Rishi Sunak's pitch for UK migration: ‘Come to explore, work, study, invent'

Rishi Sunak said that a person can come to the UK with family for two years to just “explore, work, study, invent”.

British prime minister Rishi Sunak praised skilled migrant workers in a key speech at the Global Investment Summit. The British Indian leader praised the country’s “most competitive visa regime” that makes it the best in the world to invest and do business in, he said against the backdrop of discontent within his own party after last week’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) data revealed record-high annual migration to the country.

Britain's prime minister Rishi Sunak holds a press conference.(Reuters)

“We don’t have a monopoly on talent in this country, and we recognise that nearly half of our most innovative companies have an immigrant founder,” Rishi Sunak told a gathering of CEOs of some of the world’s biggest businesses.

“So, if you’re an innovator, an entrepreneur, a researcher, you should know that the most competitive visa regime for highly skilled international talent is right here in the United Kingdom,” he said. Talking about High Potential Individual (HPI) visa as an example, he said that a person can come to the UK with family for two years to just “explore, work, study, invent”.

"Nothing like that exists anywhere else in the world. And that tells you everything about our pro-innovation, pro-growth, pro-business philosophy. So that’s the opportunity here in the UK. That’s why you should believe me when I say this is the best country in the world to invest and do business,” he explained.

According to last week’s ONS figures, Indian nationals represent the largest group of students granted leave to remain on this route- 43 per cent of grants. The net migration figures to the UK hit an all-time high of 745,000 for 2021-2022.