(Another) Plan to Fix "Broken" Migration System

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we look at Labour’s plan to fix the UK’s ‘‘broken’’ migration system.

James speaks to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to comb through the details including a degree-level requirement for overseas workers, ending automatic settlement after five years for most visas, and a tightening of English tests for all visa applicants.

We also look at how the US and China came to a sudden agreement to slash their tariffs for 90 days. BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam and BBC’s China correspondent Laura Bicker join James.

And finally, James sits down with the Secretary to the COVID Inquiry Ben Connah to catch us up on the latest on the inquiry and to tell us about the Every Story Matters project.

You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://discord.gg/m3YPUGv9

New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by James Cook. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Julia Webster and Gabriel Purcell-Davis. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, it's James in for Adam for the next few days.
0:07.8	And yet again, we have so much newscasters, so much to talk about.
0:12.5	Immigration, big speech from the Prime Minister, trade, a deal between China and the United States.
0:18.0	And as if that's not enough, we'll be talking to the man in charge of
0:21.9	organising the UK COVID inquiry. All that coming up on today's bumper episode of Newscast.
0:28.9	Newscast from the BBC. He has just compared me to the fat controller. Did I say that? I can't
0:36.1	believe I said that. Next question. This is R for the benefit of
0:40.0	Earth. I'm not personally a huge Sabrina carpenter fam. I don't think I'm being rude. I like landscapes.
0:45.9	Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's James, and we've actually
0:52.4	popped down to Westminster for this part of the podcast
0:55.4	because there was a big speech here today from the Prime Minister Kier-Starmer
0:59.5	in which he promised what he called a controlled, selective and fair immigration system,
1:06.5	promising to bring down the number of people arriving in the country.
1:09.7	And just to rattle through two or three of the things he said,
1:12.5	first of all, he said migration would fall significantly over the next four years.
1:16.5	He didn't say exactly by how much.
1:18.4	He announced plans to ban the recruitment overseas of care workers
1:22.1	and also to tighten access to skilled worker visas.
1:25.8	And what else?
1:26.5	He warned that without fair rules, we risked
1:29.5	becoming, in his words, a nation of strangers. And we can talk about all that now with the
1:34.9	Home Secretary of Vett Cooper, who is here. Hello. It's really good to see you. Nice to see you.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.