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Outlining the results of a major consultation with business leaders, Josh Hardie, the CBI’s deputy director general, said companies believed an injection of honesty was urgently needed in the political debate about migration.
“This is no longer a theoretical debate, it’s about the future of our nation. False choices and sloganeering must be avoided at all costs,” he said.
In a report, published on Friday, the CBI argues that the nation’s needs are more complex than simply ensuring that the UK could attract the “brightest and best”.
It calls for new rules for EU citizens to keep open the pipeline of migrant workers in all sectors including agriculture, hospitality, construction, the NHS and the creative industries; and an easing of the policy for non-EU workers to give small businesses, unable to afford the visas or deal with Home Office red tape, a chance to plug any gaps arising from Brexit.
“Openness and control must not be presented as opposites. Public attitudes towards migration and the impact it has on communities are far more nuanced,” said Hardie.
The CBI’s report on immigration comes weeks after a cabinet split on post-Brexit immigration policy, with the former home secretary Amber Rudd’s plans to give EU citizens preferential treatment reportedly scrapped in June by her successor, Sajid Javid.
The CBI report – Open and Controlled, A New Approach to Migration – concludes that a root and branch change is needed in Britain’s immigration approach following what it says was an “extensive” consultation with employers and trade associations representing 124,000 firms.
It argues that May’s long-held immigration target of 100,000 migrants a year is not viable; that rules on visas for non-EU workers are too expensive and too restrictive; and a new EU citizens-only policy needs to be developed to keep the economy on the road. [...]