Invite 'super-mobile' migrants from India: UK think-tank

Prasun Sonwalkar

London, Aug 18 (PTI) A UK-based influential think-tank
wants the British government to offer tax breaks and other
incentives to highly skilled "super-mobile" migrants from
India and other non-European Union countries instead of
imposing new curbs on immigration.

The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), which
has close ties with the ruling Labour party, said in a new
report that Britain could lose out on sought-after skills
offered by mobile immigrants if they re-migrate to other
countries.

More efforts should be made to encourage them to stay
in Britain, it said.

There are indications that many highly skilled
professionals are not interested in settling down in Britain
and instead prefer to work here for short periods and move on
elsewhere.

The IPPR report, titled 'Shall we stay or shall we go:
Re-migration trends among Britain's immigrants', dismisses
fears over population growth due to immigration.

Tim Finch, IPPR's head of migration, said many more
immigrants were coming to Britain for short periods of time
before leaving.

"The migration debate in the UK is fixated with the
idea that immigrants come to settle and not enough attention
has been paid to the fact that more and more immigrants are
spending only short periods in the UK," he said.

"Our research shows that many groups of migrants are
now increasingly mobile. They are coming to the UK to study
and work for short periods and then they are moving on.

"As global competition for highly skilled migrants
increases in future years, schemes to retain migrants may
become as important as attracting them in the first place,"
Tim Finch said.

The report says: "We need to be making migrants feel
more welcome in this country, both in the way we talk about
them, and in more practical ways. In particular we need to
ensure that integration policies and service provision take
account of the fact that many migrants will be in the UK for
relatively short periods".

The report listed measures to encourage migrants to
stay longer in the UK: extending schemes to encourage and help
foreign students to find jobs in the UK after they graduate;
awarding extra points under the new points-based system to
high skilled migrants who are committed to staying in the UK
longer term; simplifying processes for visa and work permit
extensions, allowing skilled migrants to bring in their
families more easily; and creating tax incentives that
encourage such migrants to stay in the UK. PTI