Javid threat to tear up PM’s migration policy

...as May is set to relax tough visa rules for foreign doctors

THERESA May is preparing to relax tough visa restrictions on foreign doctors in the face of a Cabinet revolt led by Sajid Javid.

The new Home Secretary yesterday went public with his concerns about restrictions on skilled workers that are blamed for fuelling a shortage of doctors in the NHS.

In his first major TV interview since his appointment in April, Mr Javid also made it clear he was prepared to speak out on wider immigration policy, which has been the preserve of Mrs May since 2010.

He revealed he has already torn up part of the Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ policy blamed by critics for the Windrush scandal – and refused to endorse her longstanding policy of reducing net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’.

In a direct challenge to Mrs May, he even suggested he would support the removal of foreign students from the immigration figures. On foreign doctors, Mr Javid said it was a fact that there were ‘a number of doctors that are qualified, that our NHS needs, that are being turned away’.

The problem has been blamed on visa restrictions for skilled workers that were introduced by Mrs May in 2011.

The Home Secretary said: ‘I see the problem with that and it is something that I’m taking a fresh look at. I know a number of my colleagues certainly want me to take a look at this and that is exactly what I’m doing.’

Last night, Whitehall sources suggested that Mrs May was now willing to allow a ‘very controlled’ change in the rules to prevent foreign doctors with job offers being turned away.

A source said it was an area where the PM accepted ‘change might be needed’ – and suggested a relaxation of the rules could be approved in the coming weeks.

The move could help quell a backbench – and Cabinet – revolt on the issue.

Dozens of Tory MPs are said to have signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a rethink of the rules, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark are all said to have raised concerns about the issue.

Campaigners say the annual quota of 20,700 Tier 2 visas available for skilled workers from outside the EU is preventing the NHS and some businesses recruiting the staff they need.

The British Medical Journal, which is campaigning on the issue, says more than 1,500 foreign doctors were refused a visa between December and March despite having job offers from the NHS. Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairman of the Commons health committee, said applying the visa cap to doctors ‘makes no sense at all’.

Mr Hunt announced plans to open five medical schools this year as part of a drive to make the UK ‘self- sufficient in doctors’ by 2025. But he is pushing for a temporary easing of restrictions in the short term.

Mrs May, who was home secretary from 2010 to 2016, has continued to keep a tight grip of immigration policy since moving to Downing Street.

But Mr Javid yesterday made clear he was willing to challenge her on issues where he believes the policy is not working. During an appearance on the BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, he ducked three invitations to endorse the Government’s flagship target of reducing net migration to below 100,000 a year, although he acknowledged it was a Tory manifesto commitment and would stay.

Mr Javid also indicated that he favoured removing students from the target. Mrs May has fiercely resisted the move for years, despite Cabinet pressure, believing the public would view it as fiddling the figures.

But Mr Javid yesterday agreed there was a ‘perception problem’

‘Makes no sense at all’

with targeting the tens of thousands of foreign students coming to Britain, who he said were ‘great for our universities’.

Asked if the policy came across as being ‘not very welcoming’, he replied: ‘I empathise with that point, and it is something I’ve long considered.’

The Home Secretary also revealed that he had already dismantled part of the so-called ‘hostile environment’ policy towards illegal immigrants, which was blamed for some of the problems suffered by members of the Windrush generation of immigrants and their children.

He said he had suspended rules banning illegal immigrants from opening bank accounts because ‘I am not sure the data that we have is accurate enough’.

Mr Javid repeated his opposition to the phrase ‘hostile environment’, which he described as a ‘negative term, a non-British term’.

He said he would be looking ‘very carefully’ at other elements of the regime, but added: ‘I do want to absolutely maintain a distinction and say we will absolutely welcome those people that are here legally, there’s no question of that, but if you’re here illegally we will clamp down on you and we will not tolerate it.’

plans to end the ‘hostile environment’ strategy for dealing with illegal immigrants, take foreign students out of the figures altogether, scrap the quota for skilled workers and renounce the target of reducing overall migration to the ‘tens of thousands’. But in his desire to present a more human face at the Home Office, he mustn’t forget that net migration is still above 240,000 a year. His job is to reduce that figure, not increase it.