Coronavirus: Labour calls for rethink on ‘unfair’ immigration rules as ministers accused of hypocrisy over key care workers

‘We see the clap for carers on a Thursday evening. It is wrong to then say on a Monday that you are unskilled,’ says Nick Thomas-Symonds

Labour has urged the government to rethink “unfair” new immigration rules which pose a threat to NHS and the care staff playing critical roles in the battle against coronavirus.

As the Immigration Bill returns to the Commons, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said it was hypocritical for ministers to clap for NHS workers and then tell people they are “unwelcome” because they are deemed low-skilled.

Mr Thomas-Symonds said Labour could not support the bill, which will enshrine Boris Johnson’s promise of a so-called Australian-style points system in law as part of the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system.

The long-delayed bill will be brought to the Commons by the home secretary, Priti Patel, on Monday amid calls from Tory MPs to rewrite plans to make it easier for health and care workers to come to the UK.

The crackdown, which will replace freedom of movement for EU citizens, will impose a minimum salary threshold of £25,600 for most workers seeking to enter the UK – with no exemptions for so-called low-skilled jobs, other than seasonal workers.

Mr Thomas-Symonds ​told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What the government is proposing is not fair and it’s not in the national interest and that’s because they are deeming people who are low-skilled to be unwelcome in this country.

“That isn’t an acceptable way to proceed. We see the clap for carers on a Thursday evening. It is wrong to then say on a Monday that you are unskilled, and that people with those skills are not welcome in this country.

“That’s why I’m asking the government to think again. We can’t support an immigration bill today that is a threat to our health and social care sector.”

Mr Thomas-Symonds said it was wrong to measure people’s contribution to society by salary, and pointed to how care workers, shop staff and refuse collectors who have played a critical role in the coronavirus crisis would be deemed “low-skilled” under government plans.

He also criticised Ms Patel’s refusal to waive the £624 immigration health surcharge for foreign healthcare workers, saying: “I think that it is totally unfair on the one hand to be saying thank you to those foreign-born workers we have in our NHS and then charging them for actually using it.”

It comes as a YouGov poll for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) suggested 54 per cent of Britons would support loosening immigration restrictions for workers who were defined as essential during the crisis.

Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, defended the plans as a way to “attract the brightest and the best from around the world – not just from confining it to within Europe.”

He said there was “an awful lot of capacity” within the UK for people to work in care homes, and added: “The whole point of this new regime is that we are able to determine where the need is and adjust the rules to suit that.”

The bill was first introduced to parliament in December 2018 but its progress stalled as Theresa May, the then prime minister, failed to command necessary support in her own party to win key Brexit votes.

Ahead of the bill’s second reading, Ms Patel said: “This historic piece of legislation gives the UK full control of our immigration system for the first time in decades and the power to determine who comes to this country.

“Our new points-based system is firmer, fairer, and simpler.

“It will attract the people we need to drive our economy forward and lay the foundation for a high wage, high skill, high productivity economy.”