“India has consistently advocated for greater mobility for its skilled professionals to fill U.K. domestic skills-shortages, particularly in the healthcare and IT sectors,” said peer Karan Bilimoria, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for India and founder of Cobra Beer.
“A balanced and sensible approach to immigration within the FTA framework can serve as a catalyst for growth and innovation in both nations,” Bilimoria added.
But it’s a touchy subject for the current Labour government, which has boasted a tough stance on migration and is coming under increasing pressure on the issue from the likes of the right-wing Reform UK party. The party — headed by Brexit instigator Nigel Farage — is currently flying high in the polls.
Currently, the U.K.’s inter-company transfer visas, as well as skilled worker and investor visas, count towards legal immigration figures, although there have been some high-profile calls — including from Britain’s former investment minister — for these categories to be decoupled.
Officially, however, the former Tory government has been clear that immigration and visas are a red line they were not willing to cross. Commenting on negotiations in an interview with The Telegraph newspaper last year, former trade chief turned opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said: “As business secretary, even as I was trying to do things to limit immigration, we had an India FTA [free trade agreement] where they kept trying to bring in migration and I said no. It’s one of the reasons why we didn’t sign it.” Colleagues have reportedly since refuted her claims.
The UK’s green border plan
Another area of contention is Britain’s plan to introduce a carbon border tax — known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — which will see a tax or import duty applied to certain carbon-intensive goods imported to the U.K. such as steel, aluminium and cement by 2027.