Letter from Sajid Javid , the Home Secretary , regarding EEA nationals in the UK
Dear Brandon
As Home Secretary, I take immense pride that so many EU citizens like you have made your home here.
Safeguarding the rights of EU citizens in the UK has always been our first priority and the agreement we reached with the EU earlier this year did just that. The rights that you and your family currently have are protected which include access to healthcare, benefits and pensions.
Away from the negotiations, my team in the Home Office have been working hard to develop the service that you’ll use to get your settled status. This work will continue as we make sure that the system and processes are rigorously tested and meet every requirement ahead of the launch.
Today I am able to announce in more detail what this system will look like.
Most importantly, the application process is designed to be simple. Most people will only need to complete three sections to prove their identity, show that they live here and declare that they have no serious criminal convictions. We will also check employment and benefits records we already hold in government which for many people will mean that their proof of living here is automatic. We hope therefore most people will not need to do anything beyond typing in personal details.
What’s more, settled status will cost less than the fee for a British passport – £65 and £32.50 for children under 16. For those who already have valid permanent residence or indefinite leave to remain documentation, they will be able to exchange it for free.
There will be support for the vulnerable and those without access to a computer, and we’re working with EU citizens’ representatives and embassies to ensure the system works for everyone.
I should stress that you do not need to do anything just yet. The scheme will open later this year and we are on track to open the scheme fully by 30 March 2019. The deadline for applications to the scheme will be 30 June 2021 so there will be plenty of time for you to apply and there are absolutely no quotas for applications.
In the meantime, please do share this message with your friends and family so that they too can stay up to date through our mailing list.
I hope you will agree with me that this is an important step towards the commitment we made to you and your families so that you can continue your lives here.
Yours sincerely,
Sajid Javid
Home Secretary
NHS exemption from Tier 2 visa quota confirmed in changes to Immigration Rules
Finally, good news form the Home office secretary!
The Home Secretary has today laid a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules to exempt doctors and nurses from the limit on visas for skilled non-EU workers.
Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, announced in a press release that “there will be no restriction on the numbers of doctors and nurses who can be employed through the Tier 2 visa route”.
The Tier 2 quota — more formally, a cap on restricted certificates of sponsorship, as Nichola Carter explains elsewhere on this blog — has been oversubscribed in each of the last six months. With more applicants than places each month, the lowest-scoring applications lose out. That leaves some employers unable to secure a visa for the overseas workers they have recruited.
PhD-level jobs and roles on the shortage occupation list get higher priority, but otherwise the system is largely blind to what the worker actually does. Junior doctors, outside specialisms on the shortage list, have had no general special treatment up to now. Those not earning salaries high enough to push them up the ranking have, along with other skilled professionals such as engineers and teachers, been turned away — much to the dismay of NHS managers trying to fill vacancies.
The NHS accounts for around 40% of all Tier 2 places, according to the Home Office. The department says that removing medics from the quota will have the knock-on effect of freeing up places for other skilled non-EU workers, although it remains to be seen whether removing this source of demand will be enough to relieve the pressure on the system.
On a technical level, the changes are to be achieved by adding the following to paragraph 77D of Appendix A of the Rules:
77D. No points will be awarded for a Certificate of Sponsorship unless:
…
(b) in the case of a Certificate of Sponsorship which was not allocated to the Sponsor under the Tier 2 (General) limit:
…
(iv) the number supplied links to a Certificate of Sponsorship Checking Service entry which shows that the applicant is being sponsored to work in the occupation code “2211 Medical Practitioners” or “2231 Nurses”.
The exemption takes effect on 6 July. It may not be permanent: the explanatory memo says that “this is in response to the particular shortages and pressures facing the NHS at the current time… the changes will be kept under review”. It also says that the Migration Advisory Committee will be asked to
review the composition of the Shortage Occupation List, following the change to the allocation of places under Tier 2 which exempts all doctors and nurses from the annual Tier 2 (General) limit. This will enable the Migration Advisory Committee to look at which posts are in national shortage and should be given priority within the limit.
Taking doctors and nurses out of the visa cap is only a small part of the 60-page Statement of Changes. It also sets out to:
Make provision for returning residents, including those affected by Windrush.
Create a route for Afghan locally engaged staff to apply for settlement in the UK and to extend the ex-gratia redundancy scheme by six years, to include those made redundant on or after 1 May 2006.
Create a new settlement route for Turkish ECAA business persons, workers and their family members.
Create a new form of leave for people, transferred to the UK under the Dubs amendment, who do not qualify for international protection.
Create new provisions in the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) category.
There is a summary of these measures in a written ministerial statement just published. We’ll have more in-depth analysis on the changes in due course.
Limits On The Number Of Work Permits Available For Skilled Non-European Workers Continue To Cause Problems
The Home office unreasonable and harsh policy towards foreign workers continues.
Will the point based system survive after new changes?
In April 2018, the UK hit its cap on the number of work permits available for skilled non-European workers for a fourth consecutive month. The May figures are yet to be released, however we are aware that the cap has already been reached for this month.
The cap on skilled worker numbers, introduced by Theresa May as Home Secretary in 2011, is an annual quota of 20,700 with a fixed number of spaces available each month. UK businesses seeking to hire skilled non-EU workers are losing out as a large proportion of applications are being rejected due to the cap on work permits being reached.
Data obtained from a Freedom Of Information request showed that in April 2018, a total of 4,325 requests for UK work permits were made, however there were only 2,200 work permits available. As a result, over 2,000 applications were unsuccessful.
Of the requests made in April, it appears that around 750 were for shortage occupation roles – specialist roles that the Home Office accepts cannot be filled by the resident workforce.
The level of shortage occupation roles has been steady for the past 6 months, with an average of 708 requests each month since December 2017. While the Immigration Rules recognise that these shortage occupation roles cannot be filled by the resident labour market, employers must still go through the UK work permit sponsorship process in order to fill these roles. This was seen as problematic in November 2011 when the cap of 20,700 work permits was introduced, but little was done to solve the problem as the cap had only been hit once before.
In addition to problems caused by these limits, the Home Office continues to inform thousands of employers across the UK that they cannot hire necessary non-EU highly skilled workers because applicants have not met the ‘minimum points score’ set for the month.
The points-based immigration system prioritises applications according to the advertised salary. The minimum annual salary required for an individual to qualify for a work permit changes according to the number of excess applications. This hits thousands of employers and is already having a hugely detrimental impact on UK businesses as they find themselves unable to secure the skills and expertise that these highly skilled migrants have to offer.
The Home Office confirmed that the minimum salary required for a non-EU skilled worker permit was normally £30,000, however in December 2017, it was set at £55,000. In January 2018, applications for work permits for jobs paying less than £46,000 per annum were refused unless they were PhD-level roles or jobs on the official shortage occupations list.
While there is no right of appeal following a refusal, applicants are allowed to reapply the next month provided the job advertisement is still valid.
The practical approach would be to simply remove shortage occupations from the quota and introduce a higher limit. At present, the UK looks set to reach its cap on work permits for skilled non-European workers for an unprecedented sixth month in a row.
