Student and NHS visas being allocated through an auction process, and a reception centre on Ascension Island, are among the measures the Government should take to help reduce immigration, a new report has suggested.
The Policy Exchange paper – written by former Home Office director Stephen Webb – also suggests tougher penalties for people who employ illegal labour or rent to illegal immigrants.
The “why is it so hard getting immigration numbers down” report from the think tank looks at both legal and illegal migration, and proposes a number of suggestions to bring numbers down.
In November, figures estimated that net migration hit a record 906,000 in 2023, after numbers were revised up from an initial estimate of 740,000.
The number of migrants arriving in the UK in small boats was also up by a quarter in 2024 on the previous year.
Among the recommendations made in the report are allocations for student visas and long-term work visas being allocated through auction processes.
There is a similar suggestion in relation to NHS visas, and a recommendation that the money raised by that auction goes into the health service.
It also recommends that ministers should “introduce tougher penalties for those employing illegal labour or renting to illegal immigrants, including granting legal status to illegal migrants who testify against illegal employers or renters”.
Following the scrapping of the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, it also says that the Government should “establish a reception centre on Ascension Island” in the southern Atlantic and commission a review to see how much such a programme would cost.
Alexander Downer, a former foreign affairs minister in Australia, wrote the foreword to the report and said that immigration has “become one of the most contentious issues in the western world”.
In the page-long message, he said that the “incapacity to manage migration numbers has led to concern and even serious social disruption among voters” and later added: “A British government will have sooner or later to get control of the immigration programme. If they fail to do so, we can be sure populists and extremists will get elected who promise to do it”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Under our Plan for Change, we will restore order to our broken immigration system by linking our immigration, skills and visa systems so we can grow our domestic workforce, end the reliance on overseas labour and boost economic growth.
“We have also begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced, with 16,400 people removed since the new government came into power.”
