Concern over Labour immigration plans

Prime Minister Keir Starmer will today set out plans to reform Britain's immigration system, pledging that “migration numbers will fall”. 

Yesterday Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said care staff would no longer be recruited from overseas as part of a crackdown on low-skilled workers coming to the UK. Further changes are expected to be announced later today as the government attemps to cut net migration.

But the SNP said Labour was “running scared” of Nigel Farage and Reform UK, saying the plans would be “devastating” for both the NHS in Scotland and the care sector. 

The party's deputy Westminster leader, Pete Wishart, said: “Labour’s crackdown on immigration will be utterly devastating to Scotland’s economy and public services like our NHS and care sector. 

“The Labour government has already damaged care services with its National Insurance tax hike and its hostile migration policies - it is unthinkable for them to be delivering another blow to our care sector.

“Scotland has significant population challenges and we are quickly approaching the point where we will have too few working age people available to support an ever increasing older population. 

“We need people to staff our NHS and care service. We need people to support key Scottish industries like agriculture. We need university graduates building their lives in Scotland and contributing to our economy.”

Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay said: “This is a cruel and totally self-defeating policy that will only serve to hammer Scotland’s services.

“There have been warnings of staff shortages from the care sector and others, and these policies will only make them more severe.

“It is extremely cynical politics. Nigel Farage just has to say ‘jump’ and Labour will ask how high. We cannot allow our immigration policy to be set by the far right priorities of Reform, and trying to imitate them won’t help anyone.”