No cap on skilled Indian immigrants: Gordon Brown

British businesses facing labour shortages have benefited from being able to recruit more widely from immigrants.

Rejecting suggestions that there should be an annual limit on immigration, Prime Minister Gordon Brown today said British business has benefitted “very substantially” from an influx of people into the country -including Indians – over the last decade.

Responding to a report by a House of Lords Committee saying record immigration had had “little or no” impact on people’s economic well-being, the Prime Minister told newsmen at 10, Downing Street that the concerns raised were already being tackled by a new points-based system that would allow only highly skilled workers into the UK.

He said immigration had added six billion pounds to the economy and it was a “substantial income”. Most British businesses have faced labour shortages had benefited from being able to recruit more widely from skilled labour, he said. Answering a question on acute shortage of low-skilled labour faced by 10,000 Indian restaurants in the UK, the Prime Minister said steps were being taken to train people who are already in the UK. Under the new points based system, unskilled immigrants from outside the European Union are barred. There would be a new citizenship fund, with people coming into the country being expected to contribute to the public services they use. And there was more financial help for local authorities to enable them to deal with the influx.

In Odisha, Modi mounts ‘loot tantra-vs-bachat utsav’ attack on Congress over GST

India1 hr ago

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday hailed the revised Goods and Services Tax (GST) structures, saying the era of “double bachat (saving) and double kamai (income)” has arrived under the Bharatiya Janata Party rule. Addressing the ' Namo Yuva Samabesh' in Jharsuguda, Modi accused the Congress of indulging in “loot tantra (tactics)” while in power.

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