New Uk Immigration Cap May Come From A Different Area

The new cap on UK immigration, although albeit temporary, may just not be what it first appeared to be. It transpires that the cap on UK visa applications to come into force in April and last until next year has been revealed as not affecting those emigrating to the UK through the intra company transfer route.

The intra company transfer type of immigration is designed for multi-national companies that have staff based all over the world and enables the company to transfer employees throughout its branches as it sees fit. This is obviously great for the companies involved as it saves on such things as hiring costs and allows them to interchange workers when and where needed. Overall it is a very good scheme and works well for all those involved. As part of this UK immigration route the employee forfeits his stay in the UK if he loses or discontinues the job.

This route for immigration to the UK has for all intents and purposes been left by the coalition government as it clearly is not an established route for permanent immigration - as if the employee leaves the job then they will also have to leave the country.

However, this still serves as a route into the UK and as such a route for UK immigration statistics. Speaking of statistics it has also come to light that the numbers immigrating to the UK under the tier 1 and 2 points based system is much lower than was first considered. Measured quarterly it was just 6,843 for the tier 1 UK visa for the first part of 2010 and 17,000 for tier 2 under the same period. When this is compared to the numbers of student visas being issued of 54,000, there does seem to be a large difference.

Reducing the number of students will obviously mean less money for the universities, as this group pays an exorbitant price for the privilege to study in the UK. The last point of reference I think it was near to £9,000 a year for foreign students at a UK university. This is over three times the cost of home students, combined with the fact that UK universities are being more and more subscribed to by this group, then if they are taken away that would be a big chunk of change gone from their funding.

Australia immigration’s decision to restrict the scope of those that are eligible for an Australian visa after they study in the country was undeniably an unpopular one, however, it will effectively reduce immigration by this route considerably. Perhaps this is what the UK immigration authorities should be considering.

By: James P Lewis

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