Immigration System

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right: we need proper training and skills. A system in which the number of engineering visas could rise while the number of engineering apprenticeships fell does not make any sense to anyone, which is why we must ensure that we not only have the training and skills but link them with the shortages and with the immigration system as well.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The House is right to be sceptical about a policy on a toxic issue that has been announced after the Government have suffered a significant electoral defeat in which the main issue was immigration. Can the Home Secretary tell us how deliverable many elements of this policy are? What will happen to the hundreds of thousands who are currently in graduate-level employment? How will the gap between recruiting and training people and getting them into jobs be filled? Given that the courts will not even allow the deportation of people who have served long prison sentences, how does the Home Secretary expect them to comply with her wish to deport people who have served no prison sentence?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are implementing the policies and commitments made in our manifesto to restore control and order to the immigration system so that we can bring net migration down and ensure that the system is fair. As part of the changes that we are introducing as a result of the White Paper, we have identified up to 180 lower-skilled occupations that should not be recruiting from abroad and should not be part of the temporary shortage list either, so that we can reduce the lower-skilled migration that has increased so substantially over the last four years, support skills and training, and tackle those labour market challenges.