'One in, one out' scheme took far too long but it could work

Don’t call it a youth mobility scheme. The word “mobility”, from the same Latin root as “movement”, makes it sound too close to EU free movement, which is a red line for the Labour government. Etymology rules.

- JOHN RENTOUL CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR

That was why Ruth Smeeth, a minister in the House of Lords and now known as Baroness Anderson, said in a written answer last month: “There are no plans for a youth mobility scheme.” So whatever is unveiled at the EU-UK summit next month, it will be called something else.

Suggestions have included Youth Opportunity Programme, which was the name of a training scheme to help teenagers into work under James Callaghan’s government, the Labour government before the last one. It was not a brilliant success, and the acronym “Yop” sounded silly, so presumably some other name not including the M-word will be dreamt up.

What ought to matter, though, is not the name but the substance of the scheme. If Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, gets her way, it will be “one in, one out”, so that the number of young people coming to the UK is matched by the number of British youth going to the EU. This means the scheme will be “immigration neutral”, and will have no effect on the net immigration figures, which the government has promised will come down.

Previously, Cooper had argued that the scheme should be limited to visits of 12 months, because any arrivals who stay for longer than a year are counted in the migration statistics. This was unacceptable to EU negotiators, who wanted to allow longer stays.