Doors open to thousands more skilled migrants

Javid relaxes visa cap as ministers prepare to reel in global talent after Brexit

SAJID JAVID will tomorrow announce an immigration overhaul that will enable thousands more highly skilled migrants to come to the UK in the run-up to Brexit, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

Businesses and employers will be able to recruit an extra 8,000 skilled migrants a year from other professions, including IT experts, engineers and teachers, effectively increasing the cap by 40 per cent.

The Home Secretary is expected to announce that foreign doctors and nurses from outside the EU will be excluded from the “tier 2” visa cap to ensure the NHS can attract the “brightest and best” while giving business a higher allocation.

It will represent Mr Javid’s first major immigration policy and indicates that ministers are now prepared to project Britain as a more global country, open to business from beyond the EU after Brexit.

The announcement represents the most significant softening of the Government’s position on non-eu migration since Theresa May was appointed home secretary in 2010. The Prime Minister previously rejected pleas by Amber Rudd, her former home secretary, to relax the cap.

The Telegraph understands that Mrs May was persuaded to back a “timelimited” exemption for doctors and nurses after a series of Cabinet ministers wrote to her to voice their support for Mr Javid’s plan.

The concession will put Mrs May under mounting pressure from her Cabinet to abandon her target of reducing net migration to the “tens of thousands” and to strip students out of the official figures.

The Prime Minister has long insisted that the main purpose of Brexit is to bring migration under control and since her time as home secretary has resisted calls to soften her stance.

Leading Eurosceptics including Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, argue that the EU referendum was about “control” and deciding who should be allowed to enter the UK rather than slashing numbers outright.

Ministers have yet to agree, or begin detailed discussions on the post-brexit EU immigration plan, but there is growing speculation that it will not be particularly punitive.

George Osborne, the former chancellor who was regarded as close to Mr Javid when in government, claimed last year that every member of the Cabinet was opposed to the Prime Minister’s net migration target.

However, a government source stressed that the reform was part of the “long-term plan” for the NHS. It comes ahead of the health service’s 70th birthday next month.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Javid is understood to have warned that increased recruitment of doctors from outside the European Union has meant that the cap for all skilled workers – which is set at 20,700 people a year – has been breached in every month since December.

It is understood that in the communication, the Home Secretary stressed that the new policy did not change his “position on net migration”. He said that the ultimate aim of government policy must be to train more British doctors, but that there was a short- term crisis in recruitment which was having knock-on effects to other parts of the economy. The Telegraph understands that Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, and Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, have all written back to the Prime Minister giving their support to the idea. Mr Hinds is understood to have warned Mrs May that 300 applications by foreign teachers have been rejected, and suggested that they may need to be exempted from the cap in future if it is breached again. He is also pushing for

non-eu teachers of modern languages to be added to the “shortage occupation” list of professions that qualify for tier 2 visas. The review of the list, the first since 2013, will be conducted by the Migration Advisory Council.

The move represents a significant moment for Mr Javid, who has taken a far softer approach to migration than Mrs May. Earlier this month he repeatedly refused to endorse Mrs May’s target of reducing levels of net migration to the “tens of thousands”.

He also echoed Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, in suggesting that students should be removed from the net migration target.

Lord Green of Deddington, the chairman of Migration Watch, said: “This is the first time that immigration policy has been significantly softened since Mrs May became home secretary since 2010.”

The Prime Minister yesterday hailed a new visa that will enable Britain to attract the “best talent” from across the world to work in the UK’S burgeoning technology sector.

During talks at No 10 with industry leaders, Mrs May said rules were being changed to allow more tech entrepreneurs to head to the UK.

She said: “In London Tech Week, Britain as a place to do tech business is being enthusiastically championed.”

 The chief inspector of borders accused the Home Office of burying “bad news” and warnings about Britain’s security by delaying his reports.

David Bolt said the department has been publishing lots of reports on the same day to reduce the chance of journalists reading his warnings, which include claims that there are not enough immigration staff to handle Brexit.