Mayor of London Sadiq Khan says the capital needs “more migrants” and wants the powers to let more people come to the city to work.
The politician said he had “respect” for people who believed the numbers of people coming to the UK should go down but said increased migration would boost London’s economy.
Speaking to Channel 4 News, he said: “I’ve no hesitation in saying we need more migrants in London”.
He added: “Park the social benefits to our city from migration, park the cultural benefits to our city from migration, I’ve spent this morning with some of our city’s leading business people who create jobs, wealth and prosperity.
“They’ve got a skills shortage and a labour shortage.
“We’ve got a pipeline of training up Londoners for future proofed jobs, even if every single Londoner who is currently not working was trained up to do these jobs we would still have a massive number of vacancies, a record number of vacancies in the health sector, in social care sector and hospitality and tech and so forth so we need a sensible migration policy.”
He used the example of an aging workforce in the construction industry and the loss of EU-born workers as proof of the need for “sensible migration” and said if other parts of the country wanted lower migration then London should be allowed to go its own way.
He said: “Devolve to cities like London the powers to have a regional shortage occupation list so I can be in charge of deciding how many people come into London to help our economy.”
