James Cleverly to announce big hike in salary requirement for migrants – UK politics live | Politics

Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, which represents many workers in the care sector, has said that the tighter immigration rules being announced this afternoon will be an “utter disaster”. She made the point in an interview with Radio 4’s the World at One. Here are the key quotes.

• McAnea said the new rules would be an “utter disaster” for the care sector because they would lead to more workers leaving, or failing to fill vacancies in the first place. Referring in particular to the plan to limit the number of dependants care workers can bring to the UK, she said:

Have they spoken to anyone in the sector about this? I suspect not.

This will be an utter disaster, because what they’re doing is basically sending a really strong message to those migrant workers who are propping up our care sector, and indeed in many cases the health sector, and saying: you’re not welcome here, because we don’t want you to bring your families here.

I think it is cruel. Remember, this is a predominantly female workforce. So we’re saying: ‘You’re allowed to come here, but you can’t bring any children, or a child, if you’ve got them.’ And to those who are already here, who do have dependants, when they come to renew their visa, presumably they will be told you have to send your children back again. What do you think is going to happen? I suspect most of them will leave.

• She called for a major improvements in the way care workers are treated, including better pay. People were leaving because they could earn £2/3/4 an hour more working in a supermarket, she said. She said a national care service was needed.

Here is Rajeev Syal’s story about what James Cleverly is set to announce.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson would not answer questions in detail about the immigration announcement, saying that James Cleverly would be setting out the plans in parliament later.

But the spokesperson said that net migration figures were too highly partly as a result of “abuse in the system” and that “that’s what we will clamp down on”.

He said, by abuse, he was referring to “changes that were introduced over successive years”. Asked if he was referring to the rules about the number of dependants that people with visas can bring to the UK, he replied: “That’s a specific area I think the home secretary will talk to.”

In its report last month which said that net migration reached a record 745,000 in the 12 months to the end of 2022, the Office for National Statistics said:

There have also been changes in the number of dependants coming to the UK; in YE [year ending] June 2019, dependants accounted for 6% of non-EU student immigration and 37% of non-EU work immigration, which increased to 25% and 48%, respectively in YE June 2023.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, will unveil a package of measures intended to bring down net migration after figures hit a record high, PA Media reports. PA says:

He is expected to tell the Commons this afternoon that the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker from overseas will be significantly hiked to around £38,000, a Whitehall official said.

The increase from £26,200 a year for migrants coming to Britain was said to feature in a wider package to be announced as Rishi Sunak comes under huge pressure.

The prime minister has vowed to “do what is necessary” to bring down net migration in the wake of an official estimate saying it had reached a record of 745,000 in 2022.

During his Q&A at the Resolution Foundation conference, it was put to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, that the Resolution Foundation report showed economy was suffering the equivalent of a “broken leg”. He said he did not accept that description. It was more of a sprained ankle, he said:

Sometimes we forget that other countries also have the things that they need to improve.

I think we shouldn’t lose confidence that we do some things absolutely amazingly. I know he’s controversial in other ways but when Elon Musk was here three weeks ago, he said there were only two centres in the world for AI, San Francisco and London.

We’ve got a lot going for us, so if we’re going to go into dealing with the sprain, rather than the broken leg, then let’s do so from a perspective of positivity.

Robert Booth

MPs have launched an inquiry into the state of children’s social care in England amid growing warnings children are suffering from a lack of foster carers, and that private companies are profiting from the taxpayer by charging up to £63,000 a week for single social care placements.

The House of Commons education select committee launched the inquiry with figures showing the number of children supported by social services is up 30% since 2010 and the number of care leavers facing homelessness is on the rise.

The committee chair, Robin Walker, said the MPs would ask “whether the government needs to go further and faster” with changes to how the country’s most vulnerable children are cared for.

Last week, the Guardian reported a warning from councils that they are being “held to ransom” by private care providers, as it emerged the taxpayer has been paying as much as £3.3m a year for single children’s social care placements. The Department for Education has identified “looked-after children market failure” as a key risk.

And today, child protection experts called for an urgent nationwide hunt for thousands of new foster carers after a net loss of 1,000 families in the past year and a record number of children being placed far from home.

The inquiry will get under way in earnest in 2024 and evidence can be submitted until 15 January.

Rishi Sunak is going to announce plans to cut immigration today, it is being reported.

The Sun says he will announce that the salary threshold for people wanting to got a work visa to come to the UK will rise to £38,000. The Daily Telegraph is reporting something similar, quoting a Whitehall source as saying: “People will be surprised at how strong a package it is.” This is from the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith.

It has been confirmed to the Guardian that the announcement is coming later today.

Jeremy Hunt said the UK could be the “most prosperous” economy this century because of its “untapped potential”.

Speaking at the Resolution Foundation conference, he said the industrial sectors that would grow the fastest were the ones “where we are doing really well”. He said:

If I was going to choose one country in the world that had the most untapped potential to become the most prosperous 21st century economy, it would be Britain.

UPDATE: Hunt said:

If I was going to choose one country in the world that had the most untapped potential to become the most prosperous 21st century economy, it would be Britain.

And why is that? … Most of all because the sectors that are going to grow the fastest this century are the sectors where we are doing really well. Technology is the obvious one. We have a technology sector that’s double the size of Germany, three times the size of France.

If you ask why it is that we’ve grown faster than Germany since 2010, despite their higher productivity, it is because we are actually stronger in innovation. So if we could solve the productivity bit, there would be no stopping us.

And the reason I think that is an omission [from the Resolution Foundation’s report] is because, you spend a lot of time rightly talking about our strength in the service sectors, if you’ve done an equivalent report in the 1980s and not mentioned Big Bang in the City of London, which has gone on to be an area of global leadership for the UK, you’d be ignoring the sector that whose taxes now fund half the cost of the NHS.

So I think you have to think about technology, AI, life sciences, clean energy, creative industries, because those are the sectors that are going to be really important for us going forward.