Comment: The immigration balancing act
The government risks a ‘brain drain’ by closing immigration routes for highly skilled workers.
By Vicash Ramkissoon
The National Audit Office’s report on the points based immigration system (PBS) was critical of the United Kingdom Border’s (UKBA) implementation plan, citing waste of resources, inefficiency and lack of control measures in preventing abuse.
I was recently invited to provide witness evidence to the public accounts select committee at the House of Commons to discuss the findings of the report on the PBS and provide input as to my personal experience as an immigration lawyer from the ‘coal face’.
Since its inception the PBS has proved to be flexible in the sense that it can be used by the government of the day to implement changes to policies at short notice with the aim of managing net immigration.
I have had the opportunity to work with a rage of clients, multinationals, small businesses and high net worth individuals and the reaction to the PBS and the continual ‘tweaking’ has been mixed.
On the whole the system does work well in that there are clearly defined routes of entry to work in the UK under the different tiers.
With regards to the Tier 1 Entrepreneur and Investor Visa categories the recent changes of 6th April 2011 are to be applauded, in attracting high net worth individuals to invest in the UK with a reduced initial investment (in some cases ) and relaxed rules in relation to residential requirements.
Less welcome is the effective closure of the Tier 1 (General) Highly Skilled Route from April and the Tier 1 Post Study Worker route for international graduates from next year. Although there is no doubt that this will have an impact on managing net immigration, given that these categories amount to the majority of applications under the PBS, the impact of closing these categories, should not be underestimated.
Entrepreneurs such as Sir James Dyson, a business advisor to the government, has already expressed his fears that the closure of such routes could lead to a ‘brain drain’ in the technology industry, widely acknowledged as an area in which the UK has a skills shortage.
If this route into the UK had not been available, it would have prevented many applicants that I have seen who, without large capital sums and through sheer hard work, have then gone on to establish flourishing businesses in the UK, employing many other people in the process.
The cap on Tier 2 General applicants, from April 6th, limiting applications to 20,700 per year, will effectively raise the skills threshold to degree level positions, to allay any fears that work permits were not being targeted at skilled jobs. For many companies, the annual limit will enable them to have better prospects of securing a Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) to recruit overseas workers, which was severely hampered when the interim limits were initially announced last year. However problems could arise where the monthly allocation of COS’s is oversubscribed, which could result in delays in securing a permission to work and the possibility of not being able to secure a COS at all, which is likely to impact smaller companies in particular.
The Tier 2 Intra Company Transfer (ICT) route often used by multinational companies to transfer workers from overseas, although not part of the annual cap, also came under scrutiny by the public accounts select committee, based on the number of migrants entering via this route. This is no doubt something which the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will be concerned to note, as they were very effective in lobbying for ICTs to remain outside the immigration cap.
I would also like to have seen further independent studies on the impact of the PBS on smaller companies as the majority do not have overseas branches and will be unable be utilise the ICT route.
In the wake of numerous ‘bogus college’ scandals, the tightening of the student rules under Tier (4), which is also due to be the subject of a separate report by the NAO, will require all institutions to hold ‘highly trusted’ sponsor status. This move will protect genuine students and restrict the right to work for students studying on courses below degree level.
In all, it remains to be seen whether the PBS will ultimately be successful in controlling net immigration and addressing the needs of the UK to attract and retain the brightest talent in an increasingly competitive global market.
The difficulty, which no system has been able to achieve to date, is to strike a balance between the two.
Vicash Ramkissoon is an immigration solicitor and partner at Duncan Lewis.
The opinions in politics.co.uk’s Speakers Corner are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.
