Will welcome top talent, not low-skilled labour, says Priti Patel

AFTER delivering on the promise of getting “Brexit done”, the government’s next top agenda was implementing a points-based immigration system, said Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The new system “will turn off the tap of cheap, foreign low-skilled labour”, she added.

“On Friday (14), the new Cabinet backed mine and the Prime Minister’s vision to take back control of who comes to this country,” wrote Patel in the Sun on Sunday.

“From next year, all skilled workers will need to earn enough points to work in the UK.

They will need to speak English, have a firm job offer, and meet the salary requirements.”

She said Britain had “finally seized back our independence”, and it was time to implement “an immigration system that works in the interests of our country”.

“We agreed a radical, new, firm but fair system that rewards the skills people have to offer, not where they come from,” she stated.

Patel opined that firms had been relying on “cheap, foreign low-skilled labour” for “too long”.

She added that the UK had been “shackled by Europe and forced to be rule-takers”.

“Ending free movement changes all that,” she asserted.

The home secretary said migrant workers “will have to prove they have something to offer”.

She, however, clarified that the UK was “not closing our doors”, and will continue to “attract the top talent from anywhere in the world”—"the brightest and the best from around the globe”.

Under the new system, she explained, “extra points will be awarded to people who have the most to offer, including those working in a profession where there is a real skills shortage”.

Points will be issued “in line with pay scales” for people coming to work the NHS and schools, she added.

Stressing on the government’s promise to “unleash our country’s full potential”, Patel said the new system was “only the beginning”.