THERE is "no suggestion" that skilled migrants would not be able to work in Britain after the Conservatives recommitted themselves to reducing net migration to below 100,000, Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, has insisted.
This week, Theresa May ended growing speculation over whether or not plans for a cap on net migration, introduced by David Cameron, would be ditched by promising a future Tory Government under her premiership would curb migration levels.
Pressed repeatedly on how migration targets would be met, Mr Clark would not reveal specific plans but said the UK Government would "look at each sector" to decide how the policy would apply.
He stressed that the key difference following the Brexit vote was that the country would now have control over immigration “in a way that we haven't in the past".
Mr Clark said the focus would be on building up technical skills in the British workforce over "the medium and long term" to reduce the need for foreign labour and highlighted the nuclear power sector as one where workers were having to come from abroad due to a lack of skills in the UK.
Meantime, his Tory colleague Ruth Davidson claimed Scotland was attracting fewer migrants than other parts of the UK due to higher taxes and falling school standards.
On a visit to the Shortbread House of Edinburgh's factory to highlight the importance of the UK market to Scottish businesses and jobs, Ms Davidson was asked whether or not a migration cap was workable for Scottish businesses.
She replied: “The real question in Scotland is when we've got a third of the landmass and 8.4 per cent of the UK's population, why do only four per cent of people, who choose to move and settle in the UK, want to come to Scotland?
"That's because we've got the highest taxation, we're losing our reputation for being the best school area in the country, and there are real questions there for the Scottish Government.
"The change that's going to happen with Brexit is that the UK will make decisions about immigration rather than having those decisions made by 27 other countries. But what's important is that we do attract people into Scotland.”
The Scottish party leader noted how in terms of Scotland’s occupational shortage list, it was no different to that in the rest of the UK, so it raised the question: why were people choosing to settle elsewhere but not north of the border.
"We need to make sure that we've got a more competitive tax regime, that we're not a quarter away from recession as we are…and we need to restore some of the chances that people look for in Scotland like good schools."
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