Ministers set to announce plans to reduce Britain’s reliance on foreign workers
PLANS to reduce Britain’s reliance on foreign workers will be announced by ministers today.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wants to train more of our own citizens to fill jobs that are heavily dependent on overseas staff.
She is expected to identify the IT and engineering sectors badly in need of more home-grown talent.
Annual net migration last year hit a monster 685,000, with Sir Keir Starmer promising in the election to wrestle it down.
The figure is projected to fall to around 300,000 after a series of visa curbs imposed by the last Tory government, including a ban on care workers bringing family.
In a statement to MPs today, Ms Cooper will seek to build on that by tasking a “tripartite” of quangos – the Migration Advisory Committee, Skills England, and the Industrial Strategy Council – to find ways of training more Brits in sectors in need of staff.
This could involve recommending changes to the school curriculum or direct interventions by various government departments.
Meanwhile illegal migration continues to dog ministers with 255 people crossing in four small boats on Sunday.
It takes the total since January to 16,457, tracking slightly above the previous 2022 record for this period of 16,420.