Managing Foreign Labour Immigration to the UK: Learning the Lessons

The paper adopts an historical approach, focusing on the period between the end of the Second World War and Britain leaving the EU. Using predominantly government statistical sources, our analysis notes that the UK economy has always required substantial labour immigration in a variety of forms; that consequently no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach can work: and that within a competitive international labour market, ensuring a continuing flow of the necessary labour at all levels is crucial. We show that throughout the period, management of labour immigration was balanced across the skill spectrum. In addition to the main work permit scheme and its successor points-based system, the UK government has introduced into its immigration management a series of, largely temporary, schemes, mainly designed to recruit less-skilled workers. We conclude that: on past evidence the UK economy has been unable to manage without substantial labour immigration from both the EU and elsewhere; labour immigration management needs to be flexible enough to change as conditions change; in order to balance labour requirements with supply, a continuing management symbiosis exists between government and business.