Permits ‘will cut immigration’

BREXIT should be used as an opportunity to stop low-skilled foreign workers coming to do jobs that British people could do, former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith has said.

He called on Theresa May to back a work permit system in which migrants would only be admitted if no one already here could do the work.

The pro-Brexit former Work and Pensions Secretary spoke as the Prime Minister plans detailed talks with Cabinet colleagues on Wednesday at their first meeting since the summer break.

Many Leave campaigners back an Australian-style points system to control the number and qualifications of future immigrants.

Mr Duncan Smith backs a work permit he says could be used to admit people only when no Britons could do the job.

At the Department for Work and Pensions he set up the Universal Jobmatch system, an online recruitment service, which identified the skill levels of unemployed people in different areas.

He believed that could be used to set quotas for the number of people let into the UK, based on the country’s need for their skills. He said: “The best way to do it [control numbers] is through a work permit process and ensuring those that come do so after it’s clear there are no British people around that can do that job at that skill level. You focus more at the lower skilled area.

“The question should always be asked, are there people in the UK who can do this job? You start with the premise that you want to employ people here so you need to advertise the job here.”

He added EU migration “skews everything government does” and voiced his support for the Prime Minister’s policy of cutting net migration to tens of thousands.