An immigration cap is likely to be announced by the UK Home Secretary today.
This is likely to cap the number of non-EU immigrants to the UK at temporary level of 24,100, 5% down from last year.
The home secretary, Theresa May, claimed that the coalition government’s immigration cap would not be economically damaging to the UK.
“Introducing this temporary limit is necessary to ensure that we don’t get a rush of people trying to come through into the UK before that permanent limit is put in place next year,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
However, worries about the new immigration cap have been voiced.
A spokesperson for Mayor of London Boris Johnson told Channel 4 News: “We urge the government to proceed cautiously here and look again at how immigrants who’ve been here a long time, pay their own way and keep out of trouble could be enabled to work legitimately and pay taxes.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers head of global immigration Julia Onslow-Cole told Channel 4 News that the new cap will need to be flexible.
“In areas where caps work they have to be quite flexible – such as in Australia and New Zealand. But any caps on intra company transfers – where someone working overseas for a company couldn’t come and bring their experience to the UK – could potentially be very damaging,” she said.
Now read this:
Changes to UK immigration on cards under new coalition government
UK Visa information
Tags: UK immigration cap, non-EU immigration cap, new immigration limits
