Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Smith Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

One of the crucial things that we are doing, as we indicated earlier, is cutting the administrative tasks that need to be done by cutting the extreme levels of bureaucracy that were introduced to policing by the Labour Government.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

T3. Can my right hon. Friend reassure us that the new immigration cap will reflect the need for businesses to recruit international, highly skilled migrants and to transfer international employees internally? Will she make that process as easy and unbureaucratic as possible?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the important issue of the impact of immigration on businesses. As we consider how to introduce the immigration cap, we will take on board comments made by business and its requirements in relation to the operation of the system. However, one thing that we have found recently is that nearly one third of those who arrived via the tier 1 route—the brightest and the best highly skilled migrants—did not take on highly skilled jobs. That is something to which we should pay attention.