Every immigration minister has experienced it.
One day you are facing demands for tighter rules, lower net migration and British Jobs for British Workers. The next day you’re being roundly attacked for rejecting the idea a new visa is the only solution to a shortage of skilled workers.
Then follow the demands from some MPs we should issue more visas to refugees from virtually every global conflict zone, often described by them as a “moral duty”. Yet the same MPs do not seem to extend this “moral duty” to building the-new homes necessary to house more refugees in their own constituency.
The disjointed nature of the debate about immigration must end and it's why an annual migration plan is so vital.
We can no longer tolerate a situation where one Government department lobbies for visas as a recruitment solution but offloads the resulting housing and public services pressures onto another department’s budget.
British jobs or quick fixes? The annual migration plan that could force the truth - Kevin Foster
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We must no longer accept a situation where plans for skills training and higher education are decided separately to the demand for them from employers. With visas viewed by HM Treasury as a “cheap” way to plug any skills gap.
An annual migration plan must be based on a clear assessment of the needs of our economy and the position of our public services, not which sector or lobby group can shout loudest. Clearly linking the costs of providing public services and homes for new arrivals to decisions about what visa policy should be.
Too often visas have been seen as the go to sticking plaster for much deeper-seated issues, such as a failure to deliver a long-term funding solution for social care across decades or not tackling the UK’s productivity issues.
For any plan to reduce long-term migration to work, it must not be afraid to highlight them and should be used to drive solutions.
Many will want to start developing a plan by setting what they see as the highest level of acceptable migration and then drafting a plan to meet it, yet the essence of such a plan succeeding is showing the choices to be made, including what would result in higher or lower migration, then ensuring Parliament makes them openly and clearly.
An annual migration plan will change the debate on how we fill gaps in the economy.
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This would give Home Office Ministers the chance to point to an agreed plan when pushing back on requests for visas, in the way a treasury minister will cite the Budget. Meanwhile any push for new visas would require setting out how the Annual Migration Plan needed to be amended as a result, including the projections for overall migration and public service impact.
No more grandstanding in the chamber or pushing behind the scenes for a new route, without being clear to your constituents the impact of what you are lobbying for.
An annual migration plan, done well, will change the debate on how we fill gaps in the economy, ensure more rounded debates about migration, and set out to voters clearly the reasoning behind a particular route existing, e.g. how many engineers we expect to need.
It’s a lot harder to vote for something which sets out in black and white what visa numbers will be if your proposal is accepted, than just tell a local firm you will “send a letter” calling for a new visa.
Would such a plan reduce immigration? Yes! Which marginal government MP will want to keep going through a lobby to vote directly for a plan which pushes net migration numbers far beyond what their residents want. This is why am Annual Migration Plan will bring numbers down.
