rahman chief executive of the independent Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants told IPS.

”This new move will squeeze them out of the system,” he said. ”The government has clearly said it wants to fill gaps in the labour force from the new EU member states.” Hundreds of thousands of workers from these new member states, particularly Poland, have already come to Britain.

But this kind of labour force can give rise to several problems, Rahman said. ”They come and go, and because they circulate all the time this can create problems. On the other hand migrants from developing countries come to settle, and continue to work.”

In particular areas this virtual ban on workers from outside the EU will create difficulties, Rahman said. ”If in the catering sector for instance workers are not allowed in from the Indian subcontinent, the business will face a severe shortage of workers.”

Such unskilled labour that is allowed in will be for a period of six months to one year. ”Given the money spent on getting here, that work period is not incentive enough to return,” Rahman said. ”What we see is that workers who come for a short term do not leave at the end of it. This means a lot of workers around who have no rights and are open to exploitation. And undocumented people do not pay tax into the economy.”

McNulty said the system is likely to be approved by parliament over the next couple of months. It is expected to get going by early 2008, and be fully operational within three years from then.