TNAG-2629-FCO40-3820-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-British-National-(Overseas)-1992 — Page 72

•

· E.R.

Tys of youth mobility schemes

4.

Before discussing in detail the possibility of a unified scheme and the question

of reciprocity it is helpful to examine possible types of youth mobility scheme. Three

broad types of arrangements suggest themselves:

i)

no restrictions are placed on taking work;

ii)

the young person is attached to a specific UK employer or sponsor;

or

5.

iii)

the young person is free to move from employer to employer

provided the local job centre approves the job.

The first option is like the present working holidaymaker scheme. It is simple

to administer, but is arguably suitable only for relatively affluent countries since not

many young people from poor countries could afford to take time out to do menial or

casual work as opposed to training. Moreover, in cases where the partner country is not

English speaking their young people would not stand much chance of securing jobs on the

open market, and our young people are unlikely to obtain jobs easily there. Young

Britons would most probably take up teaching English in a non-English speaking country

and not even attempt to do other work. A fully open scheme would therefore be

unlikely to be a two-way process either in terms of take-up or of labour market access

except with the more developed English-speaking countries as partners.

6. The second option is the route taken by TWES, the seasonal agricultural work

scheme and the au pair scheme, namely that participants must have a job or placement

lined up in advance. Provided that such arrangements are tightly controlled there is

little risk to the resident labour market and therefore no absolute reason why they need

to be on a reciprocal basis. We already have facilities for concluding head-for-head

exchange arrangements under TWES. This could remain an option for a non-EC country

which wished to have reciprocal arrangements but which was not considered suitable for

a more open scheme. The advantage of such bilateral arrangements under TWES is that