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Your support makes all the difference.London’s NHS, construction, and technology sectors are hugely reliant on immigrants from the European Union and will require a special transitional period to avoid damage, a new report has warned.
The London Assembly’s economic committee found that a quarter of construction workers in London were EU born, while a third of London’s tech workers were EU nationals.
Meanwhile, around one in 10 workers in the capital’s National Health Service are EU-born.
Around 13 per cent of London’s five million jobs – 600,000 – are held by workers born in EU countries, which the assembly says is around four time as much as across the whole of the UK.
Assembly Members (AMs) are calling for EU nationals working in London to be given the right to stay, and a fast-track vista system for highly skilled EU workers in any post-Brexit settlement.
The cross-party group shied away from explicitly calling for a regionalised immigration system but said that any new process “should be flexible and responsive to London’s needs”.
Earlier this month Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said Labour was considering a regional immigration policy that allowed London to have a more liberal regime than the rest of the UK.
Around 2.9 million EU nationals live in Britain, with around 2.15 working. Three quarters of EU migrants working in the UK currently would fail existing visa rules if no special deal for them to work in Britain is currently reached.
It was reported this weekend that Theresa May plans to set a cut-off date for new EU immigrants to be allowed to stay in the UK – and that this date would when she formally triggers Article 50. She has said she wants to trigger Article 50 by the end of the month.
Fiona Twycross AM, Chair of the Economy Committee, said: “London relies on EU workers like no other region. EU workers are the life blood of the capital’s economy – they build vital homes, care for the sick and elderly and provide food and accommodation services.
“It is vital that a new immigration system is fair and simple – and without a transitional period, the risk to London and the UK’s economic dynamism will be severe.
“The referendum result has caused a great deal of uncertainty, for residents, workers and businesses. Sectors, like health, construction and hospitality should not be pushed to the cliff edge, due to their reliance on EU workers.
“We need to give EU workers the right to remain within the UK and we categorically need assurances now.”
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