NHS should offer 'free British citizenship' to EU employees: Institute of Public Policy Research
The UK government should offer "free British citizenship" to the more than 57,000 European Union nationals currently working in the UK's National Health Service, according to a report by the Institute of Public Policy Research. The think tank also suggested the £1,200 fee should be waived as part of a package of measures to avoid a "brain drain" from the NHS, amid continued uncertainty surrounding the status of EU nationals in the UK following the Brexit vote.

The NHS would collapse without its 57,000 workers who are EU nationals and they must be offered free British citizenship so they don’t leave the country after Brexit, according to a leading thinktank.

The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) says in a report released on Thursday the concessions to EU nationals living in Britain are needed to prevent a post-Brexit brain-drain of talent harming the economy.

Chris Murray, who compiled the report, said: “It is critical to public health that these workers do not seek jobs elsewhere. All EU nationals who work for the NHS, or as locums in the NHS system, should be eligible to apply for British citizenship. This offer should be organised by the regional NHS and mental health trusts, who would be responsible for writing to all NHS staff who are EU nationals to inform them of their eligibility.”

In particular, according to Murray, the position of EU citizens working in the NHS needs to be safeguarded by making them a “generous citizenship offer”. He added: “There are currently around 57,000 EU nationals working in the English NHS, accounting for 5% of its workforce; one in 10 of the UK’s registered doctors is an EU national. Without them the NHS would collapse.”

One of its proposals is to reform UK citizenship laws, including waiving the £1,200 citizenship fee for NHS workers.

The report is published as the latest official quarterly migration statistics are released on Thursday, showing whether there was a spike in EU nationals coming to Britain or applying for citizenship in the three months before the 23 June referendum.

The Brexit result has left the future status of 3 million EU citizens living in Britain uncertain. While the IPPR says their deportation is ultimately unlikely, the lack of official reassurance is already having a chilling effect on those seeking jobs, housing, bank loans or making other long-term commitments.

The NHS has become increasingly reliant on EU nationals to keep it on its feet, with the numbers employed rising from 33,420 in 2012 to 41,566 in 2014. As of February this year, 57,063 of the NHS’s 1.2 million staff are citizens of other EU countries. The latest figure includes more than 7,000 EU nationals working as consultants or specialist registrars and more than 21,000 as nurses and health visitors.

The IPPR also suggests that any EU nationals who have lived in Britain for more than six years should be automatically entitled to British citizenship, as well as all children of EU nationals who have been educated in the UK. Automatic indefinite leave to remain should be offered to all other EU migrants currently in Britain.

The thinktank says wider reform of the current system of British citizenship is so overly complicated and bureaucratic that it is deterring the high earners that the British economy needs, and is so expensive that it also deters the lower skilled workers that the sectors of the economy that depend on manual labour also need.

To deal with these problems, the IPPR says those with globally competitive skills should be able to pay extra to get a fast-track to citizenship while those in low wage jobs should be offered a government-backed loan – like a student loan – to enable them to pay back the costs of becoming a UK citizen over years.

Meanwhile, a British Future/ICM poll showed that the public does not believe the government will meet its target to reduce net migration to below 100,000 a year by 2020 even after Brexit takes place. In the poll, which was conducted just after the referendum in June, only 37% agreed the net migration target was likely to be reached in the next five years.

The government’s outgoing chief advisor on migration, Prof David Metcalf, also called for a much stronger enforcement of minimum labour standards in the UK to ensure the country’s flexible labour market prevents undercutting by foreign workers and boosts the welfare of British residents.

After nine years as chairman of the home secretary’s migration advisory committee, Metcalf said in a valedictory report that half the current level of immigration – 308,000 out of 630,000 – was work-related. He said skilled migration was much more likely than migration by people with low skills to be complementary to British labour and capital, adding: “They contribute, net, to productivity, the public finances and the employment prospects of local labour.”

Metcalf said the number of labour migrants was heavily influenced by other public and private employer policies, saying that private sector employers had invested too little in the science, technology and IT skills of UK residents, which has led to the constant pleas for such jobs to be given priority in immigration. He hoped that higher migrant pay thresholds and the new £1,000 immigration skills charge would encourage greater training.

He also warned that public spending constraints often led to greater immigration, particularly for nurses, paramedics, care sector and science and maths teachers.

But he said that while low-skilled migration benefited labour-intensive British employers and most such migrants, they also exerted a downward pressure on the pay of low-skilled workers and – in the worst examples – serious exploitation of migrant, and possibly UK, labour.

“Therefore it is crucial that minimum labour standards are enforced,” Metcalf concluded. “Alas, evidence suggests that in pursuing our flexible labour market – which has mostly served us well – such enforcement is inadequate. Incomplete supervision holds for the national minimum wage, labour gangs (particularly in horticulture) and employment agencies for migrants.”