The secretary of a backbench committee of MPs in the UK has warned that more needs to be done to encourage skilled professionals to stay and work in Britain instead of taking their talents abroad.
Responding to recent Organisation for Economic and Co-operation and Development figures, which show that 1.3 million university educated Brits live abroad compared to 865,000 Germans and just 400,000 Americans, Nick de Bois, secretary of the 1922 committee, told the Telegraph newspaper that more needs to be done to halt the brain drain.
“We have to convince those people, who we have invested so much in, to make Britain their first choice,” he said. “We have to continue to drive lower taxes, we have to keep driving the change and reform in our public services.”
According to de Bois, many of those leaving Britain are emigrating to work in Hong Kong and countries in the Middle East, where they will have a better standard of living and education for their children. They tend to go and work for aerospace, engineering and creative companies, he said.
The latest Office of National Statistics figures show that 154,000 British citizens moved abroad last year. This figure has risen by a fifth under the Coalition, the Telegraph reports.