Author Archive
The Intra-company Transfer visa could be getting a new lease of life
The Intra-company Transfer (ICT) route has seemed increasingly redundant since the launch of the Points Based Immigration System last year. The Skilled Worker route became simpler and easier to use, while the abolition of the resident labour market te ...
20th October 2021Three ways to improve the immigration system and help solve the labour crisis
The number of new visas is starting to make heads spin. The government’s announcement of a route for HGV drivers and poultry workers comes hot on the heels of a new employment route for Graduates which opened in July. Next year will see at least two ...
28th September 2021Illegal working checks must adapt to the work-from-home age
All being well, the government’s advice to work from home should be lifted from 21 June. With offices filling up, and city streets bustling, normal working life is already starting to resume. But remote working patterns are clearly popular with work ...
1st June 2021How to apply for a Skilled Worker sponsor licence
With EU free movement fading into memory, the main visa route available for non British and Irish nationals wanting to work in the UK is now the Skilled Worker visa. The Skilled Worker visa is a sponsorship system: a foreign worker cannot simply app ...
7th April 2021How to apply for a frontier worker permit
The end of free movement has, for better or worse, given rise to a number of new visa routes catering for workers looking to establish themselves in the UK. Joining their ranks is the frontier worker permit which opened to new applicants on 10 Decembe ...
18th January 2021What the new Points Based Immigration System has in store for UK work visas
For work-based immigration, last week’s statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was in many ways rather anticlimactic. The last two years have seen a series of reports and policy statements setting out the government’s plans for a ‘new’ ...
29th October 2020What is a representative of an overseas business visa and why are people talking about it?
There is something reassuringly self-explanatory about the representative of an overseas business visa. Compared to the crop of new visas that have emerged over the last year, with their irritatingly zeitgeisty names such as “innovator” and “glo ...
20th July 2020Worried that furloughing or redundancy could affect your visa? Here’s what you need to know
With the UK still reeling from COVID-19, a mega recession looms. The statistics are sobering; 8 million workers on the government furlough scheme, 2.6 million claims for Universal Credit since the lockdown began and the economy already suffering its b ...
20th May 2020Employers urged to apply now for licence to sponsor overseas workers once free movement ends
Under the new immigration system planned to kick in from January 2021, the minimum skill level needed to be sponsored for a general work visa will be reduced from RQF level 6 to RQF level 3. This means that jobs which are considered to be A-level stan ...
9th April 2020Comment: why the MAC report was a letdown for women
Reaction to the Migration Advisory Committee’s latest report, released on 28 January, has largely focused on the MAC’s lukewarm response to the government’s desire for an Australia-style points based immigration system. Very little a ...
6th February 2020The Conservative manifesto: an “Australian-style points based system”
If the polls are to be believed, the manifesto that the Conservatives launched yesterday will be the legislative agenda for the UK’s next government. Whichever way you intend to vote in the upcoming election, it needs careful scrutinising to see wha ...
25th November 2019The Labour manifesto: end the hostile environment
All eyes were on Birmingham yesterday for the launch of the Labour Party’s manifesto. Billed as “radical” by Jeremy Corbyn, its stated purpose is to offer “real change” and to build a fairer Britain. But this sense of radical ...
22nd November 2019New NHS visa announced
You wait ages for a new visa route and three come along at the same time… Hot on the heels of the announcements earlier this summer of new visas for graduates and for scientists comes today’s news that the Conservatives are planning to introdu ...
8th November 2019Why can’t politicians get over the idea of an Australian-style immigration system?
For politicians with an agenda to push and votes to win, talking up an “Australian-style points based system” seems like a catchy, quick-fix solution to public anxiety over immigration. During the referendum campaign it was a popular trope of the ...
8th November 2019Will the Graduate Immigration Route live up to expectations?
With the Brexit psychodrama continuing to monopolise airtime and public attention, it would be easy to overlook the government’s recent announcement of a new visa route for foreign students in the UK. Providing a bit of relief from the general d ...
30th October 2019Frontier workers left in Brexit limbo
When the word ‘chaotic’ no longer seems to adequately describe a situation you know things are getting bad. The government’s announcement and subsequent hasty retraction of its intention to end free movement on 1 November 2019 has served o ...
6th September 2019What is a UK start-up visa?
From 29 March 2019 the government’s new ‘start-up’ visa finally opened for new applicants. Announced last June, the visa is intended as a replacement to the Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) route but carries with it the expectation that it will, a ...
11th April 2019Court of Appeal finds that ordinary residents should be first in the queue for organ donations
Brexit notwithstanding, 2018 is likely to be remembered as the year the lid was blown on the government’s hostile environment policy. The debate about how difficult we want the lives of migrants unlawfully in the UK to be has now caught the atte ...
27th December 2018How easy is it to buy British citizenship?
To go along with the private jet and luxury yacht, the current ‘must-have’ for a discerning multi-millionaire seems to be a range of international passports. The phenomenon of citizenship by investment has emerged over the last few decades and de ...
31st October 201810 things we (might) now know about the post-Brexit immigration system
After months of uncertainty we finally have a picture emerging of what the post-Brexit immigration system will look like. We have known for some time that after we leave the EU on 29 March 2019, the plan is to enter a transition period until 31 Decemb ...
3rd October 2018An NHS exemption will help, but the Tier 2 visa cap should go
Less than two months into the job, Sajid Javid appears to be, so far, quite a pragmatic Home Secretary. Following six months of the Tier 2 cap wreaking havoc amongst employers and users of the Points Based System, resulting in the NHS losing out on hi ...
18th June 2018Pressure on the visa quota system continues to build, new figures show
What started as a minor aberration has now turned into a worrying trend. The Home Office confirmed on 24 May that we have hit the monthly cap on visas for skilled non-EU workers for the sixth month in a row. On top of that, Freedom of Information d ...
25th May 2018Do the Immigration Rules discriminate against women who want to work in the UK?
Today is the deadline for employers with 250 or more employees to publish calculations showing the size of the pay gap between their male and female workers. The gender pay gap is the percentage difference between the average hourly earnings for men a ...
4th April 2018Just how level do we want the Brexit playing field to be?
Seasoned Brexit watchers will be familiar by now with the trope that there is a “need for a level playing field”. Coined by the EU out of concern that the UK may turn itself into a tax haven, the phrase has now been appropriated by Brexiteers in t ...
21st February 2018Big changes to continuous residence rule for ILR applicants
Hidden within December’s statement of changes (HC309) to the Immigration Rules are new provisions that will affect how the Home Office assesses continuous residence for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) applications. Certain visa categories require a ...
8th January 2018British organs for British residents
The current Prime Minister coined the term “hostile environment” when she was in charge at the Home Office. It is easy to forget that these measures, aimed at making life intolerable for immigrants without status, began during the last Lab ...
27th November 2017