Labour’s tougher migration stance
The idea of a ‘hostile environment’ has been in use in the UK since 2012 and has been intensified by the Labour Government since 2024. Starmer’s approach while he was still in office offered action on migration, sometimes in areas effectively outside government control. For example, agreement with France about small boats is in no way preventing such movements, no matter how well it might appeal to some parts of the media, right-wing parties, groups, and some voters.
Resistance to the hostile environment led campaign groups to challenge the new Immigration and Asylum Bill, including the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Refugee Council, and the Work Rights Centre. Issues such as delays and inefficiencies in the asylum process, and the early outlines of proposals for the Bill, were strongly criticised.
Criticism of the ‘hostile environment’
A coalition of 225 groups emphasised that the Home Secretary should not assist those seeking to promote division, but without apparent success. Delays in granting permanent residence in the UK were to be applied even to those in key shortage areas, such as carers. It did not help that the government claimed its migrant welfare changes would save £10bn when subsequent assessment suggested only about £600mn would be saved – with who knows what attendant human suffering. There are also serious gaps in the UK’s migration statistics. The government does not even know how many people are overstaying visas.
‘Smash the Gangs’
Labour entered the 2024 General Election campaign with a ‘Smash the Gangs’ slogan aimed at organisers of boats crossing to the UK, and other rhetoric aimed at getting UK employers to reduce overseas migrant worker recruitment and explain those still being recruited. This appears to be about shifting the ‘blame’ for inward migration on to employers, and away from government for not providing enough training or skills development. As the Bill was passed, 20,000 skilled migrant workers already based in the UK wrote to Andy Burnham because their route to citizenship had been changed, calling for fairness and legal certainty.
Children caught in the system
Before the passage of the Bill into law, it was predicted that about 300,000 children would be waiting 10 years for their status to be determined. Later in the same month, February 2026, the government was condemned for its treatment of child asylum seekers. The aim of new legislation was to be even stricter than Conservative immigration and asylum restrictions. This was despite the beginning of a downward trend in net inward migration.
Why migration has fallen
Net inward migration to the UK halved in 2025 to 171,000, compared with 2024. In 2024, net inward migration had also halved, with emigration being a noticeable factor but declining inward migration of non-EU nationals being more significant in both years. So why the sharp declines?
In 2024, it appears that UK Government restrictions coming into force after two years of high inward migration caused declines particularly in both international students and care workers. This left the Labour Government inheriting and sustaining Conservative Government migration policies with the implicit aim of decreasing support for Reform UK.
However, doing so also appears to be increasing support for the Conservatives, with the added minor factor of assisting the anti-immigrant party Restore. Restore is now clocking up about 8% in polls. Labour improving its polling in a ‘Burnham bounce’ does not compensate for about half of the electorate still supporting Conservative-Reform-Restore.
It is also debatable how the new Immigration and Asylum Act, as predicted before it was passed, in any way helps integration. It has been argued the legislation would put lives at risk. Little wonder Human Rights Watch slammed the prospective legislation, or that Green Party leader Zack Polanski has called the Government’s immigration plans “performative cruelty“.
Labour continuity rather than change
Given the many criticisms and widespread aversion to the government’s migration and asylum policies since the 2024 general election, it is notable that one of Andy Burnham’s earliest and most specific political decisions was to commend the work of the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, on migration issues. She was then retained in office as Home Secretary in the new Burnham Cabinet. There are suggestions that the level of restrictions in place is more likely to deter the highest-earning immigrants from staying in the UK than lower-paid groups. However, even government acceptance that it is using its powers in a manner to delay UK citizenship with disproportionate effect on ethnic minorities has not prompted change in this essentially authoritarian approach.
Where skills shortages remain
The Shortage Occupations List has been replaced, first, by the Immigration Salary List, which identifies jobs for which immigration visas will be available due to shortages, including, as examples, all types of jobs in these specific categories:
- Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors
- Biological scientists
- Graphic and multimedia designers
- Pharmaceutical technicians
- Artists
- Arts officers, producers, and directors
- Boat and ship builders and repairers
- Stonemasons and related trades
- Bricklayers
- Roofers, roof tilers. and slaters
- Carpenters and joiners
- Nursing auxiliaries and assistants.
Secondly, until the end of 2026, there is a temporary Skilled Worker visa programme for shortage occupations. However, with continuing minimal inward migration, many of the UK’s skills shortages may not be addressed.
Examples of skills shortages in specific professions and sectors, subject to change and updating:
- Care workers: 111,000 April 2025
- Doctors: 6,562 vacancies – NHS jobs 20 July 2026
- Nurses: 29,000 vacancies – December 2025
- Construction workers: 206,000 more needed between now and 2030
- Teachers: Since birth rates are falling, demand for primary school teachers is dropping and, similarly, secondary school teachers are likely to experience lower demand when secondary school pupil intakes fall in future. Whether this has useful impacts upon the shortages of STEM subject teachers remains to be seen, for example in England.
Some ‘skills shortages’ are unlikely to be addressed by inward migration. Police forces are struggling to retain officers with only five to 10 years’ service, with misconduct and racism also causing problems. The Armed Forces have had recruitment and retention problems, which Labour claims are now easing.
Can training address skills shortages caused by reduced migration?
Training more people by pressing employers to support more training is going to be tried once again. But the effort of persuasion now and in the past has foundered because trainees require supervision and training from people who employers may find more productive in other roles. This places governments under considerable pressure to be realistic and to finance training to address skills shortages more generously in both Further and Higher Education. If this is not done by the current government – as people retire or are not easily retained in sectors with shortages – the problem passes to another government, which may avoid or fudge what is necessary to fill long-term skills shortages in particular.
What if net migration fell to zero?
The National Institute for Economic and Social Research combined factors including a drop to zero net migration with existing trends in birth rates and an ageing population. Contrary to Labour’s ‘neo-religious’ fervour for growth, it has estimated that an economy 3.6% smaller in GDP terms would result by 2040 if zero net migration occurs. Despite their value to an economy plagued by skills shortages, asylum seekers are blocked from working for long periods and have experienced a fivefold increase in homelessness and risk of being homeless between 2021–22 and 2024–25.
How skills shortages can be tackled
Labour’s approach to immigration and asylum, not fully detailed here, appears to be an echo of Reform UK and Conservative policies. The entire approach to immigration and asylum should be fundamentally changed to achieve justice for all, including by rejoining the European Union, which is imperative and has consistent public support in polls. This would not just mean restoring freedom of movement with the EU and European Economic Area states; it would also involve working with other countries in a more realistic way on common immigration policies in a continent with low birth rates. Removing immigration and asylum roles from the Home Office is highly desirable.
The UK needs a dedicated Department for Migration, covering both international movements of people and support for people moving to areas of the UK that have very low birth rates or indeed declining and/or ageing populations. My conclusion, as a former Assistant Community Programme Manager, is that Community Programme departments, in the style of the 1980s scheme addressing long-term unemployment, should be established in each local government area as a base for enabling asylum seekers, refugees, and others to work on useful local projects, and for providing more income to all those undertaking apprenticeships that make use of these projects where appropriate.
Author’s note: Thanks to Hazel Dawe for comments.
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