The new Labour government’s statement on legal migration to the UK.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has delivered a statement to Parliament setting out the new government's approach to legal migration to the UK.
Despite optimism in many sectors, the government has stated that it fully supports the policy changes made by the Conservative government earlier this year under the five point plan announced in December 2023 and will continue to implement them :
- restricting most overseas students from bringing family members to the UK;
- restricting the ability of care workers to bring dependants with them and requiring all care providers sponsoring migrants to register with the Care Quality Commission;
- increasing the general salary threshold for those arriving on skilled worker visas by 48%, from £26,200 to £38,700;
- increasing to the ‘going rate’ minimum salary specific to each job; and
- abolishing the 20% going rate discount, so that employers can no longer pay migrants less than UK workers in shortage occupations, meaning that the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas will remain at £38,700.
Cooper said she will commission the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to review the current £29,000 minimum income requirement (MIR) for family and partner/spouse visas. There will be no further changes to the level of minimum income requirement for legal migration to the UK until the MAC review is complete.
As part of its five-point plan to reduce net legal migration to the UK, the Conservative government increased the MIR from £18,600 to £29,000 in April 2024 and planned to increase it again to £34,500 later this year, and then to £38,700 in 2025.The Home Secretary said MAC's review will ensure the government has a solid evidence base for any further change to the MIR and can strike the right balance between respect for family life and the economic wellbeing of the UK.
The Home Secretary also announced that she is commissioning the MAC to review the reliance of key sectors of the UK economy on migrant workers, specifically the IT and engineering sectors who have consistently relied on significant levels of international recruitment and have been included on shortage occupation lists for over a decade.
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