Ruth Smeeth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Smeeth on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2016 to Question 31677, what the penalties are for an employer who has issued a Certificate of Sponsorship but does not adhere to the stated job description and salary.

Mike Penning

Guidance for sponsors specifies that UKVI will revoke the licence of a sponsor who has issued a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) but has not adhered to the specified job description and/or salary. However, prior to the consideration of revocation action, UKVI will suspend the licence and allow the sponsor the opportunity to make representations against the matter(s) identified. UKVI does have residual discretion to apply a lesser sanctions depending on the severity of the matter(s) and the mitigating circumstances presented by the sponsor; these sanctions include downgrading the licence rating and issuing a time limited action plan or reducing the sponsor’s CoS allocation or setting the allocation to zero.