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The Points Based System House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Managing Migration: The Points Based System Thirteenth Report of Session 2008–09 Volume I HC 217-I House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Managing Migration: The Points Based System Thirteenth Report of Session 2008–09 Volume I Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 15 July 2009 HC 217-I Published on 1 August 2009 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chairman) Tom Brake MP (Liberal Democrat, Carshalton and Wallington) Ms Karen Buck MP (Labour, Regent’s Park and Kensington North) Mr James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Mrs Ann Cryer MP (Labour, Keighley) David TC Davies MP (Conservative, Monmouth) Mrs Janet Dean MP (Labour, Burton) Patrick Mercer MP (Conservative, Newark) Margaret Moran MP (Labour, Luton South) Gwyn Prosser MP (Labour, Dover) Bob Russell MP (Liberal Democrat, Colchester) Martin Salter MP (Labour, Reading West) Mr Gary Streeter MP (Conservative, South West Devon) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom. A list of Reports of the Committee since Session 2005–06 is at the back of this volume. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Elizabeth Flood (Clerk), Eliot Barrass (Second Clerk), Elisabeth Bates (Committee Specialist), Sarah Harrison (Committee Specialist), Darren Hackett (Senior Committee Assistant), Ameet Chudasama (Committee Assistant), Sheryl Dinsdale (Committee Assistant) and Jessica Bridges-Palmer (Select Committee Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3276; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. Managing Migration: The Points Based System 1 Contents Report Page Summary 6 CONTEXT 8 1 The Committee’s inquiry 8 2 International migration to the UK 9 Immigration control 9 Immigration legislation 9 Reliability of statistics 9 Migration trends 10 EEA nationals 11 Non-EEA migration 12 Previous work entry routes 12 SYSTEM DESIGN 17 3 Architecture of the new system 17 Rationale for a new system 17 The Tiers 17 Migration Advisory Committee and shortage occupation lists 18 Resident labour market test 19 Scoring points 19 Tier 1 19 Tier 2 20 Tier 4 21 Tier 5 21 Sponsorship 21 Administrative Review 22 4 The Points Based System and the current economic climate- 23 Recession and employment 23 Adjusting the Points Based System for economic circumstances 24 5 Shortages 27 Types of shortage 27 Highly specialist skills not available in the resident workforce 27 Shortages due to unattractive wages or conditions 28 Shortages due to insufficient investment in skills 29 Assessing shortages 31 Methodology of the Migration Advisory Committee 31 Use of the shortage occupation lists 32 The resident labour market test 33 6 Points criteria: fair, transparent, flexible? 36 2 Managing Migration: The Points Based System Are the points categories a fair measure of skill? 36 Qualifications vs experience 38 Maintenance and salary 40 English language 42 7 Sponsorship 46 Rebalancing compliance 46 Sponsor licensing process 47 Sponsorship Management System 48 8 Administrative review 52 9 Biometric visas and delays 55 10 Responsiveness of the UK Border Agency 59 11 Sector-specific issues 62 Catering and hospitality 62 Labour shortage 62 Impact on communities 63 Low-skilled workers 64 Skilled chefs 65 Training 66 Health and social care 68 Care workers 68 Nurses 71 Doctors: age requirement 72 Information and communications technology 73 Shortage areas 74 Intra-Company Transfers 74 Legal services 76 Government Authorised Exchange Schemes 77 Higher education and students 78 International students in the UK 79 Tier 5 Sponsored Researchers 80 Visa length; Certificates of Acceptance for Study; visiting academics 81 Arts and entertainment 82 Ballet dancers 83 Emergency visas 84 Agriculture and horticulture 85 Low skilled labour 85 Skilled labour 86 12 MPs’ representations 88 Backlog and delays in processing applications 88 Options for representation 88 Survey of MPs 89 Speed of response 89 Quality of response 90 Managing Migration: The Points Based System 3 Decisions by Ministers 90 Potential increase in representations under the Points Based System 91 Conclusions and recommendations 93 Witnesses 129 Formal Minutes 127 List of written evidence 130 Managing Migration: The Points Based System 5 Summary In the context of the current economic climate it is all the more important that the Points Based System for immigration is able to respond flexibly to changing economic and labour market needs, and that the process of assessing shortages and awarding points for skills is accurate, fair and transparent. Given that the number of job vacancies in the UK has reduced by a third over the last year and currently stands at its lowest level since comparable records began in 2001, it is obvious and right that employers should seek to recruit first from the UK labour market. However, where there are certain skills of which a genuine shortage exists, recruitment from outside the EEA should be allowed if otherwise the UK’s global competitiveness could be harmed. The practical implementation of the Points Based System for managed migration has on the whole received a cautious welcome, in particular for the emphasis it places on transparent and objective criteria. However, several key structures on which the system is built—most notably the calibration of points, the shortage occupation lists, compliance responsibilities placed on sponsors and the introduction of administrative review—require further consideration. Although objectivity is to be welcomed, measuring skill by awarding points for criteria such as past earnings or academic qualifications gives undue priority to easily-quantifiable attributes and ignores ability or experience in a job. In particular, the overemphasis on formal qualifications at the expense of professional experience or training is arbitrary and unfair. Practitioners of several skilled professions—such as ballet dancers, chefs or musicians—do not necessarily hold formal qualifications. Rather than including such professions on a shortage occupation list, we recommend that the Government should draw up a list of high-level training or professional experience, by sector, which it will accept as a substitute for academic qualifications. The long term inclusion on the shortage occupation lists of occupations which reflect areas of long term structural shortage, or the need to compete internationally for a small number of exceptionally talented people appears to be to compensate for poor design elsewhere in the system. We recommend that these shortages should be addressed by adapting the points criteria, and not by inclusion on the lists. The shortage occupation lists should be used only to provide flexibility for short term or cyclical shortages; to this end the Government should consider updating the lists on a more frequent, or rolling, basis. Employers and educators, as the sponsors of migrants, are expected to take on greater responsibility for migrants’ compliance with immigration controls. There is clearly great nervousness amongst sponsors over the possible penalties attached to any failure, even unwitting, to report changes in circumstance of their migrants. We recommend that the Government gives a degree of leeway to ‘A’ rated sponsors, and that it makes explicit to sponsors exactly how and when they can expect penalties to be applied. It must also ensure that the Sponsorship Management System—on which administration of the whole system of migrant sponsorship rests—is adequately piloted and tested, or risk potentially dramatic consequences for the reputation, functioning and finance of UK business and education. 6 Managing Migration: The Points Based System We conclude that representations by Members of Parliament to the UK Border Agency and ministers on immigration and asylum cases will increase, since the system contains no independent right of appeal against visa refusals but only a paper-based administrative review. This could lead to MPs and ministers becoming an alternative appeals process. Already too many MPs are dissatisfied with the quality and speed of response to their representations—understandably so, since the UK Border Agency is spectacularly failing to meet its target of responding to 95 per cent of correspondence within 20 days. Different industries—catering and hospitality, health and social care, information and communications technology, legal services, higher education and students, arts and entertainment and agriculture and horticulture—have experienced specific problems with the implementation of the system. We consider these issues individually in Chapter 11.
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