We highlight recent key developments which will have a real impact on the number of migrants able to enter and remain in the UK.
Thursday 5 January, 2012
A Numbers Game: The Great Immigration Squeeze Continues
The government looks set to continue its push to meet its key pledge on immigration during 2012. The Conservative party’s manifesto pledge to ‘reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands’ has been often repeated since the formation of the coalition government last year.
Indeed, this mantra was most recently repeated by the Home Secretary Theresa May at the Conservative Annual Conference together with an additional comment that the government was “taking action to reduce immigration across every route to Britain”. Some readers, however, may recall better that press coverage at the time centred around ‘cat-gate’ caused by that other remark in her speech concerning the case of the migrant and his alleged successful appeal against deportation because of his pet cat. That remark led to debate with the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, over the truth or otherwise of her comments.
However, it certainly seems that we can take Mrs May at her word when it comes to the continued squeeze on immigration. Highlighted below are recent key developments which will have a real impact on the number of migrants able to enter and remain in the UK.
The Cap on Tier 2 (General) Migrants – A lower figure next year
April 2011 saw the introduction for the first time of an absolute cap on the number of economic migrants able to enter the UK under Tier 2 (General) of the points based system. The cap was set at 20,700. This was considered by many to be ambitiously low at the time.
Rather surprisingly, to date the expected competition for this limited number of certificates of sponsorship has not materialised. Looking at the figures supplied by the UK Border Agency, of the 14,700 certificates made available to date, only 6,580 have been issued (with the balance of 8,793 carried over to December’s allocation). There may be various reasons why this is the case: the current challenging economic times for British business; the provision of a significant carve out from the limit for those jobs attracting a salary of £150,000 or more; and the exclusion of all intra company migrants from the cap – a concession that was provided after extensive pressure from the UK business lobby.
Following a request from the government, on 26 October 2011 the Migration Advisory Committee (the MAC) began seeking views from interested parties on both the level of the limit for Tier 2 (General) for 2012 and the level of the salary threshold for the exemption from the cap.
Whilst we now await the MAC’s recommendation it is expected that the government will lower the number of restricted certificates of sponsorship available next year. That reduction may be a significant one given the statistics highlighted above.
The Shortage Occupation List Grows Shorter!
The shortage occupation list names those jobs which the UK is deemed to be unable to fill from resident workers alone. UK employers are not required to demonstrate that they have undertaken a search of the resident labour market for people to fill these roles before bringing in an overseas worker. The list has been whittled down during 2011 and it is no surprise that the latest incarnation is the shortest yet (now standing at 190,000 jobs, down from 230,000). Those positions removed from the list on 14 November include biology teachers, pharmacists and vets. Added to the list are environmental scientists and high integrity pipe welders – spread the word!
Breaking the Entitlement to Settle Permanently in the UK
The government is shortly expected to confirm that it is breaking the automatic entitlement of Tier 2 (General) migrants to settle in the UK indefinitely. This measure has already been implemented for migrants coming to the UK under Tier 2 (Intra Company Transfer) to work in the UK office of a multinational business. It is expected that a salary threshold will be introduced for Tier 2 (General) to ensure that only well remunerated employees can settle in the UK. These settlement changes will have a twofold effect.
First, and most obviously, by preventing permanent migration in many cases. Second, by making it harder for UK employers to attract the best workers to the UK in the first instance, given that obtaining settlement status (and later possibly British citizenship) was a significant attraction for some migrants.
The above changes, together with the ongoing radical reform of the student immigration route, would certainly go towards the government’s aim of reducing net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands. However, given the latest net migration figures recently released by the Office for National Statistics this aim appears to be as challenging as ever to meet. In 2010 the annual net migration figure stood at 252,000, the highest number for a calendar year on record. Whilst immigration numbers had remained steady since the previous year the numbers of people leaving the UK fell significantly. It seems that the commitment to tackle net migration may be difficult to achieve as the government can really only control immigration and not emigration. Yet one thing is certain for the coming years, the Coalition Government will seek to do what it can. The great immigration squeeze is set to continue.
Originally published by Thomson Reuters GRC. © Thomson Reuters
This article, written by Owen Jones, originally appeared on the Compliance HR website and in its newsletter.
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