00:00Five months ago, the figures were published that showed net migration had reached a record high of more than 900,000 under the last Conservative government, a figure that had quadrupled in the space of just four years.
00:16It was the consequence of specific government choices made from 2020 onwards, including introducing what was effectively a free market experiment on immigration, encouraging employers to recruit from abroad, loosening controls in different areas but without any requirement to tackle skills and labour shortages here at home, choices which undermined the immigration system and the economy too.
00:41So we will lift the threshold for skilled worker visas back to graduate level and above, removing up to 180 different jobs from the list, increasing salary thresholds.
00:54Access to the points-based system for lower-skilled jobs will be limited to areas on a new temporary shortage list, including jobs which are critical to the industrial strategy, but access will be time-limited.
01:06There must be a domestic workforce strategy in place and employers must be acting to increase domestic recruitment.
01:14We are therefore ending overseas recruitment of care workers. It will continue to be possible to extend existing visas and to recruit displaced care workers and people already in the UK with working rights on other visas.
01:27Currently, too many people on the graduate visas are not doing graduate jobs, so we will reduce the unrestricted period from two years to 18 months.
01:36Those who want to stay will need to get a graduate job and a skilled worker visa.
01:42And because the ability to speak English is integral to the ability for everyone to contribute and integrate, we will introduce higher language requirements and new language requirements across a range of visa routes for both main applicants and their dependents, so family too can work, integrate and contribute.
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