Labour’s Immigration Policy

With the Labour party having achieved a majority in the 2024 General Election, Imelda Reddington provides a reminder of their plans for immigration policy.

Labour have pledged to reduce the UK’s reliance on overseas workers, address home-grown skills shortages and ensure that workers are rewarded with decent wages and working conditions.

They have said that they support a points-based immigration system, provided it works for both workers and businesses. As part of the reforms to the current system, Labour have said they will:

1. Introduce training plans and requirements for key occupations (these have not been described).
2. Look to establish fair pay agreements for adult social care workers.
3. Reform the apprenticeship levy to support upskilling the national workforce and focus on developing skills in key shortage areas including construction, IT and engineering.
4. Limit access to the immigration system for rogue employers and implement stronger visa penalties for those employers who flout labour and minimum wage laws.
5. Reform the Migration Advisory Committee to link it to the relevant skills bodies.

Labour also intend to abolish the Conservatives’ Rwanda policy, and instead invest the estimated ￡2m spend on a new Border Security Command to crackdown on the criminals responsible for people smuggling. They have also said that they will hire additional caseworkers to clear the backlogs in the UK’s asylum system and end the use of asylum hotels.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether these proposals will be implemented by the Labour government, as well as which areas takes priority. We will keep you updated.? Please get in touch at [email protected], if you have any questions.

Our Immigration team can assist with compliance for sponsorship and right to work. We offer mock audits which will help to identify any weaknesses in your HR processes or systems.? Additionally, we offer bespoke training on right to work checks and sponsorship management system for Level 1 users. If we can be of assistance please contact Head of Immigration, Imelda Reddington, at: [email protected]

We will closely monitor immigration law changes throughout 2024 and will publish information monthly in this newsletter. If you want to keep up to date with the latest developments in more details please sign up?to our FSP mailing list to receive our bi-monthly newsletter.

We’re also excited to announce the release of our brand-new series of pre-recorded webinars, covering a variety of immigration topics. These webinars are intended to provide helpful and practice guidance on relevant areas of immigration, in an easily-digestible format. The first webinar, An Introduction to Sponsorship, is available to watch here. We are hoping to release a new episode each month.