A urgent call has be made by a think-tank chief demanding
that regions in the UK be given powers over immigration after Brexit
negotiations are over, as a strategy to boost the UK’s economy. According to
Liam Booth-Smith, of think-tank Localis, immigration issues should be left in
the hands of towns and cities in England.
One of the point he made to bolster his argument was that employers
and landlords already had the mandate at a local area to check immigration
statuses and ‘strategic authorities’ could be set up to look at the wider
picture and grow local areas.
He said: “The immigration system currently… there are a
number of checks and balances, which are being pushed down towards people at a
local level as it stands.
“You have, for example, employers, who have responsibility
placed on them to check the immigration status of someone who is working for
them.
“Similarly with landlords, you have a responsibility placed
on them to check the immigration status of somebody that is trying to rent a
property.
"We already are in once sense devolving some of the
responsibilities around this. We think actually it would be quite sensible in
one sense to allow local areas to, maybe not necessarily with the local
authority but some sort of strategic authority, to have a little bit more
influence and control over the proportion of migration in their area.”
Mr Booth-Smith designated the Isle of Wight, Blackpool and
Tendring in Essex as “stuck” regions that could take advantage from the move, mostly
those which had “very, very low proportions of young people resident in their
area.
The think tank’s new report ‘The Making of an Industrial
Strategy: Taking back control locally’ found a correlation between the number
of 25 to 34-year-olds in an area and its levels of productivity. Mr Booth-Smith
said local areas should be able to attract the right talent for them.
“There are only a finite number of homegrown 25 to 34 year
olds so one of the ways we in the past have actually managed to counter the
balance of an ageing population is by bringing in young, healthy, fit people
from abroad,” he said.
“We think that actually having a bit more local control and
discretion over that wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world."
He cited instances where such policy is being put to use in
places like Australia and Canada.
In the meantime, there was a claim last month which states
that mass EU migration has been an “economic catastrophe” for the UK, costing
it £30billion a year.
The paper - How the £30 billion cost of EU migration
Imperils Pensions & Benefits - by the thinktank Global Britain revealed
cheap labour flooding in from the continent was causing "an economic
catastrophe" for the UK which threatens the pension system.
The report also suggested that leaving the European Union
and taking back control of British borders would provide the UK with “a £250
billion opportunity” in the next five years.
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