The government’s post-Brexit immigration system could cost employers more than £1bn in administration costs over five years, harm the higher education sector by discouraging EU students and risk a new Windrush scandal.
A report by Global Future, a think tank that supports more open immigration, says the NHS would face almost £120m a year in additional costs to recruit overseas staff under the system described in the immigration white paper. The study separately estimates the cost to the NHS by using figures for the likely number of EU workers needed under the service’s long-term plan and fees and other charges they would incur. This would, it said, total £118m a year.
The long-delayed immigration white paper imposes the same £30,000-a-year minimum salary threshold on EU citizens looking to work in the UK that already applies to workers from outside the bloc. EU citizens will now also be subject to various visa fees and other charges from which they were previously exempt.
The assessments were based on data modelled used by the Home Office based on the number of people expected to apply for visas of different lengths, and a calculated average cost to employers of almost £12,500 per EU national, the study comes to a five-year total of £1.14bn, with £337m faced by the public sector.
The report also alleges that the £30,000 minimum salary threshold could eventually leave as many as 100,000 jobs social care and nursing jobs unfilled and could have a knock-on effect in other sectors.
Students from the EU who decide to base themselves in the UK would incur visa and health surcharge costs of almost £1,300 over a three-year degree, the thinktank says, making a total of £80m a year across the sector as a whole.
Building barriers
The report also says that by requiring people currently living in the UK under freedom of movement to suddenly prove their status, the scheme risks mirroring the Windrush scandal, in which UK nationals of Caribbean origin who had been living legally in the UK for decades were denied rights or deported because of a lack of documentation.
Applicants can only apply online and only on Android phones. As with Windrush, the uninformed will find themselves unable to work, use the NHS or rent property if they do not register by the two-year cut-off date. Many will not have the necessary documentation to support their application, thereby putting them at risk of being subject to sanctions. Other vulnerable persons include the elderly, those in care homes with dementia or EU children in care.
Home Office errors and technicalities could create serious issues and potentially deprive eligible persons thereby creating human rights violations through the usual mix of maladministration and malice. A Home Office spokesman said the report’s estimated costs were speculative and the system to allow EU nationals to have settled status in the UK was straightforward and simple.
