Boris Johnson and Narendra Modi met virtually after the Prime Minister’s planned tour of India had to be cancelled.
The UK will allow young Indians to live and work in Britain for up to two years without needing a job offer in the first significant post-Brexit liberalisation of the immigration system.
Boris Johnson and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a virtual meeting on Tuesday at which they pledged a “quantum leap” in the relationship between the two countries. The British Government is aiming to strike a complete free-trade deal with India before the EU does.
Easier access to UK visas for Indian citizens is likely to be one of the country’s major demands in future trade talks. A new “migration and mobility partnership” creates a youth mobility scheme that will allow up to 3,000 Indian graduates aged 18-30 to come to the UK each year and seek work, staying for up to 24 months. Young Britons will be able to do the same in India.
The existing youth mobility programme is only open to the citizens of wealthy countries such as Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “This landmark agreement with our close partners in the Government of India will provide new opportunities to thousands of young people in the UK and India seeking to live, work and experience each other’s cultures. This agreement will also ensure that the British Government can remove those with no right to be in the UK more easily and a crackdown on those abusing our system.”
After ending free movement with the EU, the Government is seeking to bring down overall migration numbers while also encouraging the highest-skilled workers to come to the UK through a points-based system that prioritises the well-educated and higher paid.
Mr Johnson and Mr Modi agreed on a joint “2030 roadmap” to double the volume of bilateral trade, work together on health security and to tackle climate change, and launch joint operations in the Indo-Pacific region to combat the rise of China.
The Prime Minister said: “The UK and India share many fundamental values. The UK is one of the oldest democracies, and India is the world’s largest. We are both committed members of the Commonwealth. And there is a living bridge uniting the people of our countries.
“In the last week, the British people have stepped up in their thousands to support our Indian friends during this terrible time in a demonstration of the deep connection between the UK and India. This connection will only grow over the next decade as we do more together to tackle the world’s biggest problems and make life better for our people.”
