Soaring UK sponsorship licence fees are pricing SMEs out of access to immigrant labour. A new study found that small and medium firms are reluctant to hire EU staff in the post-Brexit era because of the costs associated with taking them on.
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UK Immigration News
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The Home Office has agreed to include ‘ornamentals’ on the UK seasonal worker visa list. However, the government department has refused to budge on the 30,000 temporary visas made available each year, saying that the number will not be increased. The news was announced at a recent Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) hearing.
Interest in the UK Tier 1 investor visa is slowly starting to rise following a slump at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. According to a report published by Wealth Briefing, figures suggest that ‘post-Brexit and geo-political shifts’ mean that more Tier 1 visa applications are being made by applicants from France, Switzerland and the US.
The UK has lifted visit visa suspensions imposed on several countries placed on Britain’s red list amid the rising spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. In November, the UK government released a list of countries placed on the red list for which visit visa suspensions applied.
At the time of the suspension being enforced, UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, announced that Omicron now makes up 20% of all UK COVID cases.
Two MPs are reportedly trying to force the UK government to waive UK visa fees for foreign nationals who have served the British military and want to remain in the country. Labour’s Dan Jarvis and Conservative MP, Johnny Mercer, both of whom are army veterans, have put forward an amendment to the UK Immigration and Borders Bill.
According to an analysis of the UK government’s quarterly statistics, delays in processing UK sponsor licence applications and work visas are compounding Britain’s current labour shortages. The quarterly statistics, published by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), show that the waiting times for immigration sponsorship have increased sharply since the start of 2021.