Immigration Update

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot resist a buy one, get one free offer, so I want to come back in on the health and social care workforce, as we have this opportunity, and pick up one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made around transparency and the impact of the Government’s policies on the workforce. It may be that this is one of those happy occasions where the Government can eat their cake and have it, by both reducing immigration and filling the gaps in the social care workforce, but it may also be that the two are in tension. It is really important and I hope the Minister will at least commit to transparency around that, because I do think the public are grown-up enough to have a conversation around this. They do not just need to hear from the Government that it is all fine on both counts if it is not. So I hope we will get the data that we need to understand and make a grown-up choice. If there is a trade-off between reducing immigration and filling the social care workforce, we should have a public discussion about that.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord; of course we should. We have to monitor those statistics to make sure that the sector has what it needs, but also that the system suits the domestic issues that we have been discussing as well.