Phil Boswell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Phil Boswell on 2016-01-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will adjust the points-based visa criteria to reflect differences in regional average income levels.

James Brokenshire

Salary requirements form part of the criteria for Tier 2 of the Points Based System for immigration – the skilled work route. For the future, the Government intends that employers should only bring in workers from outside Europe where they have genuine skills shortages or require highly-specialised experts. In June last year, we commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to advise on how to achieve this, but with sufficient flexibility to include high value roles and key public service workers.

Among other things, the MAC was asked to advise on minimum salary levels, and to consider the regional impact of all its recommendations. The MAC has now submitted its advice to the Home Secretary and is expected to publish the report shortly. We will consider the findings carefully.