Immigration Skills Charge (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We have been friends for a very long time and I have always admired his energy and enthusiasm for his chosen causes, sport, of course, being the top one. I am not such an adherent of sport. I believe it is a cause for good and that it is important, but it is no more important than so many other things. I cannot quite understand why such an exemption should be made in favour of sport, when so many other needs are much greater, as far as immigration is concerned.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, spoke about the particular need for carers. When one reads the list of people who will not be able to bring their skills to this country under the Immigration Rules, it is an extraordinary list. Carers are particularly singled out as ineligible to come in, yet carers are absolutely in demand and there is no evidence that our nationals are interested in training to take up that role. Even though the Minister explained that the purpose of these regulations is actually to raise money for training, she made clear that it does not directly find itself being put to use in that way. Where are we going to get the care assistants we need? One might also ask where we are going to get the pest control technicians that we will absolutely need and where we will find the lift technicians—these are not predominantly British at the moment, and I do not think sufficient numbers are being trained by companies to take up that role. I, for one, will be very wary of getting into a lift in the new year.

I think we are rushing into this, and making an exemption for sport seems to lack a little logic. We need to train up sportspeople in the country, most certainly, but do we not have the skills to do that here? We have winning teams and top-class players. Surely, if we are going to concentrate on breeding winners, that is what we need to do: make the most of what we have locally? If that argument applies to training care assistants, then, surely, it applies to sport?