UK - Home Secretary speaks about migration

30 November 2004

David Blunkett, Home Secretary to the UK, says he is ready to take actions against exploitation of foreign workers. Blunkett is also questioning the parliamentary opposition, which would like to see that there is a quota of foreign professionals occupying jobs in the UK.

"The facts are that we need migrant labor. We have a vibrant economy and we can have a dual approach, which doesn't see managed migration as an alternative to training, to improved education and to better welfare to work policies.

According to the Home Secretary there is a shortage in workers in the UK and Blunkett praised Scotland's attempt at attracting more migrant work permit holders from abroad.

"We have 600,000 vacancies in the economy," Blunkett says and adds the Home Office is learning from the Scottish program.

Scotland is currently trying to put itself on the map by trying to attract as many foreign professionals as possible. Till 2009, the aim is to have increased foreign professionals to 8,000.

Blunkett also points out that there are cases of exploitation of foreigners working in the UK. He says there will be judicial changes to the system in order to prevent this from happening.

"We're going to strengthen the law on top of the Gang Masters Bill, around the issue of illegal employment and we're going to work on providing additional information to workers coming into our country," Blunkett says.

For more information on living in the UK, please find it here on our UK pages. We also have information about the UK Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP).