The government has vowed to stop businesses recruiting foreign workers instead of training people already in the UK.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the current “relaxed free market approach”, which she says has led net migration to quadruple over the past four years.

“A big driver… has been that overseas recruitment has shot up in a series of areas where training has fallen,” she said.

“This has led to a relaxed free market approach for businesses to just be able to recruit from overseas instead of training in the UK.”

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She said there “has to be more requirements” that force firms to show they are making recruitment efforts domestically.

Ms Cooper said the government is “drawing up further measures” that will particularly target industries such as IT, construction, and engineering where “for far too long we have been recruiting from abroad”.

The new Border Security Asylum and Immigration Bill – revealed last week – will link the immigration system to bodies like Skills England and others that are involved in workforce planning, Ms Cooper said.

She said the government will keep the skilled migrant worker salary threshold at £38,700 and it has removed the 20% wage discount for non-EU foreign workers brought in by the Conservatives in 2019.

There will also be continued restrictions on both foreign graduate students and social care workers bringing family members, she added.

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The home secretary’s comments come after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published predictions that the UK population will grow by five million people in 10 years – driven mainly by migration.

Speaking to Sir Trevor afterwards, shadow trade and business secretary Andrew Griffiths said: “Well, we’ve been very clear. The Conservative Party is under new management. Immigration was too high. There were many, many, many, many failings in that immigration system in that period of time.”

No to universal digital ID cards

In the Sunday Telegraph, shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused the government of repealing parts of their Illegal Migration Act 2023 that make it almost impossible for people who arrive in small boats to apply for citizenship.

He also suggested the government is repealing the Conservatives’ measure of treating those who refuse to undergo scientific age checking as adults.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Illegal Migration Act has largely not been commenced (including this measure on age assessments); nor will it be under this government’s policy.

“We have robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual’s age where there is doubt, including the National Age Assessment Board, and have maintained the provisions on scientific assessments from the Nationality & Borders Act 2022.”

Asked about former prime minister Sir Tony Blair’s claims that digital ID cards would help ease pressures on immigration, Ms Cooper did not endorse them.

Instead, she said: “Non-UK citizens already have to have biometric resident permits, but they’re hardly ever checked.”

On trade, Ms Cooper reiterated Labour’s stance that the UK will not re-enter the Customs Union, European Single Market, or restore freedom of movement.

“We’ll look at ways to reduce friction, but we’re not returning to a Customs Union. You do it within a framework that we’re outside the EU and we’re not returning. We need to move on.”