The following is an excerpt from John Hayes’s latest Substack article.

You can subscribe to John’s Substack and read his latest article in full here.

All businesses reflect, to a greater or lesser degree, the philosophical beliefs of their founders.

As an Irish immigrant (I arrived here in 1972 with my parents), I am committed to progressive and structured business immigration in this country. This is one reason why Constantine Law has, over the last two years, bet against the market to hire a business immigration team. Established last year, the department is led by the brilliant Alex Finch and Rebecca Tester, who operate across the full spectrum of immigration law and provide strategic advice to global organisations, SME clients and private individuals.

We continue to invest in this area, as the recent development of our free Skilled Worker salary assessment tool shows.

I speak with other founders of employment law businesses at conferences and one of them (who is also a valued peer) recently asked me, “Why on earth would you start a business immigration team, when we all know there is no money in that?”

It is true that in recent, post-Brexit years, the case for investing in business immigration has declined, roughly in line with the number of economic migrants coming into the UK on skilled worker visas. We can all see that thousands of desperate people a year wish to cross the channel in precarious inflatables, but although these small boat arrivals only account for a fraction of total immigration (roughly 2%), successive governments in the last 10 years have allowed them to dominate the news agenda and dictate wider immigration policy.

That debate has unfortunately polluted broader discussions about the need for talented economic migrants — who are capable of working and generating taxes — to come to this country.

This year, applications for skilled worker visas have fallen by nearly 40% as new immigration legislation makes visa applications ever more difficult and expensive. Many economic commentators have noted that a significant drag on the UK economy is the shortage of skilled migrants coming into the UK, because they bring with them wealth and ideas.

Read John’s insights in full here.