withoutnationsOn 9 June 2011, Immigration Minister Damian Green set out a proposal to abolish the link between temporary migration and permanent settlement in the United Kingdom. Specifically, the Home Office intends to reclassify visas as temporary and permanent for workers outside of the EEA. Most current work/study visas would fall under temporary; reserving permanent settlement for a select few immigrants entering with employee-sponsored and ancestry-based qualifications. The proposed changes are the latest in successively more restrictive measures to immigration policy in the United Kingdom.
Leave to remain
Currently, the United Kingdom grants a migrant working or studying a specific period of “leave to remain”, during which they are entitled to claim temporary residency. At the end of this time, a person may choose to renew their visa or switch to a more appropriate route — for example, a student or spouse seeking entitlement to work. After five years of continued residency, immigrants may then apply for “indefinite leave to remain” (ILR), provided they continue to meet the necessary skill requirements. While ILR is still a step removed from citizenship, it does grant permanent settlement in the UK and full access to state services. The aforementioned consultation seeks to define, at the onset of a visa application, which visas are temporary. Workers on temporary visas will not have the option to apply for ILR.
The previous, Labour government introduced the current tiered working visa system in 2008. It is now all but extinct. The Home Office, in the waning years of Gordon Brown, made incremental restrictions to tiered visas by increasing the skill requirements of incoming workers. Following the election of the Liberal Democrat / Conservative coalition, the government has systematically dismantled the visa system. The highest privileged working visa — the Tier 1 Highly Skilled Migrant — closed on 6 April 2011. Tier 4, the student visa, was significantly altered the same month in parallel to closing of the Tier 1 Post-study working visa.
The Home Office states that 84,000 migrants from outside the European Economic Area were granted indefinite leave to remain in 2010 via employment routes, a 17% increase from totals in 1997 (a year apparently relevant as it was the start of the three-term Labour government). Oft quoted reasons for reducing migration include the additional strain on services and loss of skilled jobs.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has made it clear that the United Kingdom intends to block the flow of immigrants from outside the EEA to as few people as legally possible.