The UK Home Office promoted the new Business Immigration routes which have been coming into effect progressively since the Spring, hailing them in these terms:
“For the first time, teams of workers will be able to undertake assignments connected to a business’s expansion to the UK, thereby facilitating inward investment. And the new provision for secondments is a world-first in enabling collaboration between UK and international businesses. These new and reformed routes will make mobility across the UK border as frictionless as possible, while at the same time ensuring international trade serves the interests of British workers and our economy.”
In my article published in ILPA (Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association) on 24.5.2022, I examine whether the UK Government has achieved its aims and conclude:
“Firstly, rather than simplification, the “omnification” of the routes under a concept of sponsorship, in the interests of “coherence”, has in fact introduced cumbersome red tape and an uncalled-for rigidity as well as over-prescription…
…Finally, the government fails to acknowledge that an economy is driven forward not by the exceptional few but by normal and hardworking SMEs. There is an uneasy feeling of déjà-vu…
They fail to consider the context and economic landscape we are living and working in following the three major seismic shocks on Brexit, Pandemic and the war in Ukraine with all the ripple effects including all the ensuing uncertainty…”
Is it time to take a long hard look at the needs of UK employers and wake up to the realities of the situation we find ourselves in?
Is it time to design a more meaningful immigration offer that will really relaunch our economy given the various crises we are in the midst of?
[ILPA article: Requires membership subscription]
Author: Nilmini Roelens