A week before the referendum took place in 2016, Julian Sturdy, Conservative MP for York Outer, wrote a column for The York Press (on his website HERE) encouraging people to vote in the referendum and setting out his reasons for voting to leave the EU. He was obviously concerned, among other things, about immigration although he didn't make a big farage out of it so to speak. He did specifically say:
"If we vote to leave we can regain our ability to deport foreign criminals, we can protect our public services by controlling the number of people coming into Britain from the EU, and we can claw back our annual net contribution of £8.5 billion"
He increasingly looks like a man who had no idea what he was talking about in 2016. On Monday Hansard records an answer to a written parliamentary question from him, which was this:
"To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to ensure that new immigration framework will enable the (a) health service and (b) social care sector to continue to recruit overseas staff when necessary".
His question is a timely one. The Home care sector is already in crisis due to staff shortages, described as a ‘relentless challenge’ for home care providers in many places by the respected King's Fund (HERE) and one of the biggest providers has collapsed into administration just this week (HERE).
As for the NHS, it currently has 100,000 vacancies which could rise to 250,000 in a decade (HERE). The report says, "Dissatisfied staff are leaving and increasingly difficult to replace because of Brexit and tighter immigration rules".
Caroline Noakes, Minister of State at The Home Office, gave him an answer of sorts (read it HERE) which tries to offer reassurance that all will be well. I'm not sure it will - given the anti immigrant atmosphere created by Brexit and the rhetoric still being employed - are EU citizens likely to want to come here? I doubt it, the numbers are dropping like a stone already. Minister Noakes implies that the White paper on immigration published last year will be the basis for a consultation prior to legislating for a new Immigration Bill.
Care home providers like Four Seasons Healthcare, the one that went bust this week, may not be altogether reassured that they may have to pay low-skilled immigrants £30,000 a year in order for them to meet the proposed new rules (HERE). And I assume the Equal Pay Act will mean everyone in the care sector will have to be paid £30K a year minimum.
So, Sturdy is right to be worried. Not about immigrants overloading our public services from which they need 'protecting', but about the lack of EU immigrants to staff them. Thanks to the Brexit which he encouraged.
He finished his 2016 York Press article with this:
"For people who are undecided perhaps look at it another way, would you vote to join the EU now if Britain was not already a member?"
At the moment, according to all the polls (HERE) the answer is YES.
