Labour and Skills Shortages: Temporary Recovery Visa

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing the debate. I will come to some themes he spoke about in a minute but, importantly, I want to congratulate the Minister not just on being here but on the work he is doing. I will disaggregate some of my remarks because, clearly, I have worked in the Home Office and I know a little bit about certain aspects of policy, but there are wider issues around labour market skills and shortages that I want to air, and those are what brought me to the debate.

It has been a few years since I have been to the hon. Gentleman’s beautiful constituency. I have a bit more time on my hands now and, provided I can get there, I will, because it is a very beautiful part of the country. However, the debate and the issues he raised are incredibly pertinent to the entire United Kingdom. We have seen labour and skills shortages in certain sectors for as long as I can remember as a Member of Parliament, and that is what we need to address.

I will park home affairs issues—particularly visas and things of that nature—for the moment. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there has already been some work, although not enough, across the whole of Government to put together a wider strategy for the labour market. I have been very vocal about this; when I was Employment Minister, I was one of the few advocates for a labour market strategy for the entire economy. If I may say so, that is something that I have also encouraged our new Chancellor to adopt and champion. We need the Treasury and, in particular, the DWP to be the advocates of a proper, coherent labour market strategy. That is really important, because we see wage inflation in certain sectors. We know there are shortages in the hospitality sector, which the hon. Gentleman pointed to, but we have to be honest that there is not enough training, investment or career progression in certain sectors, and hospitality is one of them.

I remember from my time as Employment Minister that the hospitality sector did a great deal to develop career paths, to make its jobs much more appealing and to invest in the individuals who got jobs in order that, although they might start behind the bar, they could become general managers of hotels, bars or restaurants, and so on. That is really important. My party believes in the ladder of opportunity. It wants to see people develop their careers and be incredibly successful, rather than the haemorrhaging of staff in certain sectors. My major point is not party political: we should encourage the development of a labour market strategy for the whole country, rather than try to find sticking-plaster fixes of visas and things of that nature, which I will come to in a minute.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the immigration system and some of the changes that have been made, which I was involved in as Home Secretary. Ending free movement was a manifesto commitment and part of Brexit, which the British public voted for. We delivered that at the same time as reforming aspects of the immigration system. The points-based immigration system is there to ensure that employers can sponsor individuals, admittedly not in the sectors the hon. Gentleman spoke about but certainly in other critical sectors, including the NHS, which should not be overlooked. The NHS relies on overseas workers, which are important for its health and wellbeing, although of course we need to grow more talent domestically as well. Those are important areas.

I want to touch on another aspect—youth mobility, which is an important way forward. The hon. Gentleman and other colleagues will know about the scheme for seasonal agricultural workers. That enables workers to come to our country for specific and restricted timeframes in key sectors. That enables workers to come to our country for specific and restricted timeframes in key sectors. Only last year, following a shortage, the seasonal agricultural workers list was expanded to include haulage drivers, key workers in agriculture, but not horticulture, and the farming sector when we saw pressures in the economy. It is right that we have the agility and freedom effectively to determine some of those changes while also—and I am sure that the Minister will agree with me on this—demonstrating to the British public that we are able to invest in our own home-grown skills and in particular parts of the country. I saw this in one of my previous roles in Government—not in my last role, but in employment—where we had pockets of unemployment around certain parts of the country. We must invest in those parts of the country too.

I said that I would talk about youth mobility schemes in particular. I have been involved in some of those discussions, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referenced some of the bigger countries and economies; one of those is India, with which we have an agreement to actively bring over young people who are highly educated and skilled. We still want them to work here; the point of youth mobility is that we can reciprocate, which is really important, with our young people gaining life skills elsewhere in the world and showing what a free and open country we are.

In the interests of time, I will conclude by emphasising that it is quite unfair that a Home Office Minister has to respond to wide-scale labour market issues, which are cross-governmental. One of the biggest takeaways is the need for better integration across Government Departments to address issues with the labour market and skills shortages. When we look at what is happening with the apprenticeship levy, for example, we must ask how we can make that much more effective in different parts of the country. How can it be targeted to key sectors? How can colleges have more bespoke schemes for shortages in the labour market so that we develop a pipeline of young people to come forward? I am a Member of Parliament for a constituency in Essex, Witham. Some 80% of my constituents are employed by small and medium-sized enterprises; that is 20% higher than the national average. By default, we are an entrepreneurial and SME-based part of the country, but at the same time we must look at the needs of many of those small and medium-sized enterprises regarding skills and sustainable employment. That is why I encourage colleagues across the House to work in a united way to look at getting the Government to have a skills and labour market strategy for the entire country.

[Several hon. Members rose—]