All Articles: immigration policy

One rule for the rich

The Government’s plan massively to increase the minimum income threshold required to sponsor family members to the UK came one step closer yesterday with the publication

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Family migration proposals

Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals,

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Sajid Javid delivered a speech today at the Conservative party conference that is likely to generate headlines for what he had to say on immigration, integration and citizenship. Upon closer inspection, there is less substance to these pronouncements than meets the eye and nothing on serious issues like child registration...

2nd October 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Today’s Migration Advisory Committee recommendations are incredibly significant from a UK employer’s perspective. I can immediately see that a huge number of UK employers are likely to be faced with potentially significant new administrative burdens if the recommendations are implemented. The vast majority of UK employers have little or nothing...

18th September 2018
BY Nichola Carter

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has published its long-awaited research into migration from the EU and how it should be managed after Brexit. The report will disappoint advocates of a fairly liberal regime, recommending as it does that if there is no specific agreement with the EU on migration, there...

18th September 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott delivered a speech today on what Labour in government would do about immigration. It doesn’t do to get too excited about these pronouncements, because Labour is not in government, but here is a link to the full text and a few highlights. Labour wants to...

13th September 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Immigration lawyers helping sponsoring universities navigate the complexities of the Points Based System naturally have an economic interest in overseas students — but then so does the rest of the nation. That is the uncompromising conclusion of the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), whose experts find that “there is no...

11th September 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Two years after the referendum vote to leave the European Union, the government has published a White Paper describing what it wants from the future relationship between the UK and EU. The 100-page document includes some references to the future of immigration from the EU, but only in certain, limited...

12th July 2018
BY CJ McKinney

The right of free movement for EU migrants could be replaced with something more like the arrangements making travel easier for Canadian business people, the Home Secretary has said. Sajid Javid told the Home Affairs committee of MPs today that free movement will end after Brexit, “full stop”, and repeatedly...

10th July 2018
BY CJ McKinney

When asked why the fees for visa applications are so expensive, the Home Office traditionally responds that the immigration system should be “funded by those who benefit from it”, in order to reduce taxpayer expense. This is a convenient political argument. It has justified enormous increases in application and other...

2nd July 2018
BY Nick Nason

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 hiring over 2,300 doctors, the...

18th June 2018
BY Joanna Hunt

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 the government. Cabinet...

21st February 2018
BY joannahunt

Immigration policy is decided at a national level, meaning that the rules governing the entry of foreign nationals to the UK are almost entirely the same across the land. The requirements, for instance, to be met by nurses under Tier 2 of the Points Based System are the same in...

3rd November 2017
BY nicknason

There was a short period of just 11 years between 1962 and 1973 when free movement of people did not apply in the UK. Other than during that time, businesses and public services have had easy access to workers from other countries. Following Brexit, the UK will be embarking on...

19th May 2017
BY Colin Yeo

It tickles me that UKIP plan to scrap the EU agreement that permits the UK to return asylum seekers to other EU countries without considering their asylum claim. As it stands, this EU agreement, often referred to as the Dublin Convention or Dublin Regulation (not Treaty as UKIP seem to...

30th September 2014
BY Colin Yeo

There was some coverage in the right wing press yesterday about a new Migration Watch ‘report‘ purportedly linking Eastern European immigration with youth unemployment. Migration Watch statistical analysis has been covered here before. Even the report itself claims nothing more than a ‘gut instinct’ though: Youth unemployment in the UK...

10th January 2012
BY Free Movement

The Government’s plan massively to increase the minimum income threshold required to sponsor family members to the UK came one step closer yesterday with the publication of a report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). The full report can be accessed here. Analysis by Alan Travis of The Guardian can...

17th November 2011
BY Free Movement

Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals, previously covered here on the blog. The tone of the speech and the proposals is clear from the very first words: The vast majority of...

29th September 2011
BY Free Movement

The Home Office have published a new piece of research they commissioned, entitled Marriage-related migration to the UK, by Katharine Charsley, Nicholas Van Hear, Michaela Benson and Brooke Storer-Church. It makes very interesting reading for anyone interested in immigration policy and in the history of spousal immigration. There are a...

25th August 2011
BY Free Movement

The Home Office has been planning a shift to a points-based system for assessing immigration applications for some time, and recently announced the timetable for its introduction: Tier 1: beginning of 2008. This part of the scheme is for the highly skilled, who will not require a job offer before...

24th April 2007
BY Free Movement
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