UK Immigration News

A report prepared at a leading UK university addresses 'key questions surrounding migration and population growth in the UK'. The Report, Britain's '70 million' debate, has been prepared in the wake of a call to take 'all reasonable steps' to limit the UK's population to 70 million.

The Migration Observatory, which is part of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford, prepared the report to inform policy makers and to encourage a wider debate in the UK about immigration policy.

There are reports of a growing rift in the UK government over immigration. The Guardian, a UK newspaper, reports that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, held a meeting with Home Secretary, Theresa May, in late October to see if the government could abandon its key immigration policy to reduce net immigration to under 100,000 a year.

When the Coalition government came to power in 2010, it promised to reduce net immigration into the UK from outside the European Union to 'tens of thousands' every year from the level at that time which is thought to have been about 250,000 per year.

The UK's Home Secretary Theresa May MP has said that the UK is not able to extend controls on the migration of Bulgarians and Romanians beyond December 2013. However, she said that she was considering other options to limit the numbers of people coming to the UK from those countries. Mrs May was appearing on the BBC political programme The Andrew Marr Show.

A UK recruitment expert has criticised the revised pay thresholds which will apply to overseas IT workers after a recent review.

George Molyneux of Salary Services/jobadswatch, an expert in IT recruitment, says that the new pay thresholds, which have been recommended by the Migration Advisory Committee, are 'flawed, meaningless and don't do UK IT professionals any favours' according to Computer Weekly magazine.

A Conservative MP introduced a bill to the House of Commons on Wednesday 31st October 2012, that would, if it became law, limit the numbers of EU citizens who could come to work in the UK. It is extremely unlikely that it will become law because the UK's Coalition government does not support it.

On Wednesday 31st October 2012, Lord Heseltine of Thenford, a former cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the UK delivered his report, entitled No Stone Unturned, to the UK government. Lord Heseltine was asked to prepare his report by the government and to recommend ways in which British business can become more competitive.