eliance on low-cost migrant labour has stifled the UK’s productiveness, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has mentioned.
Nations like Japan or South Korea had tailored to ageing populations by growing the usage of robots and expertise to extend productiveness, Ms Reeves mentioned.
However, within the UK, firms had been “sluggish” to take up new expertise due to the supply of employees from abroad, she added.
She informed a fringe occasion on the Labour convention in Liverpool: “What policymakers and enterprise leaders mentioned to me in Japan was, properly, necessity is the mom of all invention, as a result of they wanted the robots to make up for the shortage of inhabitants development.
“Nevertheless it does imply that productiveness in Japan is fairly excessive. We went to this fascinating place after we have been there, which was a manufacturing facility making robots, but it surely was robots making robots. It was actually fairly one thing.
“That use of expertise is kind of thrilling in international locations like Japan, however I feel we do have quite a bit to be taught from it as a result of our productiveness development has been very poor in Britain.
“And, really, rising inhabitants development from immigration has generally exacerbated the sluggish take-up of expertise within the UK economic system since you might rent employees fairly cheaply quite than put money into the costly, however in the long run productivity-enhancing, expertise.
“So, I feel there are actual alternatives forward to get a few of that productiveness development by the usage of expertise.”
Ms Reeves additionally warned the UK was in a “harmful” place as a result of it had not responded to the shift attributable to Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act, which has used authorities subsidies to spice up inexperienced companies.
Labour has plans for as much as £28 billion a yr of borrowing to fund a inexperienced prosperity plan and Ms Reeves mentioned: “World wide, you’ve got governments which can be attempting to grab these alternatives and the response from British ministers earlier this yr when that inflation Discount Act got here in was ‘that is harmful’.
“I’ll let you know what’s harmful, it’s sitting on the sidelines whereas others are in a worldwide race for the roles and industries of the long run.”
She mentioned that with the US act, “the sport has modified and we’re simply not within the race in the intervening time, and I feel that’s an enormous missed alternative”.
Mr Biden’s laws was partially an try to carry inexperienced business to the US and finish reliance on China for key merchandise.
Ms Reeves acknowledged that “globalisation as we as soon as knew it’s lifeless” however “there’s a new type of multilateralism” between like-minded international locations.
On the European Union, she hoped Labour would “normalise” relations with Brussels following the post-Brexit turmoil.
Her hopes for adjustments to the Brexit deal embrace a brand new meals and farming settlement, mutual recognition {of professional} companies {qualifications} and measures to make it simpler for British artists to tour within the EU.
“The Labour authorities doesn’t wish to water down requirements for employees’ rights, environmental requirements and meals requirements, and so we hope that it is going to be simpler for a Labour authorities to safe a deal,” she mentioned.
“However I’m not naive in regards to the scale of these challenges and the issue of these negotiations.
“However I hope that the European Union will see with a Labour authorities a want to normalise relationships, work in larger partnership primarily based on the shared values and the issues that do bind us collectively.
“It gained’t be straightforward, however it’s an ambition that we have now.”
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