UK Home Secretary Planning to Introduce New Immigration Quota

The newly appointed UK Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, is examining a plan to get rid of the immigration target and then substitute it with an all-new annual quota, the Sun reported.

In this new proposal, which has been prepared by Tory MP and former minister Nick Boles, a new figure will be evaluated for the differing number of new arrivals that the UK economy requires every year. The parliament will then be informed about it annually in a statement, similar to the Budget statement.

“The country will need a new immigration policy once we have left the European Union. We have an opportunity to devise an immigration policy that is tough but humane, that serves the interests of British businesses and our public services, while protecting our national security and community cohesion,” Boles wrote in a letter to Javid that was accessed by the publication. The Tories made a pledge in 2010 to reduce new arrivals to below 100,000 a year, but the number has not been met yet.

The new system proposed by Boles will be strengthened by five tough principles, which include only permitting migrants to come to the United Kingdom if they are plugging a gap when it comes to skills shortage and only if they have a real job offer, the report said.

Family dependents will be permitted to move to the United Kingdom to join the member of the family if they have enough funds to support them. The new immigrants will have to show that have a reasonable command over English. Also, immigrants would be able to claim benefits as well as free non-emergency healthcare only after they have worked in the United Kingdom and made tax payments in the country for many years.

Javid was appointed as the Home Secretary on April 30 following Amber Rudd’s resignation from the post. Rudd resigned on April 29, saying that she “inadvertently misled” the members of parliament over targets for removal of undocumented immigrants.

Javid is the first person from an ethnic minority to hold the post. The 48-year-old is the son of Pakistani migrants and has had frequent clashes with UK Prime Minister Theresa May over immigration during Cabinet session previously.

Soon after his appointment he told Boles in the House of Commons that he will put “his own stamp” on the key ministry, according to the report.

“We’re going to have a strategy in place that does something the previous home secretary set out last week when she made a statement to parliament–to ensure that we have an immigration policy that is fair, it treats people with respect, and with decency,” Javid had said earlier, BBC reported.