Liz Truss is facing a cabinet backlash over plans to expand the shortage occupation list in order to help businesses more recruit more overseas workers.
Home secretary Suella Braverman is said to have concerns, keen for the government to meet its manifesto commitment to bring down net immigration numbers.
The prime minister and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are understood to be preparing plans to relax visa rules so more migrant workers can meet labour shortages in areas such as the food and farming sector.
Chloe Smith, work and pensions secretary, said on Monday that it was “perfectly possible” that the PM would take steps to boost overseas workers, saying she was “quite comfortable” with the idea.
She told LBC: “That is in line with what the prime minister stated, very clearly, during her campaign to be the leader of the Conservative party.”
The minister added: “And I’m quite comfortable with that. I think there’s a blend [of policies] that will enable the economy to grow. Of course the home secretary will be setting out more in due course on migration.”
Ms Truss is set to launch a major review of the country’s visa system in a move to tackle acute post-Brexit labour shortages in key industries, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The review could lift the cap on seasonal workers from abroad working in agriculture, as well as loosening the requirement to speak English in some sectors to enable more foreign workers into the country, the report said – citing a Downing Street official.
However, Ms Braverman is among Brexiteers in cabinet, including business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch, who are insistent that there must not be overall rise in immigration, according to The Telegraph.
“The home secretary does not believe reducing net migration needs to mean we go to lower growth. You can achieve both,” one Whitehall source told the newspaper.
During her campaign for the Tory leadership, Ms Truss promised to tackle the labour shortages in farming, partly caused by Brexit freedom of movement issues, with a short-term expansion to the seasonal workers scheme.
A recent government report warned that such shortages were badly affecting the food and farming sector, often forcing farmers to cull healthy pigs and leave fruit rotting in the fields.
The seasonal workers programme – first launched in 2019 – temporarily allows 40,000 overseas workers into the UK for seasonal roles in the horticulture and poultry sectors.
That cap is expected to be lifted and the six-month time limit on workers being in the UK extended, according to a report in The Sun.
“We need to put measures in place so that we have the right skills that the economy, including the rural economy, needs to stimulate growth,” said a No 10 source.
But when asked about the idea that immigration rules might be relaxed, Mr Kwarteng told the BBC on Sunday: “It’s not about relaxing rules. The whole point about the Brexit debate … was we need to control immigration in a way that works for the UK.”
