The circle that needs to be squared before cutting migrant worker numbers - Ismail Mulla
Immigration is a hot button issue that tends to evoke an emotional rather than rational response. But if we’re going to get on top of immigration as a nation, we need to face reality head on.
The first of these realities is that immigration is not an all encompassing blob.
It isn’t people on dinghies seeking benefits, it isn’t high earning tech bros from the subcontinent and it’s not students from Europe seeking to gain the system to get an indefinite right to stay.
It is far more nuanced than that. And while there is a clear need for curbs on immigration, there are also instances where the country needs it.
Britain cannot turn away from the world, as much as some people would like it to. The sooner we reconcile with this fact the sooner we can start tackling the issue of immigration in a constructive and sensible way.
The root cause for the resentment towards immigration is that the lives of those living here have seen little to no improvement in recent decades. In fact in some areas there has been a deterioration in the quality of life.
Housing, healthcare, infrastructure, jobs are all under pressure and immigration has created an additional burden on services.
But there are areas where we simply do not have the workforce or expertise to shy away from immigration. One such area is in nursing.
The number of nurses and midwives registered to work in the UK has “decelerated” due to a “significant slowdown” in international recruitment.
Over the past year, 20,671 nurses and midwives who were educated outside the UK joined the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register for the first time – 30 per cent fewer than the previous year, according to a new review of nursing numbers in Britain.
Changes to visa rules may have played a part, as well as a drive to recruit locally, say officials.
While some will say that this is good news, surely it opens doors for homegrown nurses, that isn’t the case. Domestic recruitment is not enough to offset the international slowdown.
The review said: “The number of UK-educated professionals joining our register for the first time has continued to grow but at a slower rate and not by enough to offset the fall in international recruitment – hence the overall register has grown more slowly over the past year.”
The number of nurses and midwives on the register has reached the highest number on record but the rate of growth is lower than the previous year.
If this is the trend in the future then it is worth asking, can we afford to lose nurses and midwives. When there clearly have been calls in the not too distant past for more to bolster the nursing profession.
While a total of 32,163 UK professionals joined the register in the 12 months to March 2025, a 5.9 per cent rise compared to the previous year, 2023/24 saw an 11.9 per cent rise in the number of new nurses and midwives from the UK.
This is illustrative of the need for Britain to shore up labour in key sectors if it really wants to turn away from migrant labour.
Unless the talent pipeline is not secured then it becomes very difficult to turn away from international workers.
In fact, it could be said that it would be folly to turn them away if we haven’t got the capacity to fill the necessary positions.
And it is not just about filling positions but also making sure that they remain filled. Retention is clearly a problem area for nursing.
Concerns have been raised about the number of nurses and midwives leaving the profession due to mental and physical health issues.
Some 28,789 people left the register last year, with 13 per cent of these saying they felt forced to leave due to a physical or mental health issue.
It was the second most common reason for leaving the register last year behind retirement.
The warning from Lynn Woolsey, chief nursing officer at the Royal College of Nursing, that the number of people studying nursing in the UK is “falling through the floor”, is also a major cause for concern.
She added: “We warned the Government that hostile immigration policies and poor pay were driving international staff away and at a time when we couldn’t afford to lose a single nurse.
“The slowing growth of the UK-trained workforce isn’t coming close to offsetting the number of international recruits leaving.”
Herein lies the crux of the matter when it comes to immigration. The Government needs to square that circle before it can start talking about cutting migrant workers.