Richard Tice

Richard Tice

Reform UK — Boston and Skegness

Speaking in the House of Commons on 10 March 2025

Debate

Legal and Illegal Migration: Suspension

Contribution

It was working well, and we had people coming from around the world to help the NHS—but we were training our own, and that was a great thing. That comes back to the point that what has happened in the past 15 years is the complete failure to deliver for population growth at every level. The madness of the cap on training our own people who want to be nurses or doctors—it is absolutely ludicrous. We encouraged businesses in that by saying, “You do not need to invest in training. You can just bring in people from overseas.” What happened? That brought in low-skilled, lower-cost labour from overseas, and we were told by the authorities, the ONS and the Office for Budget Responsibility or its predecessors, that that would be a good thing for the country. Now, we have been told by the OBR, which has just caught up with things, that lower-skilled and lower-cost labour never contributes financially to the economy more than it takes out.

More from Richard Tice

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

For Richard Tice's full parliamentary record including voting history, expenses and all other contributions, see the Richard Tice report card.