THE UK home secretary will be urged this week to raise the proposed £30K minimum salary threshold for all the new workers from outside the country.
Priti Patel will be asked to respect her vow to restore integrity to the country’s immigration system by insisting all the immigrant workers must get at least £36,700 after Brexit.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in a report scheduled to be published on Tuesday (13) will urge for a threshold increase and warn that higher low-skilled immigration during the last a few years has caused for fall in wages for the workers born in the UK on lower salaries.
The think-tank warns that during the past 50 years, the population of Britain has increased by over 10 million, 60 per cent of which is due to record level immigration.
CSJ policy director Edward Davies said: ‘Since 1971 our population has grown by 10.1 million. Immigration has contributed 61 per cent of that growth.
‘We must have a thorough and discerning policy approach toward immigration.’
The UK nationals believe that immigration should be restricted.
Around two-thirds in Britain believe that the current level of immigration is too high, according to the report.
The report urges for a review and reform of family-related visas, of which there were 134,789 granted last year.
According to CSJ report, immigration has become a positive for the British economy, but the majority of the country’s people haven’t yet benefited.
The think-tank has also added it was ‘high time’ the government took seriously the problem of endemic poverty in immigrant and minority communities.
The report noted Small Heath in Birmingham as having one of the largest Bengali and Pakistani communities in the UK and is concurrently in the 10 per cent most deprived areas in the country, according to the Government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation.
Davies added: ‘The reality is that high levels of low-skilled immigration have suppressed wages and reduced levels of social mobility. There are real problems of poverty and social breakdown in some immigrant communities.’
Sharing his views he said: ‘developing a framework that makes entry standards higher for economic migrants but is more generous towards those who have had to flee their home countries.’
