Tier 2 campaign leads to policy change

Our campaigning, with the support of collaborators across sectors and MPs across Parliament, has led to a change in immigration policy...

We often talk about immigration in this column, mostly imploring that the Government take a common sense approach to immigration policy. Previously I wrote about the Freedom of Information request we submitted to find that over 6,000 eligible Tier 2 visa applications had been refused due to the arbitrary cap on visas for skilled workers between December and March. Our campaigning, with the support of collaborators across sectors and MPs across Parliament, has led to a change in immigration policy, making it easier for organisations to recruit desperately needed skilled workers from outside the UK and Europe.

Our publication of Home Office figures received much attention in the media both at home and internationally, while pressure on the Government and Theresa May mounted in Westminster as we worked with parliamentarians from all corners of the house to ask why the UK was refusing entry to doctors, engineers and IT specialists that support public services and drive economic growth. On June 15th, the Government published its plans to update the Tier 2 visa system, by exempting all doctors and nurses from the annual cap. This means that doctors and nurses no longer count in the monthly allocation of Certificates of Sponsorship.

Doctors and nurses make up a significant portion of the Tier 2 visa allocation, so exempting these professions should leave enough room for employers to recruit engineers, tech specialists and other highly-skilled professionals without risk of refusal due to the cap. While this was not our preferred solution, it will have a similar effect on numbers. CaSE’s goal is that no such arbitrary cap be placed on the recruitment of skilled workers to the UK, allowing employers to recruit where there is proof no UK-based individual is capable of filling such role.

We were also pleased to see a change to the Tier 5 visa for temporary work that implements a recommendation made by CaSE in our 2016 immigration report to create a Science, research and academia visa route for temporary work. The change will mean that research organisations can now employ non-European researchers for up to two years, giving such organisations the same recruitment ability as UK universities.

These changes are a sign of progress in Government thinking about immigration. We will continue our work to ensure that the UK has an immigration system that supports science and engineering.

James Tooze is Policy Officer at the Campaign for Science and Engineering