In an effort to lower record net migration numbers, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly has unveiled new initiatives.

 

 

By making it more difficult for foreign workers to bring family members and raising the minimum salary required to obtain two important visa types, James Cleverly promised to reduce arrivals by about 300,000 per year. “Control immigration and stop abuses of the system,” he said, is the goal of the proposed policies.

 

The Home Secretary has also ordered a review of the regulations permitting students to remain in the UK for up to three years after graduating, vowing to “scrap cut-price shortage labor from overseas” and revamping shortage job lists.

 

“Enough is enough,” the home secretary told parliament as he laid out his proposals, which will take effect early next year. Cleverly said skilled foreign workers wanting a UK visa would have to earn £38,700 ($48,860), up from £26,200, just over a third more. He said the move will ‘stop immigration undercutting the salary of British workers’.

 

The current median average salary for full-time workers in the UK is currently £34,963. But the changes mean foreign workers would have to secure higher salaries than their British counterparts in ‘skilled’ jobs where a typical salary is below £38,700.

 

The Home Secretary however exempted health and social care workers where there are currently staff shortages, in part because of Brexit, but said they would be prevented from bringing family dependents.

Cleverly raised the minimum income for family visas and confirmed restrictions on international students bringing dependents. He also reaffirmed that Britain would increase the surcharge that migrants pay to access the state-run National Health Service (NHS) by 66 percent, to £1,035. Cleverly added that the government would reform the “shortage occupation list”, which details jobs for which employers are not able to find enough British workers.

 

Critics have said this effectively imposes a double charge on migrant workers, as employees have National Insurance charges, which goes towards covering healthcare, deducted from wages at source.

 

Around 120,000 dependants moved to the UK with 100,000 care workers in the year ending September 2023, according to government figures. Mr Cleverly said only a quarter of them are estimated to be in work, meaning ‘a significant number are drawing on public services rather than helping to grow the economy’.