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UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be encouraged on Wednesday to promote rules that prevent the recruitment of foreign talent from financial groups, as the city of London joins a more open access to migration to increase growth.
Reeves will meet Britain’s main banks’ chiefs as part of efforts to design a new industrial strategy, but will be fulfilled with an increasingly common refrain: the economy needs more capable workers.
“The United Kingdom is in a competition for high quality talent,” said Miles Celic, the chief executive of Thecityuk Lobby Group. “Important is important to continue reducing the red bar around the behavior of high quality individuals in the UK.”
The demand for more overseas talent is a problem for Sir Keir Starmer’s work government, which is also promising to reduce migration and is facing fierce political pressure from the United Kingdom Reform.
Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds, business secretary, are creating an industrial strategy involving eight sectors, including financial services, as a cornerstone of their growth policy.
But officials working in strategy said that a number of sectors, from banking to technology and life science, make similar requests from ministers. “There are great issues about skills and visas,” one official said.
This month the Lord House Sciences Committee said the United Kingdom was conducting “an act of self -harm” because high visa fees and an inflexible immigration system hinder science students and early career scholars.
Reeves will host bank chiefs including HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, Santander UK and Natwest to discuss a strategy for increasing financial services, with migration, regulation and high tax on the agenda.
The requirements will be for Reeves to accelerate reforms in the “Senior Managers Regime”, the rules presented after the 2008 crash, which are said to have prevented some bankers from coming to London.
The regime has been forced by elderly leaders in banks since 2016, the construction of companies and credit unions to take personal responsibility for violations if they had not taken “reasonable steps” to prevent them. Sentences range from fines to prohibitions.
UK finances, which represents 300 firms in the sector, said the regime caught “many big people of people and compliance has become quite heavy”.
The Treasury said it would respond to a “rehearsal call” for the regime’s reform soon and that “would provide effective regulations that limits loads in the industry while maintaining the right protection.”
He added: “We will consult if we will replace the current certification regime so that firms still ensure that the relevant staff are appropriate and proper, but that the requirements are less severe.”
UK finances said it was also pressuring Reeves to carry out reforms in bank taxation, regulating regulation and research of social companies, technology and telecommunications to share the burden of deception treatment.
The industrial strategy, which will end in the spring, includes eight sectors: financial services, professional and business services, life sciences, creative industries, protection, digital and technology, advanced production and pure energy industry.
Reeves said at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month that she would “look back on the streets for the most capable people”, singling out visas in the fields of artificial intelligence and life sciences.
Businesses can hire external staff under the home office visa scheme; There were 50,900 major applications between April and December 2024, 6 percent less than in the same period in 2023.
Last year, HSBC was among the large UK companies to withdraw labor offers for foreign graduates after the previous conservative government raised the wage of the 38.700 employee visas. Work has preserved the highest threshold.
Reeves, announcing its dialogue with the financial services sector last month, said: “I am committed to working side by side with the industry to ensure that our plans are informed by them both offer and use financial services . “
