On Monday, May 19th, the Government introduced the Restoring Control over the Immigration System white paper, the latest piece of legislation designed to meet Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitment to reduce net migration. This is an area in need of policy intervention and the political timing following the local elections is welcome. This blog aims to address and cut through the noise and outline the white paper’s measures.
Net migration has soared since the 2019 General Election, rising from 224 000 in the year ending June 2019 to 906 000 in the year ending June 2023. The driving force behind this is Brexit. Since Brexit the Conservative government considerably liberalised regular (e.g. non-asylum) migration policies – a shift that largely flew under the radar due to that government’s rhetoric on migration general and asylum and illegal migration specifically, such as the Rwanda scheme, cancelled on day one by Keir Starmer. Whilst figures for 2024 show a significant decrease in net migration, the numbers remain roughly double pre-Brexit.
Changes such as reducing the skills threshold for migration from degree level down to A-Level equivalent (Regulated Qualifications Framework or RQF Level 6 to 3) have resulted in significant increases of non-EU nationals and their dependents moving to the UK for what is classified as low-skilled work (including care) and higher education.
The reforms put forward in the white paper therefore aim to reduce the numbers of net migration. The key measures are as follows:
These measures, along with several others, aim to reduce levels of net migration whilst recognising the greater contribution that skilled migrants make to the UK economy. However, as a political football, the white paper has generated a discourse of its own with limited reference to the actual details.
As ever with a terminally online commentariat, reactions to the white paper quickly devolved into ill-informed hot takes. None are more exemplary than the attention devoted to a phrase used by the Prime Minister, “island of strangers”, or to place it in the appropriate context:
“Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.”
The phrase has been criticised for similarities with Enoch Powell, who asserted in his racist Rivers of Blood speech that so-called native Brits had “found themselves made strangers in their own country”. Those who sincerely make this argument (as opposed to engagement farming) commit the same error that some on the far right make when they falsely claim that the Nazis were left wing because the word socialist appears in their name.
The source of both errors is an obtuse or unconscious overlooking of pragmatics – one of the three components of language alongside syntax and semantics. Pragmatics refers to the study of language in use and how context interacts with meaning. It is not splitting hairs to recognise that the underlying sentiments behind Starmer’s and Powell’s statements could not be further apart. Starmer’s concern is a social democratic one with the ties that bind our communities. Where Powell seeks to divide, Starmer alludes to a communitarian vision of Britain that works together – a precondition of which is strong social bonds between all regardless of background. Britain is therefore for all of us.
This discourse is an unhelpful distraction from the actual details and policy implications of the white paper. Some of the distraction is undoubtedly the fault of the white paper, which understandably takes great lengths to point out that the government is also simultaneously acting on irregular migration. Nonetheless this risks conflating the two, and further between migration and integration.
A sector that is particularly dependent on foreign workers is social care. Social care is one of the most emotionally demanding industries requiring great resilience in poor conditions for relatively low pay. Yet, because RQF is based on higher academic education the industry has been a beneficiary of the post-Brexit liberalisation.
The care sector was in a workforce crisis in the 2010s, today this has abated, as a 2024 Skills for Care Report says, “mainly due to the record level of international recruitment in 2023/24”, before adding “the sector is still struggling with domestic recruitment and retention.”
As the report highlights “Over the two years since March 2022, 185,000 international recruits joined and the number of British workers fell by 70,000.” Pulling the migration lever was a political choice by the Conservatives to solve a policy problem they had. It is in part what the white paper is trying to change. The policy problem – how to fund and run a sustainable social care system in the context of an ageing population – remains and may in fact intensify.
The most interesting undercurrent of the white paper is tension between the Treasury and Home Office. The political need to reduce migration appears to have tipped the balance in favour of the Home Office this round.
It’s easy to miss because the paper makes an economic case. It argues, in a shift from previous thinking, that higher levels of immigration failed to turn around Britain’s stagnant economy under the Conservatives.
This is undoubtedly true, but fails to consider the counterfactual, overlooking the possibility that without the contributions of migrants keeping the economy treading water, growth would have been even more anaemic, possibly covering up a recession.
But of most concern for Rachel Reeves is what the papers implementation would mean for the government looking forward to the next budget. Because the OBR forecasts that determine the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom will have migration projections baked in before the white paper will take effect, there is a risk that what is already expected to be a tight situation amidst Trump’s tariff induced uncertainty will suddenly be revised even closer to the wire. This in turn would force further tough decisions onto the Chancellor without movement on the ironclad fiscal rules, or the OBR operating in its current format.
It should finally be noted that the white paper will be subject to consultations, and there will likely be tweaks before it is presented to Parliament. For a public that expects Labour to deliver amidst the looming spectre of Reform however, the Government must get this right and it is vital that interventions from those supportive of the Plan for Change put it in the best possible stead to succeed.
If you are interested in other factors affecting the chancellor’s fiscal headroom, check out What We Really Mean When We Speak About Fiscal Rules
