As part of the new measures, the government would curb international students from bringing their families to UK unless they are pursuing postgraduate research degrees…reports Asian Lite News
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday announced a series of new steps to crack down on soaring immigration in the country.
Sunak described the new measures as the government’s ‘radical action’ to bring down the immigration rate, adding the steps would ensure that immigration benefits the UK.
As part of the new measures, the government would curb international students from bringing their families to UK unless they are pursuing postgraduate research degrees and hiking the minimum salary that skilled foreign workers will need to earn if they want a visa to work in the country.
Taking to X, PM Sunak said, “Immigration is too high. Today we’re taking radical action to bring it down. These steps will make sure that immigration always benefits the UK.”
He posted, “IMMIGRATION ACTION, BANNING overseas students from bringing their families to the UK, unless they are on postgraduate research degrees, STOPPING immigration undercutting British workers, SCRAPPING the 20% going rate salary discounts offered for shortage occupations.”
Net migration to Britain reached record levels last year, official figures showed, putting pressure on the UK government that has made the issue a political touchstone, CNN reported in May.
Britain saw a net migration of 606,000 people in 2022, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, with 1.2 million people arriving in the country and about half that number leaving.
CNN reported that despite pledges from successive Conservative governments to drastically reduce the numbers of people moving to the UK, particularly in the wake of Brexit – a rupture that was touted by its proponents as a necessary step for Britain to “take control” of its borders.
The vast majority of people arriving – 925,000 – were non-EU nationals, and around one in 12 of those were asylum seekers, included for the first time in the ONS’ annual release.
“The main drivers of the increase were people coming to the UK from non-EU countries for work, study and for humanitarian purposes,” Jay Lindop, Director of the Centre for International Migration at the ONS, said, according to CNN.
Last year, Indian nationals were issued the largest number of UK study, work and visitor visas, according to UK Immigration Statistics.
More than 258,000 Indian nationals received visit visas in the year ending June 2022 — a 630 per cent increase compared to the previous year (when travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were still in place), read UK Immigration Statistics.
But experts warn it also risks causing further chaos in the already stretched health sector and damaging the UK’s long-term growth prospects.
Cleverly told MPs on Monday that “migration is far too high and needs to come down … enough is enough”.
He added: “Today I can announce that we will go even further than those provisions already in place, with a five-point plan to further curb immigration abuses that will deliver the biggest ever reduction in net migration. In total, this package, plus our reduction in student dependants, will mean about 300,000 fewer people will come in future years than have come to the UK last year.”
Along with raising the salary threshold and scrapping the “shortage occupation list”, Cleverly announced that social care workers would no longer be allowed to bring their dependants when they came to work in the UK.
He also said people living in the UK – including British citizens – would now be allowed to sponsor family members to move to the UK only if the person living in the UK earned £38,700, up from £18,600 currently.
Finally, the government is asking the Migration Advisory Committee to review the rules for those who have completed undergraduate degrees in the UK.
A spokesperson for Downing Street called the package “the biggest clampdown on legal migration ever”. They added: “We believe this is a package which will enable us to significantly reduce numbers whilst achieving economic growth.”
It forms one part of a two-part plan to reduce the numbers of people coming into Britain legally and illegally. This week Cleverly is likely to fly to Kigali to sign a new asylum treaty with Rwanda, with ministers ready to bring forward new legislation in an effort to finally kickstart the government’s Rwanda plan.
Sources say Downing Street originally intended to announce a more moderate package of restrictions on legal migration but buckled under heavy pressure from Tory backbenchers and Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister.
Downing Street denied, however, that the five-point plan was the same one Jenrick had reportedly lobbied the prime minister to adopt on multiple occasions in recent weeks.
Christopher Howarth, a former adviser to the Home Office under Priti Patel, said the Treasury had vetoed precisely such moves when Sunak was chancellor because of fears it would stymie economic growth.
“These changes are the ones we urged the government to focus on 18 months ago,” Howarth said. “But they were opposed by various government departments, and especially by the Treasury.”
Taken with previous changes made to student visas, the Home Office calculates this will lead to 300,000 fewer entrants into the UK.
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