London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has written to the government to demand changes to its planned post-Brexit immigration policy, saying ministers had not learned the lessons of the Windrush scandal.
In a letter to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, the mayor said the wider immigration policy, being proposed by the government in an immigration white paper published just before Christmas, and which included plans to restrict immigration to people earning above £30,000 a year, would badly damage London’s economy.
The Home Office now faces the unprecedented task of registering 3.4 million EU citizens resident in the UK however many people will find the process inaccessible and unaffordable. The mayor criticised the £65 fee millions of EU nationals would need to pay to apply for settled status, likening it to missteps that saw some members of the Windrush generation targeted for immigration enforcement when they could not prove their status. The mayor was of the opinion that the prohibitive cost of applying for leave to remain or citizenship could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of young people who were born in the UK or, like the Windrush generation, had been brought there as children. He has demanded that, as a matter of fairness, the government should waive the settled status fee for EU nationals and their families who were resident in the UK before the referendum took
Khan also argued that the plan to restrict immigration to skilled people with an annual salary of £30,000 or more (the living wage in London is currently £20,155) will stifle London’s economy and retard its future growth. One solution would be the expansion and devolution of the official “shortage occupation list” to assist the needs of London, as well as a reduction in the salary cap. These measures would help to avoid a recruitment cliff-edge, keep the UK open to a range of skills, and ensure workers are paid a decent wage.
