'No relaxation of visa system' says PM
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is holding firm in the face of growing calls for a relaxation of the UK's post-Brexit visa system, saying there will be no return to what he calls "uncontrolled immigration".
"That is because we have a low-wage, low-cost approach where business does not invest in skills, does not invest in capital or facilities."In an earlier interview with the BBC at the start of this week's Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Mr Johnson said: “The way forward for our country is not to just pull the big lever marked uncontrolled immigration, and allow in huge numbers of people to do work. So what I won’t do is go back to the old failed model of low wages, low skills supported by uncontrolled immigration.“When people voted for change in 2016 (in the Brexit referendum) and again in 2019 (at the general election), they voted for the end of a broken model of the UK economy that relied on low wages and low skill and chronic low productivity, and we are moving away from that.”However, Lord Karan Bilimoria, president of the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI), told City AM that there should be an increase in short-term visas and that the government should establish a committee to set immigration targets to fill skills shortages.Lord Bilimoria, founder of the Cobra beer empire, said the government must issue as many visas “as the economy needs”.“The way that you have an independent commission or monetary policy committee that meets every month there should perhaps be...a body that looks at the labour needs of the economy and says you need so many more thousand in this sector or that sector for a year,” he said.“Something like that could be there on an ongoing basis. It’s not just Brexit - this is the needs of the economy at any one time and shortages can be caused by all sorts of outside economic factors.”
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