Let more foreign workers into UK, says Brexit-backing boss of Next

Three years of evidence shows that restrictions in our immigration system are holding the UK back

THE Government must let more foreign workers into the UK to help ease chronic labour shortages, the boss of Next has said.

Lord Wolfson, a vocal supporter of Brexit, said Britain’s immigration policy is holding back economic growth and the country should open up its borders to more workers.

But he said firms should pay a tax to hire foreign staff to encourage them to recruit from the UK first. The Conservative peer said: “We have got people queuing up to come to this country to pick crops that are rotting in fields, to work in warehouses that otherwise wouldn’t be operable, and we’re not letting them in. And we have to take a different approach to economically productive migration.”

In the interview with the BBC, Lord Wolfson added: “I think in respect of immigration, it’s definitely not the Brexit that I wanted, or indeed, many of the people who voted Brexit, but more importantly, the vast majority of the country. Yes, control it, where it’s dam- aging to society, but let people in who can who can contribute.”

Lord Wolfson said the Government could consider introducing a tax of 10pc on firms to employ foreign workers, which would encourage them to look at recruiting from the UK first.

He said: “It would automatically mean that businesses never bought someone into the company from outside if they could find someone in the UK. But if they genuinely can’t, they’ll pay the premium.” A raft of sectors have been hit by an acute shortage of employees, such as hospitality, logistics and healthcare. Lord Wolfson said the Government must decide if it wants the country post-brexit to be “fortress Britain”, preventing much-needed foreign workers into the country and damaging economic growth as a result.

He added: “We have to remember that what post-brexit Britain looks like, is not the preserve of those people that voted Brexit, it’s for all of us to decide.”

The Government insisted it had delivered on its promise to “take back control of our immigration system”.

A government spokesman added: “Unemployment is at record lows and it’s vital we continue to bring in excellent key workers the UK needs, including thousands of NHS doctors and nurses through the Health and Care [Worker] Visa and the Seasonal Worker scheme which brings in the workforce our farmers and growers need.”

Lord Wolfson said next year would be tough for businesses and consumers, but there were signs the squeeze was peaking and the economy could bounce back strongly in 2024. He said: “Next year will be tough but there is no need for a national nervous breakdown.”

At the start of 2020, when the Government was redrafting immigration rules in anticipation of Britain’s formal exit from the European Union, there was a plea from business leaders to keep a path open for “low-skilled” migrants. It was firmly rejected.

The message was clear from Priti Patel, the then home secretary: quit your addiction to cheap labour and “do more” for British workers. Hire them, pay them, invest in them – stop looking abroad.

Patel’s comments were politically brilliant because they were, in isolation, convincing. A decade of low wages and stagnant growth produced underpaid and undervalued native workers. But the comments were also deeply disingenuous, pretending that the problem was an influx of migrants (there is plenty of evidence globally that migrants tend not to detract from – and can often boost – native wages for low-skilled workers). The problem was rather myriad factors – including a financial crash, recession and a series of state failures and lack of investment – that had kept British workers down.

This week Lord Wolfson, head of the fashion chain Next, has reignited the debate around economic migration, calling on the Government to allow more migrants into Britain to help fill the huge gaps in the labour market. It echoes the arguments made in 2020, and no doubt we’ll hear echoes of Patel’s comments, possibly from the new Home Secretary – who “dreams” of deportations – as well as from others who are motivated to keep low-skilled migrants at bay.

But what we have now – which we didn’t then – is almost three years of evidence of what happens when you design an immigration system with no pathway for low-skilled migrants to come to Britain. And the evidence suggests Wolfson is right: the restrictions in our system are not just withholding opportunities from migrants – they are also making UK residents and native Britons poorer.

Government so often thinks it can do so more than it can, especially when it comes to directing the economy. That’s why so many of its schemes over the years to upskill workers or increase apprenticeships have failed spectacularly.

On immigration, the points-based system (which is touted as new since Brexit, but, in reality, has been used in the UK for years) assumes that the state knows better than business what jobs are needed in the economy. It allows for fast-track visas for hundreds of jobs on the shortage occupations list – an acknowledgement from authorities that this kind of migration is needed to keep the economy afloat.

And yet the UK is still experiencing near-record high job vacancies – over 1.2m jobs, many of which would have traditionally been taken up by foreign workers – that employers are now struggling to fill. They’re trying hard.

Salaries in hospitality rose over the 12 months to February this year by up to 12pc, double the UK average. Bar attendants’ wages were estimated to be up by 8 per cent – 2 percentage points higher than average salary rises across jobs sectors in Britain.

Still these jobs aren’t getting filled. Part of the problem is that up to one million migrants are estimated to have left the UK during the pandemic with many unable to return under the new rules. It’s a mass-emigration event the new policies didn’t plan for, and more evidence that governments simply cannot predict such trends. And in their absence British workers are not taking up these roles, for reasons that go far past salary complaints.

Britain lost £60m worth of fresh produce this summer that rotted in the fields because of the lack of workers to harvest the crops. Enticement simply did not work. Farmers were reported to be offering up to 60pc more an hour for people to pick, pack, and transport their crops – between £20 to £30 an hour depending on the day – and yet still jobs couldn’t be filled.

There is a lot of talk about the huge number of working-age Britons on outof-work benefits, thought to be at home for a range of reasons, including poor access to the NHS and worsening health conditions. Immigration must not be used as a tool to gloss over such people who deserve our attention and help to get back into work.

But the truth is that even if this group returns to the workforce, these jobs – despite the growing incentives – remain unappealing to lots of native workers. Meanwhile, there are people abroad knocking down the door to clinch such opportunities and make the most of them.

Letting them do so is becoming ever more vital to the UK’S growth prospects. Talking about “economic growth” during the immigration debate two years ago did little to move the dial and was branded as jargon. This is another radical change from early 2020: everyone now knows this is not the case.

The pandemic – and attempts at recovery – have made stark what these numbers on a spreadsheet mean: that GDP is a figure that deeply impacts their lives, representing jobs, wage rises, opportunities, and changes for a richer, more prosperous life.

At a time when tax rises and spending cuts are on the horizon, we all understand how vital these contributions are. That the average eastern European migrant contributes £1,000 more each year (in net terms) to the Treasury’s coffers than the average Uk-born adult shows how valuable these workers are to getting Britain back on track.

In his party conference speech last year, the then prime minister Boris Johnson suggested that his crackdown on immigration was paving the way to a “high wage” economy. It was discovered quickly how wrong he was. The trends he was pointing to were not signs of soaring wages thanks to absent workers, but rather signs of inflation: an economic phenomenon that makes us all poorer.

It would be a grave mistake to pretend now, as the economic situation worsens, that the solution is to pit native workers and low-skilled foreign workers against each other again. To get out of the inflation-driven economic mess we’re in, we are going to need both of them.