southernpie wrote:
So he is saying they only took the pessemistic view.
The last ONS forecast didn't and it was still crap.
What I did find interesting was the bit about the researchers
Professor Alastair Buchan told the Education Select Committee that membership of the EU had "sidelined" Canadian and American researchers who used to come to work at British universities, as freedom of movement made it easier to recruit Europeans.
"One of the things that we did lose was that nice and easy flow of clinicians and clinician science from Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa," he told the Committee in the first public hearing since the vote to leave in June last year.
"We had really good collaborations, which hopefully in this Brexit climate might be reinvented, because that movement of English-speaking medicine was actually a casualty of joining Europe."
So now we are getting people coming out with things we lost by joining the EU.
As you may know I used to work for the Open University. The previous chancellor was Australian and being in the EU did not place a ban on migration from the US, Oz or NZ to the UK. There are plenty of nationals from those countries working in the UK and more than half of inward migration is from outside the EU anyway.
I think any top researcher who wanted to come here from the US or any country would have walked in so I don't see Buchan's point.
In any case the prospect something "might" (to use his word) return is not the basis for anything and I'd also ask the obvious question, does this imply Brexit will have exactly the same negative effect i.e. Brexit will mean that we lose that nice and easy flow of clinicians and clinician science from the EU?
When you think about the notion of slapping a £1000 a year levy on employing skilled workers from the EU which was being discussed yesterday I think the answer is yes.
What a daft idea that is, all companies will do is offshore the jobs. The company I work for now has offices in Poland and India. Recruitment is already restricted to those countries and that levy will mean they won't be bringing people into the UK (so paying tax here) or recruiting UK workers instead (who would also be paying tax here). No need.
Meanwhile Leadsome has promised the UK agricultural industry that migrant workers for fruit and veg picking will be exempt from immigration control. For farmers it will be as if Brexit never happened on that score.
So we are going to put barriers up against skilled labour and continue to let in low paid unskilled workers. Muddled thinking or what!