Last Sunday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ruled out plans to negotiate a Youth Mobility Scheme with the European Union. Let’s hope others in the Government convince her otherwise.
It won’t come as a surprise to regular readers that we support youth mobility. As we argued in Job Creators: 2024, since leaving the EU, we’ve made it unnecessarily hard for a relatively well-educated and skilled population with a broadly common set of values, culture and interests to contribute to our economy and forge ties with the UK.
Britain already has Youth Mobility Schemes – which allow those aged between 18-30 years old (or 18-35, depending on the country) to easily come and work in the UK – with many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, San Marino, Monaco, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Uruguay and Taiwan.
When weighing up the economics, it’s something of a no-brainer. Youth Mobility Schemes help address labour shortages, ease inflationary pressures and support economic growth. They drive innovation, internationalisation and exporting for firms that employing these young people. By the Home Office’s own calculations, the average contribution of Youth Mobility visa holders to the exchequer in direct and indirect taxes annually is £10,000 today (adjusted for inflation).
Beyond economic benefits, the scheme promotes cultural exchange, strengthens international ties, enhances the UK’s soft power and fosters long-term collaboration that can lead to more economic benefits through future foreign direct investment.
But what about the politics of all this?
Well, nearly seven in ten Brits – including 55% of Leave voters – would support a scheme that would allow 200,000 18- to 40-year-olds from the UK and EU to travel, study and work freely in each other’s countries for up to four years.
And while the Conservatives – with Reform on their backs – will be unlikely to endorse the move, former Chancellor George Osborne makes the point on Political Currency that in negotiating a business-friendly arrangement with the EU, the Labour Party would set a trap for his Party. After all, the changes will be cemented in by the election, meaning Conservative opposition to them would put the Party at odds with Britain’s powerful business lobby.
Of course, the net migration figures terrify the Government. However, just 23,000 people came to the UK on Youth Mobility Visas in 2023, with as many young Brits going the other way (particularly to Australia). Also, most of these schemes are capped – Uruguay at 500 people, Canada at 8,000, and Australia at 45,000. We could negotiate for a capped EU Youth Mobility Visa scheme to offset the political risk associated with unexpectedly large numbers.
Nuclear Options
Keir Starmer has vowed to “rip up the rulebook” to accelerate new nuclear power, including small modular reactors (SMRs), which promise faster and cheaper deployment than traditional gigawatt-scale plants.
Reforms include increasing the number of sites on which power stations can be located, widely seen as one of the most important things for the industry, setting up a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce (see here for more on this), and better aligning the UK with international partners so reactor designs approved abroad could be green-lit more quickly.
This was music to our ears, and surely to those of Britain’s energy-intensive businesses too. In Small Wonders, our Research Director Eamonn Ives’ number one recommendation was around increasing the number of sites, and he also recommended international mutual recognition.
Far be it for us to look a gift policy in the mouth, but we would add that this should just be the start. We also proposed allowing local authorities which approve the construction of new nuclear power stations to capture more of the business rates they pay, and increasing the resourcing of the nuclear regulators to deal with more applications.
Regardless, a nuclear renaissance in Britain has never looked so likely.
Getting to Know You
If you scroll down you’ll see we’ve got lots of events in the pipeline. Some of these are close to full already, so if you want earlier invites, you’ll need to spend a couple of minutes telling us a bit about you and the sorts of events you want to be invited to.
As part of our growing activities, we’re also looking for new places around the country to host us. If you or your company would like to partner with us, drop us an email.
Breaking Barriers
The Disability Policy Centre are conducting a new project around disabled CEOs and business leaders, for which they’re interviewing entrepreneurs across a range of businesses.
Do you know someone who has a great story to tell about the barriers they faced in getting to the top and how they’re working to remove them? If so, feel free to drop Chloe and Louie a line.
