UK Govt to unveil new migrant visa rules in Jan 2025: Strengthens Migration Advisory Committee

LONDON Dec 18: The UK government’s plans to reduce migration and introduce new rules for foreign worker visas will be unveiled in the new year, as confirmed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Tuesday. This workforce strategy for Britain aims to address the country’s reliance on foreign labor in certain industries, outlining a roadmap for a more self-sufficient domestic workforce.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Home Affairs Committee: “Our plan is to publish a white paper in the new year that will set out how we bring migration down, and will set out in much more detail about how we want the new system to work…how you just have a much more coherent approach to the labour market, how you link the work of Migration Advisory Committee with those other organisations as well.

“So that does need to then link into other organisations through from universities, training bodies and so on, and also recognise particular sectors, social care, for example, we need a proper workforce strategy for social care.

Yvette Cooper said the plan would lay out a workforce strategy for Britain and how some industries can be less reliant on foreign labour.

She accused the previous Conservative government of effectively setting up a “free market approach to the labour market and to migration”, which allowed employers “to be able to just recruit from wherever they wanted”.

“What you got was employers recruiting from overseas, when actually what we should have had was much more of a workforce strategy here in the UK,” Ms Cooper said.

Data suggests that immigration has begun to drop after hitting record levels. The last Government introduced new visa rules, which banned many people coming to work or study here from bringing family with them and requiring higher wages.

Ms Cooper added: “Alongside the visa controls, what we want is to also see much stronger links to look at where you need skills training or other workforce policies in the UK.

“One of the things that we’ve done is to ask the Migration Advisory Committee to look particularly at IT and engineering, because those are sectors where we know there’s been high levels of recruitment from abroad, and actually look in much more detail at why have there been such high levels of recruitment from overseas, and what more could be done swiftly to actually address some of those issues.”

Government strengthens Migration Advisory Committee

The government has also strengthened the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a key component of the new joined-up approach to reduce net migration.

In changes confirmed by the MAC on 17th December, from January 2025, Professor Brian Bell will take on his role as Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee on a full-time basis, from his current two days a week, until the end of his term in 2026. Dr Madeleine Sumption will take on a new role as Deputy Chair for an initial 12 months, with her time working for the MAC increased to an average 1.5 days a week, up from her current two days per month.

Additional staff will also be deployed to the MAC, to work more strategically to forecast future trends, and continue to review and provide independent, evidence based recommendations on key areas of the immigration system.

Figures published by the ONS last month revealed net migration is four times higher than it was five years ago, driven by record levels of overseas recruitment. Delivering on the Plan for Change, the government has committed to restore order to the immigration system by linking our immigration, skills and visa systems to support the UK’s domestic workforce, end reliance on overseas labour and boost economic growth.

The committee will also work closely, as part of the ‘quad’, with the newly formed Skills England, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Industrial Strategy Council to develop an evidence based approach to reduce international recruitment and ensure businesses are recruiting primarily from the homegrown workforce.

The strengthening of the MAC was confirmed in the organisation’s annual report, which will now be considered in detail. As the Prime Minister has announced, the government will also introduce an Immigration white paper in 2025 setting out further details of the government’s plan to reduce legal migration.

Seema Malhotra, Minister for Migration and Citizenship, said: “Net migration quadrupled in the past five years and we have been clear that we will get the numbers down and restore order to our broken immigration system as part of our Plan for Change.

The independent Migration Advisory Committee will play a central role in this – providing impartial analysis to underpin our joined-up approach to link skills, migration and labour market policy and end ensuring immigration is no longer used as an alternative to homegrown talent.

It is vital that the MAC is equipped with the resources it needs to perform this important role, and I would like to welcome Professor Bell and Dr Sumption to their enhanced roles as the committee continues its important work.

Professor Brian Bell, Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, said: “I am delighted to take on my role full-time. As the government seeks to link skills and migration policy more closely, the committee will use our expanded capacity to continue providing timely, evidence-based recommendations on migration.

We also look forward to collaborating with partners in our new remit as part of the government’s quad framework. I am also pleased to welcome Madeleine to her new role as Deputy Chair. Her extensive experience and expertise remains invaluable to the committee.

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is an independent, non-statutory, non-time limited, non-departmental public body that advises the government on migration issues.

Professor Bell is a world leading economist and has been a Professor of Economics at Kings College London since 2017. He was appointed chair of the MAC in 2020, following a period as Interim Chair and has been a member since 2018.

Dr Sumption is the Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which provides impartial analysis of migration in the UK. From 2017 to 2022, she was Chair of the Migration Statistics User Forum, which brings together producers and users of migration data.

The strengthening of the MAC comes after the Home Secretary commissioned a review of shortages of homegrown workers in key sectors, particularly IT and engineering. As part of this, the MAC will also routinely monitor and proactively highlight key sectors where skills shortages have led to surges in recruitment from overseas and provide yearly assessments to government.

Net migration ‘could be down to around 300,000 in next few years’: Professor Brian Bell

Professor Brian Bell, chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), has said that he thinks numbers will “come down quite rapidly”, and could settle at the few hundred thousand mark as an average for “the next 10-20 years”.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Prof Bell said the trend on migration figures is now “very clearly downwards” and he expects the trend to “continue and probably accelerate in the next year or two”.

He said that the body is seeing “very continuous, dramatic declines” in Home Office visa issuance numbers

He added: “It’s what we expected, and therefore I think we’ll see those numbers come down quite rapidly. And it’s always dangerous to predict that, because as soon as you say that, the numbers will get revised up again.

“But I think … we can be confident that we’re going to get down to the sort of levels that we think will be the long run – without any further policy changes – of about 300,000.

“I think we can get there in the next two to three years probably.”

Pressed further on how long he thinks the figures could settle in that sort of range for, Prof Bell added: “We think of 300,000 as being if you didn’t change policy any more, that’s probably where we’ll settle.

“And you should think of that as being the average for the next 10 to 20 years, in the same way that in the last 10 to 20 years, it’s averaged about 200,000-250,000 so a little bit higher than previously.”

He pointed to “geopolitical” factors as things which could influence whether those numbers come to fruition, referring to humanitarian crises and restrictions on student visas in other nations as factors which could see numbers to the UK move up or down.

“There are all those geopolitical kind of things that affect those flows in and out,” he said.

He added: “Year by year numbers of net migration are probably not a very good guide to how policy should think.

“It’s much better for policy to think about the long-run average and then ask the question, are you happy with that long-run average, and if you’re not change policy to either raise it or lower it.”

The proposed changes come amid ongoing debates about the impact of immigration on the UK’s economy and society. With the government seeking to strike a balance between attracting global talent and addressing public concerns over immigration levels, the upcoming plan is expected to provide a comprehensive approach to managing migration in the future.

As the details of the proposal are yet to be released, it remains unclear how these new measures will affect businesses and potential migrants. However, the government’s commitment to publishing the plan in the new year indicates that changes to the current immigration system may be imminent.