Immigration rules and skills shortages hold back UK tech potential April 21, 2014 THE FIRST few months of 2014 have been a whirlwind for London’s tech sector. Just-East burst onto the stock market with a £1.5bn valuation, DeepMind and Natural Motion were acquired for a combined £720m within three days of each other, Circassia completed a £200m public offering, and we witnessed a resurgent IPO market. Yet while [...]
Labour: we stayed silent on immigration to the UK April 10, 2014 LABOUR has admitted it made a mistake by staying silent about immigration when in government, on the same day the Office for National Statistics admitted it underestimated net migration by almost 350,000 people. In a speech yesterday, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called for an “honest conversation” on the issues but admitted that her party [...]
Immigration restrictions are holding the economy back says new report April 8, 2014 The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has become the latest organisation to join the chorus of voices calling on the government to ease visa restrictions for migrant workers. The REC and KPMG jobs report published on Tuesday, said March saw a decline in the availability of candidates, with permanent staff availability falling at the sharpest [...]
Tory MPs lobby Cameron to tone down anti-immigration stance March 24, 2014 CONSERVATIVE MPs are preparing to launch a new group to lobby the Prime Minister over his anti-immigration rhetoric. Conservatives for Managed Migration will launch tomorrow and be headed up by City MP Mark Field, in a bid to soften the Conservative party line on migration ahead of the European elections. Field told Sky News yesterday [...]
EU parliament makes progress on open immigration March 12, 2014 European commissioner Laszlo Andor has welcomed the European parliament's adoption of a series of measures that were proposed by the commission in April, intended to make it easier for EU citizens to exercise the right to work in other member states. The decision comes a little over a month after fresh evidence emerged showing that [...]
Firms lash out at government over migration March 6, 2014 BUSINESS leaders have accused the government of holding British firms back after a Conservative minister called for tighter immigration controls, despite a new report which contradicts his claims. In a speech yesterday immigration minister James Brokenshire said the government is sticking to its target of cutting net migration to the tens of thousands by 2015, [...]
The controversial migration report’s been published. Here’s what you need to know March 6, 2014 The politically contentious report into the impact of migration on UK employment by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) was released today. The authors have been incredibly cautious to avoid stepping on any politician’s toes – it seems to come down on the pro-migration side, as far as UK political debate goes. The report [...]
Can you handle these 3 facts on immigration? March 5, 2014 Last night, a Newsnight report claimed the publication of a much-anticipated cross-governmental report on immigration has been put off by Downing Street, because it points to immigration having a smaller impact than the government claims. The BBC's detailed how Number 10 sources have said the report isn’t ready for release, but how, according to officials, [...]
City Matters: Tighter immigration controls risk London’s position as a global business hub March 2, 2014 IMMIGRATION is a sensitive subject at the best of times. So when figures published last week showed that net migration had climbed to 212,000 in the year to September 2013 – well above the government’s target of reducing it to below 100,000 by 2015 – it was inevitable that critics would attack the current system [...]
PM’s migration target in tatters as numbers rise February 27, 2014 EFFORTS by the government to reduce immigration are failing, as the level of net migration to the UK rises once again, back over 200,000 in the 12 months to September 2013. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of people migrating to the UK rose to 532,000 in the [...]