CBI rejects immigration cap
Immigration caps could leave firms struggling to recruit skilled workers and dent Britain’s flexibility, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, the pressure group for business, has warned.
Sir Digby Jones said he was opposed to statutory limits on immigrants coming into the UK, the current manifesto pledge of the Conservatives.
“What we do know for certain is that we need them to keep coming – so long as it is controlled and managed – and we don’t want it stopped because of some arbitrary figure,” he told the BBC last night.
“We would not want to see a policy where there is a cap on the numbers who can come in.”
Tory leader Michael Howard on Friday said limits on immigrants entering Britain were vital to sustain good community relations.
“There is a clear limit to the amount of immigration this country can absorb – and it is in the interests of the minorities themselves to maintain a strict control,” he said.
A Tory government have pledged to set an annual quota in collaboration with the CBI and other employers’ bodies.
But Sir Digby said a cap of any sort would damage Britain’s flexible labour force.
“To say we are going to cap them at a certain figure, then, frankly, unless that figure was so enormous we would say ‘you are tying our hands when you don’t need to’.”
Sir Digby said for every one per cent increase in immigration there was a corresponding 1.5 per cent increase in national wealth.
He added 97 per cent of immigrants found work soon after arriving in Britain.
“If it was not for immigrant labour, especially in leisure, in tourism, in agriculture, in construction, then frankly many of our businesses would not have the workers we need,” he added.
