Farnborough Airshow spotlights Keir Starmer's drive to train a new skilled UK workforce

British Prime Minister says country aims to reduce 'reliance' on migrant workers during speech at international aviation event

From left, Rolls-Royce chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury. Bloomberg

In an appeal to an industry that relies on advanced engineering, Keir Starmer on Monday asked for support for a government policy of developing a skilled British workforce, and said the country would “reduce our long-term reliance” on migrants.

Opening the Farnborough International Airshow, the British Prime Minister insisted his Skills England programme could train up a new cohort of young British workers.

With net migration at record levels, standing at 685,000 last year, Mr Starmer warned that UK industry should not merely “pull the easy lever of importing skills”.

Migration over reliance

After meeting apprentices from Airbus and Rolls-Royce, he contrasted them with how too many young people had been let down by a lack of the right training in their local areas.

“That's created an over-reliance in our economy on higher and higher levels of migration,” he said, although he did not criticise businesses for hiring overseas workers or the “contribution that migration makes to our economy”.

However, he said, Britain needed to find a way of creating “a coherent skill system” for ambitious young people, with many put to work in the defence and aerospace business.

“We're going to fire up the training of more UK workers,” he said on the first day of the air show, one of the major events in the aviation industry's calendar.

Skills England would work with the Migration Advisory Committee to identify skills gaps and to “reduce our long-term reliance on overseas workers”.

The new organisation would not only transform how young people are trained but also the relationship between business and the education system.

He said it was “right that we get migration down, it's too high” and that Skills England would develop a pool of well-trained young workers.

But he did not want to deter businesses from hiring from abroad. “That is not realistic and is not good for business,” he said.

“But for too long that's happened because we haven't got the skills available in this country and I'm determined we will change that.”

Cutting edge

In a world that was now “more dangerous, volatile and increasingly insecure”, the role of the defence industry was “ever more important” for the defence of Britain and its allies.

“It always gives me great comfort to know that Britain is at the cutting-edge of defence and aerospace manufacturing,” he added, also thanking industry chiefs “for everything that you do for the security of our country”.

Tempest threat

Some of that new generation of workers will be heavily involved in the highly advanced new Tempest fighter programme, known as GCAP (Global Combat Aircraft Programme), in which Saudi Arabia has shown strong interest.

However, there have been reports that GCAP, currently a trination programme involving Britain, Japan and Italy, could be under threat from the newly launched strategic defence review.

While Mr Starmer said it had made “significant progress” with great benefits to the British economy, he failed to giving it outright endorsement by stating that “there is of course a review going on”.

“But it's important for me to put on record just how important the programme is,” he added.

The Farnborough International Airshow 2024 – in pictures