Skills and Labour Shortages

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Toby Perkins

Thursday 12th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I plan to touch on that. However, migration is not enough; it does not fill the range of gaps, including skill gaps, and needs in our economy. I will say something about that in just a moment.

Between Brexit and the start of the pandemic, the number of national insurance numbers issued to people from the EU fell by 24%. That impacted our NHS, and the number of specialist doctors in the UK from the EU or the European free trade area; it was more than 4,000 lower than if pre-Brexit trends had continued. Just to be clear, the shortfall is not being made up by non-EU workers. The situation is particularly acute in rural areas, prompting the Migration Advisory Committee to warn of the risks of rural depopulation, which is pretty serious.

The Minister will wish to argue that this serious situation could be addressed by investing in skills and education, to which I would say this: first, that would require real investment that is not forthcoming at the levels that we would all wish to see; and secondly, that strategy would not help the situation right now. It would perhaps help us to plug some gaps in the longer term, but our economy—our public and private sectors—need help right now. The situation is particularly worrying for Scotland, given that ours is the only country in the UK in which the population is projected to fall in the next decade.

What can the Government do about this situation? Well, they could make it easier for businesses to recruit from abroad as and when they need to, for all skill levels. Employers are concerned about how onerous, time-consuming and bureaucratic it is to recruit staff from abroad, and it should not be. Employers make every effort to recruit locally, but when that does not result in their gaining the staff and skills that they need, it should be much easier and smoother to tap into the labour markets of our European neighbours. That would make perfect sense for our employers, our economic prosperity, and those who are recruited. The Government’s own MPs are coming to realise how urgent the situation is. That was evident when the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) echoed the Scottish Government’s calls for the Home Office to provide long-term stability for migrant workers with a 24-month visa.

It pains me to say it, but the UK Government are prisoners of their own rhetoric; they have somewhat boxed themselves in over visas and immigration, despite the demands of our economy. The Chancellor told us in his autumn statement last November that the Prime Minister would ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to

“do a thorough review of issues holding back workforce participation, to conclude early in the new year.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 848.]

Some people’s hopes were raised that those words might signal change, driven by common sense, but as we have heard nothing since about a review, I fear that those hopes were misplaced. Perhaps when the Minister responds to the debate, he can update us on that review.

The temporary exception to the skilled worker criteria under the Government’s points-based immigration system for care workers, and the introduction of a bespoke visa for seasonal agricultural workers, are absolutely fine moves, as far as they go. However, they are clearly inadequate to address the scale of the workforce challenges faced by the sectors to which they are directed. They also take no account of the range of needs in other sectors. Similarly, the kickstart scheme, well-intentioned though it is, is simply inadequate to address these challenges.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on her speech. She is absolutely right about the impact that Brexit has had. That impact has perhaps been escalated and exacerbated by covid; a lot of migrant workers went home as soon as the pandemic began. Obviously, it is more difficult than before for others to come in, which has escalated the situation. I want to clarify what she is asking for by way of response. Am I right in saying that it is a 24-month visa, and an escalation of the schemes that she mentioned, within the confines of not returning to freedom of movement? Or is she saying that we should have a return to complete freedom of movement, and that anyone from the EU who wants to come and work here should be able to?

[Patricia Gibson]

I have absolutely no problem with freedom of movement—we have suffered enormously as a result of no longer having it—but I appreciate that the Government will not move in that direction, so I am asking them to allow our public and private sectors to recruit from Europe as and when they need to in order to fill their skills gaps and jobs gaps. That is very difficult. The skilled workers criteria are too narrow and do not fill the gaps, even for the sectors that they are intended to help. They are not enough and do not take into account the strains and shortages in areas of the economy that they are not directed at. I believe that the Minister and the Government understand all the difficulties that I and others have mentioned, but feel trapped by their rhetoric. I hope they will get over that and take a common-sense approach, for the sake of our economic prosperity.

The Government commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to review the shortage occupation list, but I understand that the review has been paused pending clarification of the Government’s priorities surrounding the skilled workers route. When the Minister gets to his feet, perhaps he will give us more detail of how the review is going, when it will be unpaused, and when we might see some benefit from it.

In the absence of any attempt to address the very serious situation in the way that I and many people across this House would like, and that would have the necessary impact on the challenges, I urge the Minister at the very least to play his part in persuading his Government to allow a Scottish visa to be established, so that those who wish to live in Scotland and contribute to its workforce may do so. By way of precedent, similar successful schemes have been established in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland on a regional basis. Scotland should not suffer from a one-size-fits-all UK approach; its demographic, geographical and labour needs are entirely different.

It makes sense to allow asylum seekers who come to the UK to enter our workforce. They are stuck in hotels or Home Office accommodation at huge cost to the taxpayer, but many of them have valuable skills that we need, and they are desperate to enter our workforce, while we suffer skills and labour shortages. That defies all common sense.