Non-EU Citizens: Income Threshold

Debate between Lord Harrington of Watford and Kirsten Oswald

Monday 7th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point and he correctly said that nurses have been mentioned several times already. So I shall respond to his point and the points made by several other hon. Members about the same subject. Basically, they were worried that an occupation’s position in the list was temporary and it could be withdrawn from the list at any time, which does not give people any certainty—the very points that the right hon. Gentleman just made.

The MAC, which Members should remember is not a political committee but an independent committee that operates very analytically with skilled staff who study data from the Office for National Statistics and any other data that are available, has just conducted a review of nursing, and the Government will consider that report carefully. We do not know what it says yet, because the MAC has not published its review. There was an interim measure and the change took effect in time for the December 2015 allocation of the certificates of sponsorship, which means that applications for nursing posts are prioritised.

In its latest investment plan, which was published at the end of last year, Health Education England—I am afraid that I do not have the relevant statistics for Scotland—proposed further increases in the number of nursing training places in 2016-17. So there is a lot of forecasting on this subject—the number arrived at is not just an arbitrary one—and there has been a full report.

At this juncture, I feel that I should consider the point about the regional salary thresholds, which hon. Members from Scotland discussed very eloquently. In its November 2011 report on the settlement threshold, the MAC could not see a clear case for differentiation on a regional basis. Its argument, and therefore the Government’s argument, as we have adopted it, was that having a single threshold provides clarity and simplicity for applicants and sponsors. The minimum salary requirements for occupations in tier 2 are for the most part set using annual surveys of hours and earnings. The data generated are very sophisticated and UK-wide, and therefore take account of salary levels throughout the regions.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Although I understand what the Minister is saying, does he not accept that this averaging does not take account of the needs of Scotland? Scotland needs an immigration policy that welcomes world-class talent from abroad, but in this case this ideological policy is doing more harm than good to our business sector.

[Richard Harrington]

I clearly disagree with the hon. Lady about that, and I have just said that the way the statistics are worked out includes all the regional variations, so the MAC is not just taking numbers that suit London and the south-east, as was the implication of many hon. Members’ contributions.

The Government clearly agree that those who have helped to fill vital skill shortages in the UK should be able to do so. The subject of skills and skill shortages was mentioned—particularly eloquently, if I may say so—by the shadow Minister. He said that upskilling was very important, because why would employers need to bring workers in from abroad if there are people here with the relevant skills? I think that we would all agree about that.

The Government have done a lot about skills. My previous Government role was as the Prime Minister’s apprenticeship adviser.

[Richard Harrington]

I disagree very much with the hon. Gentleman on that point; I do not think that the Government’s skills policy has been a failure at all. The number of apprentices is increasing significantly, and with the new apprenticeship levy, whereby larger companies have to pay a percentage of their payroll to fund training programmes, we will see a very significant upskilling of the workforce. I have seen many, many examples of this type of training going on in all parts of the country. Nevertheless, as usual the shadow Minister made a very considered point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam gave the curry industry as an example of an industry with skills shortages. Both he and I have been involved in our constituencies with the owners of curry restaurants; it is probably fair to say that my hon. Friend is more of an expert on the hotter variations of curry in those restaurants than I am. The curry industry has lobbied Government very extensively on the fact that it cannot bring in chefs from Bangladesh or other places in the Indian subcontinent, saying that it is a problem.

However, there is beginning to be a significant amount of training for such chefs, and so I think that we will see, as time goes on, exactly the point that we have been making today—namely, that the answer is making the industry, and people who want to be in it, put the resources, the effort, the money and the skills into training people to fulfil these roles. That is of benefit to everyone, particularly the industry itself. All of us realise the contribution of the curry industry to the country as a whole, and, from my personal experience I know that that is true from the north of Scotland down to the south-west of England.

[Kirsten Oswald]

My point is not about curry. Although the Minister says that he sees things improving, last year the skills shortage in Britain worsened for a fourth consecutive year—Britain was one of the most severely affected countries in Europe—so his arguments do not stack up. We still have people who should be able to work here being sent away.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

[Richard Harrington]

I agree that a lot of work needs to be done on the skills shortage. The Government set a target of, I think, 3 million new apprentices for this Parliament. The courses are good and the standards high. The effect of the apprenticeship levy will, in the end, come through and companies will start to employ people from here rather than having to get skilled people from abroad.

Just to finish on curry, the industry has had access to numerous transitional immigration routes in the past—the key worker scheme in the 1990s and the sector-based scheme in the early 2000s—but I argue that a flow of lower-skilled migrant labour militates against the industry taking action itself. I am sure that the curry industry, which is a bastion of small enterprise in the whole of the United Kingdom, will rise to the challenge, in a short period, of training its own staff. I think it has a rosy future.

In the end, the curry business is a good example. We want to nurture more home-grown talent and encourage young people in this country who want to pursue a skilled career, and that means the restaurant sector offering training to attract and recruit resident workers to meet its staffing needs.

I would like to make an additional point, if I may, Ms Vaz—