Brexit 'an enormous drag' on UK tech businesses, says Labour donor Ewan Kirk

Dr Ewan Kirk, who founded investment management firm Cantab Capital Partners and is now chairman of VC fund Deeptech Labs and a Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence for the University of Cambridge's maths department, said the situation means more needs to be done to retain international students once they graduate.

In October he published a paper for Progressive Britain suggesting a set of potential Government policies that could support innovation and encourage growth. They include offering 10-year visas to graduates of STEM subjects to keep their skills in the British economy.

"It would be nice and simple,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

"We have the brightest and best in the world come to the UK because we have a world-beating education system.

"They pay about £100,000 for the privilege to do that and then as soon as they finish, we tell them to go home and make it very difficult to stay. That is just nuts.

"It would be great if we had a huge number of homegrown scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs but the reality is we don’t.

“That is a controversial thing to say because immigration is still a salient issue."

He said such a policy is required because post-Brexit rules have made it much harder for firms to recruit and retain European nationals.

Dr Kirk said: "I ran a very geeky high-tech financial services business in Cambridge with 50 PhD mathematicians and computer scientists. I think we had 17 different countries represented.

"What was great was we just hired them. We had a guy from Romania who I interviewed on the telephone and he got on the plane the following day and joined the day after that.

"That is just not possible at the moment and that is an enormous drag on our high-technology businesses.

"Yes you can get special visas but you have to go through the whole process of proving there is no one in the whole of the UK who could possibly do this job. It is just a nightmare and we make it hard."

He said policies such as the immigration health surcharge is also a deterrent to coming and working in this country.

"Germany and France and Spain would like to keep their smart people but we have got this education system that brings them in so we should take advantage of that and keep them.”

Dr Kirk was a Remain campaigner and donated to the Scientists for EU. He donated to the Conservatives under the leadership of David Cameron and supported the Liberal Democrats in 2019, making donations totalling £332,500 to the party that year.

He made a £10,000 donation to Labour in the run-up to last year’s General Election.

"I have had pretty fixed political views for the past 30 or 40 years but the parties have moved around a lot,” he said. "If I’m brutally honest, I’m just a centrist Dad.”

Dr Kirk said Labour needs time and patience after a challenging start to life in Government.

"There have been a few avoidable missteps, there were always going to be,” he said.

"Very few people in the cabinet or government have any experience of Government and it is difficult and complicated job that takes a long time to get right. But overall their heart is in the right place and they are holding up pretty well.”

The Government has set out ambitions for the UK to be the “destination of choice” for talented individuals, with routes to entry including Global Talent, Graduate and the Innovator Founder visas.

The Migration Advisory Committee has been commissioned to review the reliance of key sectors on international recruitment and is due to report back later this year.

A Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to an internationally competitive visa system for exceptional talent to come to the UK, with multiple routes attracting skilled individuals from around the world.”