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Commentators discuss the proposed cap on the amount of people from outside the EU settling in the UK scheduled for April.

that David Cameron is sending a mixed message to India on immigration:

"Mr Cameron's determination to put a cap on non European Union immigration is causing concern in India. Anger too, since he now appears to be wandering around the country preaching the virtues of bilateral economic support while, back home, promoting an implicit message that some of the people who have come to this country in the past for economic reasons are not welcome."

The the coalition government is two-faced in its approach to Indian immigration:

"It wants more contracts, but not the people who go with it. It still has problems with the number of Indian IT software engineers who work in Britain. When the home secretary Theresa May announced a temporary limit of 24,000 skilled non-EU workers, she exempted thousands of Indian IT staff working in Britain, because they had come under a route known as 'intra-company transfers', which are governed by international trade agreements.
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"The argument now is between the business secretary Vince Cable who wants to keep this exclusion in place and the Tory commitment to reduce net migration by making the temporary cap permanent. Many Indian IT staff working in the British branch of their company are subcontracted on work outsourced by other companies. This could allow the home secretary to argue that it is possible to cap their numbers without contravening WTO rules. Mr Cameron has not got much room for manoeuvre if he wants to cut net migration, as there is already a ban on unskilled workers recruited outside the EU. A choice will have to be made and India will be watching which one he makes with interest."

The the issue of immigration is divisive for the coalition but introducing a cap while allowing in highly skilled migrants will be enough of a compromise:

"Dr Cable will clearly be lobbying hard inside the Cabinet for a flexible policy. But the Lib Dems will have to accept that their campaign talk of 'managed' immigration and an amnesty for illegal migrants must accommodate the firmer Conservative commitment to cut the numbers and close the doors to thousands of would-be economic migrants. At this stage, an open row within the coalition is unlikely. But both parties will find that this most divisive of issues must end in compromise. That is the essence of coalition government. And in this case, and on this issue, such a policy is right."

that the immigration cap is meaningless because it doesn't include the EU:

"Unfortunately, there is a severe inhibition on our picking and choosing people whom we want to come here which is seldom mentioned by Mr Cameron: the European Union.
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"EU immigration may have declined as a proportion of the whole, from as much as 60 per cent at the height of the boom to well under half, but it could rise again when economic conditions improve. the truth is that the Government is powerless to prevent this immigration."

that the cap is the wrong way to deal with voters' fears:

"[T]he cap looks likely to fail on its own terms - it will not significantly reduce net immigration. Net immigration to the UK is falling fast already in response to changing economic conditions, and the cap applies only to a small part of immigration flows to the UK (ironically, to the most beneficial and least controversial parts of those flows)... The way to deal with public concerns about migration is to change the political narrative and tackle a wider set of issues including the labour market, housing, and changing communities - the immigration cap does neither."

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