Vince Cable has maintained his belief that the immigration cap must be “flexible” The UK’s interim cap on immigration from outside the EU is damaging to British business, Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable has said.
Some companies were considering moving jobs abroad because they could not recruit the staff they needed, he said.
He told the Financial Times he backs plans for a permanent cap from next April but wants it to be more flexible.
The Home Office said the temporary cap, introduced in July, still allowed the brightest and best to enter the UK.
It was announced that Home Secretary Theresa May would limit the number of non-EU workers allowed into the UK to 24,100 – down around 5% – between now and April 2011.
Mr Cable told the newspaper that under the current measure, some businesses could not bring in the skilled, professional staff they needed to expand.
He said: “I was talking to people in the City and there were two investment banks that recruit hundreds of people from the non-EU area, Indians and Americans.
“They were allowed only 30-40. They have moved some operations to Hong Kong.”
He added that he had a file full of examples of companies considering relocating jobs overseas because they could no longer bring in key staff and that was “very damaging” to British business.
Mr Cable said he did not dissent from the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Lib Dems which will see a permanent cap on non-EU immigration put in place from April.
But he has campaigned for the cap to be applied flexibly so it can move up or down according to economic circumstances.
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson says that by criticising how this year’s temporary cap is operating, Mr Cable is putting down a strong marker that he does not want the eventual limit on immigration to be set at too low a level.
By speaking out ahead of the Liberal Democrat conference, Mr Cable is likely to offer some comfort to those in his party who have been worried that Lib Dem ministers have not been doing enough to differentiate themselves from their Conservative colleagues, our correspondent adds.
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