Reform UK would introduce a migrant tax forcing employers to pay a higher National Insurance (NI) rate on foreign workers, its leader has announced.
In an exclusive article for The Telegraph, Richard Tice said Reform would require most employers to pay an NI rate of 20 per cent for every foreign worker they employed, compared with the current 13.8 per cent for British employees.
He said the new tax would not only incentivise companies to recruit British workers rather than rely on cheaper foreign staff but could alsoraise more than £20 billion over the next five years.
Foreign health and care workers would be exempt from the tax to protect the NHS, as would businesses that employed five or fewer staff.
“The tax will increase the demand and therefore the wages of domestic labour. Because we believe in our young people, we will use the revenues raised to upskill them through apprenticeships and training schemes,” said Mr Tice as he unveiled the plan alongside Nigel Farage in London.
“Our message is clear – businesses should be employing and training British workers where they can, and we are going to make sure they do exactly that.”
He said the new tax was an “antidote” to 14 years of Conservative failure to curb net migration, which hit a record 745,000 in 2022. He challenged the Conservatives and Labour to adopt the measure, but said he doubted they would.
Mr Tice said the tax would end decades of Britain’s economy being “hooked” on cheap foreign labour, which had driven down wages and lowered productivity. At the same time, the surge in net migration had increased the strain on housing and public services with young people and poorer families bearing the brunt of the impact, he said.
The tax is the centrepiece of Reform’s proposals to reduce immigration. They include a freeze on non-essential immigration, limiting it to doctors, nurses and successful business people earning above the average annual salary.
To tackle illegal migration, it has called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Its six-point plan would also ban illegal migrants from settling in the UK, offshore processing for arrivals and picking migrants out of the boats and returning them to France.
“The Employer Immigration Tax lays down a marker in the fight to take back control of our borders. The tax should be accompanied by a complete rethink of how we handle the small boats crisis,” said Mr Tice.
Britain wants new solutions to immigration crisis
For decades now, Britain’s economy has been hooked on cheap foreign labour, driving down wages and lowering our productivity. Both the two legacy parties have supported and enabled this, writes Richard Tice.
This cheap labour is bought at the expense of the British taxpayer, who picks up the cost in increased strain on housing and public services – this is a rolling and ever-increasing subsidy for big business.
The explosion in NHS waiting times since 2020, tracking near perfectly with the post-pandemic jump in net immigration, highlights the toxic link between an effectively unlimited labour supply and bad outcomes for the British taxpayer.
This isn’t true capitalism – it’s the worst type of state capitalism. In the dry language of economics, this is mispricing on a massive scale.
This is why Reform is proposing a new employer immigration tax to incentivise businesses to employ British workers over their foreign counterparts. The tax will increase the demand, and therefore the wages, of domestic labour. Because we believe in our young people, we will use the revenues raised to upskill them through apprenticeships and training schemes.
Under Reform’s employer immigration tax, businesses will have to pay a higher national insurance rate if they decide to employ foreign workers instead of British citizens. The current NI rate is 13.8 per cent of an employee’s salary, regardless of where they’re from, but we will increase this to 20 per cent for foreign workers.
Foreign health and care workers will be exempt from the tax to help prop up our NHS, as would businesses who employ five staff members or under. Our message is clear – businesses should be employing and training British workers where they can, and we are going to make sure they do exactly that.
Antidote to Tory failure
Not only will the employer immigration tax strongly incentivise firms to employ British citizens, but the measure could raise more than £20 billion over the next five years, depending on how employers respond to the tax, to be spent on helping young people into high-skilled jobs through apprenticeships and training programmes.
Moreover, getting more British citizens into work would mean annual savings on welfare bills in the tens of billions – every million people off benefits represents a saving of £10,000 per person per annum, or £10 billion per annum.
This new tax is the antidote to 14 years of Tory failure to turn the tide on mass immigration, despite fawning commitments to do so by each of their five prime ministers since 2010. From Cameron to Sunak via Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, the Tories have talked the talk but failed to walk the walk on immigration, teeing up the electorate to give them an electoral thwacking on July 4.
Telegraph readers won’t fall for the tired Tory line that the government is working to turn things round. Not when some 2.5 million migrants, a stunning figure, settled in the UK in 2022 and 2023 alone. In terms of net migration, this is like adding a population larger than the city of Manchester every year. It’s little wonder, therefore, that we are now fighting an immigration election.
Reform is clear that we need a range of hardline measures to secure our borders to boost the pay packets of British citizens and rescue our crumbling public services and housing stock.
Young people and those on low incomes have lost out most from mass immigration. Their wages are stagnant, and private rents have surged by more than 20 per cent in the past two years as demand has shot up. I am determined to right this wrong to give our young people a much better chance in life.
Transform position of our workforce
Reform’s employer immigration tax, which the Tories would never have considered, such is their kowtowing to the interests of big corporates, will transform the position of our workforce.
If Keir Starmer truly believes in supporting the least well off, then he should fulsomely endorse the tax. He won’t, of course, due to an unshakeable ideological commitment to mass immigration – an utterly deadly addiction – which Labour has managed to impart on a rudderless Conservative Party.
The employer immigration tax lays down a marker in the fight to take back control of our borders. The tax should be accompanied by a complete rethink of how we handle the small boats crisis.
Reform is advocating for the Rwanda gimmick to be junked, replaced by the picking up and taking back of small boats to France – a policy which is legal under international law. Indeed, Emmanuel Macron will be loath to oppose it unless he wants his government to end up in the courts.
While Sunak and Starmer reheat old gruel for an apathetic electorate, Reform understands that the British public wants new solutions to the crisis of mass immigration, and they want them now.
We have a watertight plan to end the chaos, which can be pushed forward if and when new Reform MPs join Lee Anderson in the next Parliament.
