UK & EEA Law Immigration Digest, April 2016/
Tier 2 reviews – government response
In a ministerial statement published on 24 March 2016, the Government has announced how it will reform Tier 2 of the Points Based System for skilled migration in response to the Migration Advisory Committee review of Tier 2 and its review of whether nurses should remain on the Shortage Occupation List. A timetable has also been issued setting out when each of the phased reforms will be introduced.
The Tier 2 salary threshold will increase to £25,000 in autumn 2016 and to the Migration Advisory Committee’s recommended level of £30,000 in April 2017. Nurses, medical radiographers, paramedics and secondary school teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science and Mandarin will be exempted from the increased salary thresholds, and given additional weighting in the monthly allocation of the Tier 2 (General) limit where they are not on the Shortage Occupation List, until July 2019.
Nurses will remain on the Shortage Occupation List but employers will be required to conduct a Resident Labour Market Test before recruiting from outside the EEA. This is in line with the recommendations of the Migrant Advisory Committee which accepted that there is an immediate shortage of nurses but largely blamed the health care sector for this and expressed concern that the recruitment of non-EEA nationals masked systemic issues.
Employers will continue to be able to recruit non-EEA graduates of UK universities as currently. From autumn 2016, there will be additional weighting in the Tier 2 (General) limit for businesses sponsoring overseas graduates and graduates will be allowed to switch roles within a company once they have secured a permanent job at the end of their training programme.
From April 2017, extra weight will also be given to the allocation of certificates of sponsorship relating to the relocation of a high-value business to the UK or where these potentially support an inward investment. No resident labour market test will be required for these applications.
There will be a single, streamlined category for all intra-company transfers with a minimum salary threshold of £41,500. The salary threshold for those in the Graduate Trainee category will be reduced to £23,000, however, and employers will be permitted to bring twenty trainees to the UK instead of five. Phased changes set out in the statement will eventually lead to the closures of the Skills Transfer category and the Short Term category. The Government will seek to introduce some flexibility in the route by lowering the minimum salary threshold for intra-company transferees working in the UK for between five and nine years to £120,000 and by removing the requirement that workers paid over £73,000 demonstrate one year’s experience. All intra-company transferees will be required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge from autumn 2016.
Tier 2 dependants will continue to be able to work without restriction, as the Migration Advisory Committee recommended. The Ministerial statement also provides further information on the Immigration Skills Charge, including a reduced rate and exemptions: <noindex>https://www.gov.uk/government/news/migratio...views-of-tier-2</noindex>
•ETS cases
The Upper Tribunal has ruled in the appeal heard as a lead case testing the evidence used by the Home Office to assert fraud by students in English language tests administered by Education Testing Services (ETS). Judgment was handed down by McCloskey and Saini, JJ on 23 March 2016 finding strongly in favour of the Appellants
•3C leave
The Home Office published guidance Leave extended by section 3C (and leave extended by section 3D in transitional cases) on 21 March 2016. The guidance ‘clarifies’ that EEA applications do not qualify as applications that extend section 3C leave and ‘clarifies’ that section 3C leave does not apply where the Tribunal allows an appeal out of time or the Home Office withdraws a decision where section 3C leave is not in operation at the time
the decision is withdrawn.
The guidance refers to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Iqbal [2015] EWCA 838: a person who has made an invalid application does not have 3C leave even though they did not know and could not have known of its invalidity.
The guidance also states: ‘If a person does not already have section 3C leave the fact that they are entitled to an in-country right of appeal against a decision does not give them section 3C leave.’
This appears to profit from what was almost certainly a drafting error when the Immigration Act 2014 amended section 3C, but which the Government decided they liked when we raised it during the passage of the Immigration Bill: that if you get your refusal before your original leave expires, and appeal it, you are not protected by 3C leave for the duration of your appeal protection only kicks in if the refusal comes before your leave has expired.
Сразу после получения PR (при наличии мужа-британца).