Sir Keir Starmer vows to upskill Brits in order to stem migration & cut reliance on foreign workers

SIR Keir Starmer will today vow to “turn the page” on Britain’s reliance on foreign workers.

The Prime Minister will declare he is “not content just to pull the easy lever on importing skills”.

New body Skills England will be tasked with identifying gaps in the labour market and training Brits to do those jobs.

The PM is expected to use a speech today to warn: “All too often young people in our country have been let down — not given access to the right opportunities or training in their community.

“That’s created an over-reliance in our economy on higher and higher levels of migration.”

Sir Keir will also say training “home-grown talent” is vital to ­controlling legal migration after a push last week on tackling illegal migration.

A massive 1.2million people migrated into the UK — 685,000 more than the number leaving.

Net migration is expected to fall rapidly this year after Tory ministers put ­restrictions on dependents ­coming.

But the new PM says more can be done.

Sir Keir will warn: “Our skills system is in a mess, which is why we are transforming our approach to meet skills needs in the coming decades.”

The Department for Education claims that from 2017 to 2022, skills shortages have ­doubled to more than half a million and are behind 36 per cent of job vacancies.

Skills England will bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions — along with the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee.

Taxpayer-funded training will be accelerated for areas the new body identifies as vital, with the quango up and running by within a year.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Employers want to invest in their workers — but for too long have been held back from accessing the training they need.”