Sam Huckstep

Definitely! The FT article focuses on wealthy beachfronts, but as you say, these discussions are also happening far beyond them.

The conclusion: 'In places where erosion is more severe and forestalling the creep of the ocean is too costly, there are no easy solutions... Retreat can become the default which, if planned, entails moving infrastructure and potentially negotiating buyouts.'

A lot of work to be done there.

And the political debates that will become endemic are starting to show.

'Retreat is a fraught topic. “People are not going to give [up their homes] and, frankly, it’s a little unfair to ask them to"', says a resident.

Others argue that beach repair programmes using public money are irresponsible.

If such a storm comes again soon, “it will push our infrastructure to its limits in terms of resilience”.

“If we do get predicted levels of sea rise of 0.8 metres or above by 2100... At what point does it become... too high risk to put 150-storey buildings within a hundred metres of the beach?”

E.g. Australia's Gold Coast:

'Cyclone Alfred whipped away so much sand that sections of its buried sea wall... were left exposed.

About 1.4mn cubic metres of sand is now being applied to its northern beaches [requiring] US$25.9m and up to three years of work to restore pre-Alfred conditions.'

Can the world’s beaches survive a sand shortage? From Miami to Barcelona and Australia’s Gold Coast, governments are trying to save shorelines where climate change is accelerating erosion

It's great to see discussions of managed retreat / planned relocation becoming more visible, especially when discussed far ahead of any potential action.

There's a good article in today's FT about the future of high-income beach communities with some lines relevant to many more contexts.

'The LMEG [will] spend the next 12 months reviewing which occupations should be allowed to recruit
skilled workers from abroad. This [will] be based on whether they were “crucial” to Labour’s industrial strategy,
suffered genuine shortages and had viable training plans for British workers.'

If you’re doing the right stuff and it’s just going to take time to train British staff, the immigration system can help you and it can smooth that transition.'

“Companies are going to have to have clear plans in place that are deliverable and unless that happens, the
immigration route will be closed down. It’s a carrot and stick...

'“Where we’ll be really unsympathetic is if a sector has said ‘we’re going to train 10,000 bricklayers’, and they train
100, then we’re going to say ‘well, tough, you’re on your own now’,” he said...

Labour Migration and the UK’s Industrial Strategy: The Need for Coherence If the UK is to meet its green transition goals, it will need to use immigration policy.

These include welders, electricians, etc. [see our note below for more on how this fits together].

'Prof Bell said these job sectors would have to develop “sensible” and “deliverable” plans for training British workers in order to be allowed to bring in skilled foreign staff to plug shortages.'

Labour to cap skilled migration Home Secretary considers limiting number of workers that companies can recruit from abroad for jobs where there is an official shortage

Interesting report on the MAC's approach to the Temporary Shortage List-

'Up to 60 other non-graduate occupations... crucial to Labour’s industrial strategy & maintaining Britain’s critical infrastructure will temporarily escape this ban, [if] they come up with plans to train Britons for the jobs.'

With thanks to @charlesjkenny.bsky.social, Holly Asquith and Gemma Hyslop for comments.

Maybe of interest to @stephenkb.bsky.social, @lukemurphy.bsky.social, @guardianheather.bsky.social

Finally, there's also the exciting new proposal of the Displaced Talent visa.

It could be prioritised for key sectors, with concessions (e.g. removing the cap, reducing the minimum salary, removing the skills charge) to encourage employers to give refugees a path to new opportunities.

Beyond this, the UK could seek bilateral partnerships. It could target countries with which it has particular goals, or focus on countries from which it currently recruits large numbers.

E.g., the UK recruits hundreds of welders from the Philippines. Why not set up a training/migration partnership?

Government should use its restored visa discretion, and -while also building up domestic training capacity- ensure that the international labour market is accessible before training lags cause shortages and project failures.

Where to from here?

It's clearly key that policy coherence increases. Workforce supply is fundamental to the industrial strategy, and immigration will play a big part. This needs to be recognised through joined-up policymaking.

Then, in the July Industrial Strategy, the government rowed back some of the Immigration White Paper's flagship proposals- just a month after making them!

This is welcome but not an impressive look for HMG.

The new regime sees salary discounts for shortage occupations key to the strategy.

The changes also increase the burden on the domestic training system.

Removing access to these workers would require a 39% increase in the number of welding apprenticeship starts, a 20% increase in roofing apprenticeship starts, just to replace lost visas.

These are not realistic numbers!

3: it raised the salary threshold to £41,700 (far higher than many salaries in green transition-relevant occupations).

4: it eliminated salary discounts from the new Temporary Shortage List.

These changes narrow the recruitment options to employers, and risk project delays and cost increases.

Most workers in green-relevant occupations arrive on Skilled Worker visas- see below.

The May 2025 Immigration White Paper, however, clamped down on these visas.

1: it raised the education threshold for visa eligibility.

2: it significantly increased costs to employers.

Recent immigration policy reforms have endangered this key pressure valve. Here things get a bit embarrassing for the UK government.

We take a look at the current use of visas across several key occupations, and find that for some they indeed are already crucial- long before labour demand will peak.

In 2023, over 60% of new entrants to the UK welding workforce arrived on visas!

This is increasingly recognised. In a recent parliamentary inquiry by the ESNZ Committee, nearly a quarter of respondents highlight the role of migration policy (though it wasn't mentioned in the call for evidence).

Many key respondents (eg the National Grid!) highlight that visas will be crucial.

The UK's green commitments entail huge workforce increases. Without these, it won't have the people trained to do the tasks it needs (e.g. insulation installations).

But the UK skills system is akin to a heavy tanker, and recently announced skills investments will take a long time to turn it.

Labour Migration and the UK’s Industrial Strategy: The Need for Coherence If the UK is to meet its green transition goals, it will need to use immigration policy.

🚨New policy note! 🚨- by myself and @helen-dempster.bsky.social.

In short: The UK's (green) industrial policy needs migration for it to succeed. The UK government's recent migration policy flip-flopping harms investment certainty, and is the result of incoherency between policy areas.

Opinion: Wind industry’s chronic skills shortage exacerbated by tough immigration rules Read Opinion: Wind industry’s chronic skills shortage exacerbated by tough immigration rules and other wind energy news & analysis on Windpower Monthly

Fragomen: 'Immigration policy is no longer a peripheral issue; it is core to the wind sector’s delivery capability. The UK has a narrow opportunity to position itself competitively. If industry voices do not engage now, skills shortages will delay deployment and undermine investment.'

Later on remittances return to pre-disaster levels but there is no evidence of intertemporal substitution. We observe some anticipation effects, which could be related to the recurrent nature of some types of disasters.'

Good new article by Giulia Bettin et al.: 'Responding to natural disasters: What do monthly remittance data tell us?'

'We find that monthly remittances positively respond to natural disasters in migrants’ home countries. The response is immediate and significant up to 3–4 months after the event...

Interesting, Hungary has such a big guest worker thing going on that the 'Daily News Hungary' site has a full guestworker series with an article every few days!