Labour Must Push for More Migration – Guido Fawkes

Ex-Chancellor Hammond: Labour Must Push for More Migration

The ‘Cleverer than Thou’ former Chancellor has been touring media studios since the Spring Statement to set out his answer for growth – more inward migration. Treasury orthodoxy is dead, long live Treasury orthodoxy…

He says on Times Radio this morning:

“Amongst all the things that Rachel Reeves has done over the last nine months that perhaps I would disagree with, the thing that I strongly agree with is the focus on planning reform and infrastructure building as a way to stimulate growth in the economy. But of course the government’s problem is that the construction industry is already quite tight for labour and if there’s going to be a building boom, it’s great to train more people. The government’s already announced plans to do that, but that won’t happen overnight. The only way to support a building boom will be through additional managed inward migration of construction workers. And I don’t think that’s probably something that the government wants to talk about. But if it’s going to deliver economic growth through this route, and this frankly seems to be the only plan for economic growth that they’ve announced, which has any credibility around it at the moment, then that is what’s going to have to happen.“

On Sky News he said “in order to deliver the growth effect, there will have to be some additional managed migration” and that Labour should now expend political capital “persuading the public” that more migrants should be let in. Unleash the Hammondwave…