Yesterday the Prime Minister announced a quota of 45,000 seasonal worker visas for 2024, “to give certainty to the horticulture sector next year, enabling them to plan ahead for the picking season”. It is billed as part of a larger package of supp ...

The Youth Mobility Scheme is one of the friendlier parts of the Immigration Rules. The route is designed to enable people aged 18-30 to live and work in the UK and is relatively straightforward to apply for, at least compared with other options for ec ...

The Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) category of the Immigration Rules is one of the least known of all the UK’s visa options. It can be found in Appendix Temporary Work – Government Authorised Exchange to the immigration rules. The te ...

The Home Office has published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 719). The explanatory memorandum confirms that the changes are largely focused on the government’s continued efforts to simplify the rules, and on implementing ...

The latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 803) allows pork butchers to come into the UK as Seasonal Workers for up to six months. It came into force at 4pm on 1 November 2021. The government announced last month that 800 temporary v ...

This is the Policy Wheel. I was taught about it when working on immigration policy at the Home Office in 2003 and continued to use it until I left in 2011. I believe it is still used; certainly it is a great way to solve problems.   How would you ...

The Home Office has published a short statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. It is to implement the emergency temporary visa schemes for HGV drivers and poultry workers and therefore comes into force at 4pm today. Employers in those sectors wi ...

The government has announced that HGV drivers and poultry workers will be eligible for temporary visas from next month. The policy represents a shift from the firm line against “low-skilled” immigration post-Brexit. Here is what we know ab ...

On 10 September 2021 the Home Office published a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 617). It is 183 pages long and makes adjustments in quite a number of areas. Some of the main changes are: Banning entry to the UK with an ID card rathe ...

It’s been a very long time since most UK live music and theatre “sponsors” have had to issue paperwork for overseas artists to come into the UK. For most, it’s been 16 months and counting. Since then, we’ve had Brexit, dragging EU ac ...

The UK and India signed a non-binding agreement on migration this week. The basic ingredients are to beef up cooperation on removing unauthorised migrants in exchange for a minor liberalisation on youth mobility-type visas and some warm words on encou ...

No doubt you will have read about the mudslinging between the UK and EU over the lack of a visa-free deal for touring musicians and entertainers. This has been retweeted and attacked by seemingly every artist you’ve heard of, and even been debated i ...

A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published on 31 December 2020 and took effect at 11pm that night. (We weren’t working at the time, for some reason, so do excuse the delay in bringing you this summary). It is short enough ...