Expert urges government to encourage UK visa applications
September 02 2009 by Matt Jones
Tim Finch: UK immigration needs to change
Tim Finch, Head of Migration, Equalities and Citizenship Team IPPR, has published an article on the eGov Monitor website to urge the UK government to keep encouraging skilled migrants to apply for UK visas and UK work permits.
According to Finch, it’s important that the UK puts the long-term health of the economy above the “populist position … to slam the door shut on newcomers and keep all the jobs for ourselves.”
The latest report on UK immigration to be published by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) warns against any further measures to restrict the UK work visa for skilled migrants. The MAC says that the Points-Based System (PBS), through which migrants must apply for their UK work permits and visas, is already doing an effective job of preventing an overflow of foreign workers entering the UK while the economy is still in recession.
Finch is concerned that the UK’s immigration policy could potentially discourage skilled migrants from applying for UK work permits. “We certainly want to avoid the situation where valuable skilled migrants are put off coming to or staying in the UK because our immigration system is too restrictive,” he wrote in his article.
“It is our belief that this is becoming a real danger. Since the publication of our re-migration report I’ve been contacted by a number of skilled migrants telling me that new rules, often applied retrospectively, have hit them so hard that it has made them think whether they want to remain in the UK.”
Finch wrote of his conversation with Mohammed Ali, a qualified accountant who had been head hunted by a top UK firm. Ali told Finch that the new PBS required him to re-qualify for his UK visa under a revised criteria and to prove that he could speak English even though he had “worked and paid top tier taxes from day 1”.
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