Reliance on low-cost migrant labour has stifled the UK’s productiveness, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has mentioned.
International locations like Japan or South Korea had tailored to ageing populations by rising using robots and know-how to extend productiveness, Ms Reeves mentioned.
However, within the UK, firms had been “gradual” to take up new know-how due to the provision of employees from abroad, she added.
She advised a fringe occasion on the Labour convention in Liverpool: “What policymakers and enterprise leaders mentioned to me in Japan was, nicely, necessity is the mom of all invention, as a result of they wanted the robots to make up for the dearth of inhabitants progress.
“Nevertheless it does imply that productiveness in Japan is fairly excessive. We went to this fascinating place once we had been there, which was a manufacturing unit making robots, but it surely was robots making robots. It was actually fairly one thing.
“That use of know-how is kind of thrilling in international locations like Japan, however I feel we do have so much to be taught from it as a result of our productiveness progress has been very poor in Britain.
“And, truly, rising inhabitants progress from immigration has generally exacerbated the gradual take-up of know-how within the UK economic system since you might rent employees fairly cheaply reasonably than spend money on the costly, however ultimately productivity-enhancing, know-how.
“So, I feel there are actual alternatives forward to get a few of that productiveness progress by using know-how.”
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: “Around the globe, you’ve got governments which are making an attempt 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 world 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 convey inexperienced trade 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 modifications to the Brexit deal embody a brand new meals and farming settlement, mutual recognition {of professional} providers {qualifications} and measures to make it simpler for British artists to tour within the EU.
“The Labour authorities doesn’t need to water down requirements for employees’ rights, environmental requirements and meals requirements, and so we hope that will probably 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 need to normalise relationships, work in better partnership based mostly on the shared values and the issues that do bind us collectively.
“It gained’t be simple, however it’s an ambition that we’ve.”