The stricter immigration rules could reach the UK Net Zero mission, warns the report | Green economy

Difficult rules announced in the Government White Immigration Paper could compromise the United Kingdom Net Zero mission by causing shortages of labor, a report warned.

The Labor White Paper published last month included plans aimed at increasing the minimum qualification for qualified workers visas from level A equivalent and maintaining the higher salary of £ 38,700 introduced by the outgoing conservative government last year.

A report by the Center for European Reform (CER), calculates that more than half of workers born abroad making “green jobs” in the United Kingdom – 260,000 out of 465,000 – would not have been authorized under new rules.

Ministers are counting on employers to increase wages and offer more training to attract domestic workers in these roles, but John Springford, a partners, said that could increase the costs of Great consumers.

“If the shortages of labor increase the cost of decarbonization buildings, fewer people will isolate their house or buy heat pumps,” he said.

Using Office for National Statistics data, the CER has defined green work like the one in which more than a third of the worker’s time is devoted to green tasks. Many of them are in the construction sector, given the need to modernize houses with low carbon technologies, for example.

The report also suggests that construction jobs can generally be difficult to fill under the new visa regime, which makes a doubt about the government’s objective to build 1.5 million houses by the end of Parliament.

“The construction is at high workforce and has a lot of employees, because the work is physical and seasonal. Since the government’s objective is to extend the construction of houses and simultaneously decarbonizing buildings, the sector is most at risk of labor shortages following the government’s immigration proposals, “said the report.

The Labor Party has announced that the existing “immigration list”, which allows people who make specific types of jobs to be introduced downwards, will be replaced by a “temporary shortage list”. To prevent this from becoming a long -term measure, the relevant industry should establish plans to train and recruit more British workers.

The CER has declared that the use of a shortage list as a security valve could be problematic because the higher salary threshold elsewhere means that migrants in the sectors with shortages cannot be able to move to other jobs, leaving them vulnerable to operating by the employer who sponsors their visa.

This problem arose in social care where holders of health and care visas were subjected to operations by bad employers, with little chance of moving to another position.

“The government should keep an eye on labor shortages in professions that are crucial for its Net Zero and House-Building missions, and to relax visa rules if necessary,” said Springford. “But offering exemptions to the rules for specific professions is risky.”

Other excessive options in the report include the supply of “green visas” for jobs that contribute to reaching the government’s goal of hitting Net Zero by 2050, or reducing salary and skills in the economy.

Keir Starmer announced the repression of immigration last month, saying that it marked the end of a “sordid chapter for our policy, our economy and our country” in which the post-Brexit conservative government had supervised the reduction of migration.

Net migration reached a record level greater than 900,000 in the year until June 2023 before dropping suddenly after a series of modifications made by the Rishi Sunak government, in particular the tightening of the rules for Visa candidates to provide dependents. During the 2024 calendar year, net migration was 431,000.

Starmer said the net migration would fall “considerably” due to the changes it has announced.

In addition to provoking potential labor shortages in the key sectors, economists have declared that lower net migration could encourage the independent office for a budgetary responsibility to retrograde its growth forecasts.

The government was approached for comments.