(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his new Labour government would improve skills training in the UK as a way of ending record levels of migration, a key issue during this month’s general election campaign.
“We shouldn’t have as high a level of migration as we do simply because we haven’t got a skills strategy that works,” Starmer said at a speech Monday at the Farnborough International Airshow. He said his administration would not be “pulling the easy lever on importing skills” and instead would work with industry to end what he called the country’s “skills gap.”
Tackling immigration is a key priority for the Labour government, which despite securing a landslide victory in the election still wants to reduce record numbers to stave off growing political discontent that fuels the country’s populist right.
A record 2.3 million people immigrated to the UK over the last two years, while more than one in three job vacancies are due to a lack of skills, according to the government. The skills shortage is a long-running problem which experts say has contributed to the UK’s stagnant productivity since the financial crisis.
Speaking in Hampshire, Starmer announced a new Skills England body which he said would work with businesses, trade unions, education providers and the Migration Advisory Committee to identify skills shortages.
The premier said businesses will be given increased flexibility to spend money on training — though he didn’t give details. Currently, large employers must use 0.5% of their annual wage bill to fund apprenticeships, which must last a year and involve at least one day per week in the classroom.
“Your fingerprints are on this plan,” he told the business audience.
Local mayors will also be given more power over adult education budgets. The government wants to “train young people not just for any business, but for the businesses that exist in their communities,” Starmer said.
It is another attempt by the government to achieve its “central mission” of increasing economic growth without raising taxes.
Starmer was also asked if the government would accept recommendations from independent pay review bodies to award raises of 5.5% to teachers and National Health Service staff. In a line that echoed his Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, he said ministers would take a “sensible” approach and also factor in the economic hit from industrial action.
“There is a cost that’s measured in the pounds and pence lost to the economy,” he said. “And there’s a cost to the other work that we need to do in relation to the public services that we need to deliver, and that has to be taken into account as we come to a final decision.”
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