Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and James Brokenshire(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
Our recent reforms gave local authorities the tools to make it more difficult for developers to renegotiate contributions after planning consent. Where developers do not deliver on contributions, these can be enforced through legal proceedings. Finally, local authorities are required to consult on planning applications before consent is granted.
Andrea Leadsom
As part of a planning agreement, Persimmon is responsible for building a relief road for Towcester as part of that town’s expansion in my constituency. Highways England is providing £4 million to try to bring forward delivery of the road, but that now seems to be at risk due to problems between the developer and Highways England. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss how we can work together to ensure that the road gets built?
James Brokenshire
I would be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss the point she makes. We want to ensure that there is a tie-up on infrastructure; the £5.5 billion housing infrastructure fund is there precisely to support that activity. On section 106 agreements, the Housing Minister and I firmly believe that transparency —publication and making them available, so there is direct accountability—is really important. I will certainly meet my right hon. Friend.
Immigration
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and James Brokenshire(14 years, 1 month ago)
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James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend speaks with experience of the IT industry. He was involved in that industry before coming to this House, so he offers a fair degree of knowledge on this point. We are examining these issues extremely carefully in the context of the reforms and changes that will be made.
Employers have indicated to us that they are mainly concerned about the tier 2 route, rather than the tier 1 route. We know from recent research that looked at a sample of highly skilled migrants that nearly a third of tier 1 migrants did not find highly skilled work. An example of that is the individual who was issued with a tier 1 visa and later became duty manager at a well-known high street chain of fried chicken restaurants. Perhaps that highlights some of the challenges involved in this matter. We cannot afford a mismatch between what employers need and the profile of those coming to this country. We will therefore have to ensure that those coming to do skilled work are undertaking a suitable job with a sponsoring employer.
At present, the minimum skills level for a job is a national vocational qualification level 3, and the English language requirements are at a basic level. In the shortage occupation list, some wage levels are as low as £7.80 an hour. The question that we need to consider carefully is whether that is really the right level of skilled migrant, when we have many unemployed people in this country. We believe that many employers are currently using migrant workers to fill vacancies because they cannot get the right people from the domestic or European labour market. That inability to recruit local talent is frustrating when we have people out of work in this country. That is why the Government are using their welfare reform policy to get people back to work. British employers need to be committed to developing a skills base here, and we need them to look first at people who are out of work and who are already in this country.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
In the job clubs that I have been running for some time in my constituency, countless people have said to me that it simply does not pay for them to get a part-time job of the sort that my hon. Friend talks about.