Jake Richards, Labour MP for Rother Valley, said it was “rare for Labour MPs to praise the previous Conservative administration”.
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A Labour MP has said the government should revive former prime minister Theresa May’s immigration skills charge policy, describing it as a good idea, badly implemented.
Jake Richards, Labour MP for Rother Valley, wrote for The House that while it was “rare for Labour MPs to praise the previous Conservative administration”, he believed “for too long, government hasn’t been upfront with the public about the costs of high immigration”.
“The introduction of the immigration skills charge by the Theresa May government was an admirable attempt to link immigration and skills policy,” Richards wrote.
“While implementation of this policy has been a disaster, Labour can make it right.”
The MP’s remarks come ahead of the government publishing the immigration white paper, which will set out Home Office plans to reduce overall net migration levels.
The immigration skills charge was introduced by the May Tory administration in 2017. It requires employers to pay a fee for every overseas worker they sponsor to work in the UK, with the government at the time saying money raised would be invested in upskilling domestic workers.
Richards said the policy “was an important acknowledgement of the public’s concerns about rising levels of immigration,” while also an “attempt to grapple with the more substantive issue of an economy increasingly fuelled by cheap foreign labour”.
But he also said that net migration later “exploded”, with May’s predecessor in Downing Street, Boris Johnson, presiding over an “exponential rise in foreign workers arriving whilst worklessness amongst Brits increased at a similar rate”.
“This was a devastating perfect storm: deliberate open borders without any focus on getting people off welfare and back into work,” he wrote.
The Social Market Foundation think tank has criticised the implementation of the charge, specifically in that there has been “zero transparency or accountability” in how the revenue has been used by the government since it was brought in – a point highlighted by Richards.
“The charge has raised over £2bn since 2017, yet, despite this, there is no evidence a single pound has ever been used for its intended purpose.
“There is no public information about how to access the government’s ‘investment in skills’, or where businesses can find out where the charge they pay goes.”
The Labour MP, who was first at the July general election, urged his party to seize the opportunity for a “reset” of the policy, “to ensure there is an explicit link between hiring immigrant workers and investment in skills and employment support in any area”.
“The charge should support the government’s wider missions, to give the British people a better sense the economy and immigration policy works for them and that this government is on their side,” Richards wrote.
The MP also said that places “needing” levelling up funds “rarely see the economic benefits” from immigration. He pointed to statistics that show areas earmarked for financial backing by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are in the Midlands, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, which have lower percentages of foreign-born residents compared to the South East.
“Quite simply, those in places needing Levelling Up Funds rarely see the economic benefits immigration can offer,” he wrote.
“As a result, there is a strong inverse relationship between the percentage of foreign-born residents and concern about border control and immigration. “
The MP added: “For too long, government hasn’t been upfront with the public about the costs of high immigration – nor delivered on promises to redistribute any gains from people coming to work in this country.
“The immigration skills charge was a good idea from the Tories, but poorly executed. Labour should make it work.”
