UK Immigration News

There are signs that the UK's Prime Minister, David Cameron, is becoming increasingly isolated in Europe because of his calls for the European Union to limit the freedom of movement of labour throughout the Union.

Mr Cameron told a leaders' summit in Brussels in December 2013 that the EU must 'slow down access to each other's labour markets'.

Polls show that almost half of UK citizens do not believe that Romanians and Bulgarians should be allowed to live and work in the UK. More than half of people questioned in another recent poll believe that immigration has had negative consequences for the country.

Another poll suggests that the anti-immigration UK Independence Party may come second in the UK's elections for the European Parliament in May this year. This is likely to result in the UK's Coalition government trying to show itself to be more 'anti-immigrant' to try to win back votes.

The UK's Coalition government has announced that it will change the law so that immigrants from the EU will no longer be able to claim housing benefit after April 1st 2014. The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said that the change would stop immigrants from taking advantage of the UK's benefits system.

Mr Duncan Smith also announced that immigrants will also only be allowed to claim Jobseekers Allowance for a maximum of six months unless they 'have genuine prospects of finding work'.

A poll conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has found that a majority of UK employers believe that immigrants have better qualifications, skills and motivation than British workers.

The poll was conducted by the CIPD's research department to examine the impact of immigration on the British labour market. The report states that, since 2002, the number of jobs in the UK economy has grown by 1.7m but the number of UK born people in work has actually fallen slightly because foreign-born workers are filling the positions.

The UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency has released figures which show the first ever fall in the number of international students starting courses at UK universities. Experts in the UK's export education sector blame the policies of the UK's Coalition government for this fall.

The Higher Education Standards Authority has released figures which show that the number of Indian students starting at UK universities is down by 26% on last year and the number of Pakistani students down by 19%.

The UK prepared itself for an influx of Romanians and Bulgarians on 1st January 2014 but, so far at least, it hasn't happened. On 31st December 2013, transitional controls preventing the free movement of Bulgarians and Romanians to work in the UK and other EU countries expired.