| The points based system
is a central part of the Government's five year strategy for
asylum and immigration, which was published in February 2005,
and is committed to a wide-ranging plan: to ensure that only
those who benefit Britain can come here to work or study; to
strengthen the UK's borders; to crack down on abuse and illegal
immigration; and increase removals. Its implementation is a
key Government priority. |
| The scheme will be complemented
with a tougher approach from our own British embassies abroad
to weed out false applications and will place increased obligations
on UK businesses and universities who will now be required to
sponsor migrants and help to ensure that those they sponsor
adhere to the terms of their visa. |
Key elements of
the system include: |
| Consolidating more than 80 existing work and study routes into five tiers: |
Tier 1
- Highly skilled, e.g. scientists or entrepreneurs;
Tier 2 - Employer led system for medium and
high skilled migrants with a job offer, e.g. nurses, teachers,
engineers, intra-corporate transfers etc
Tier 3 - Low skilled workers filling specific
temporary labour shortages, e.g. construction workers for a
particular project, agricultural workers
Tier 4 - Students
Tier 5 - Youth mobility and temporary workers,
e.g. working holiday makers, BUNAC students, au pairs or musicians
coming to play a concert |
- Points to be awarded to reflect aptitude, experience, age and also the level of need in any given sector, to allow the UK to respond flexibly to changes in the labour market;
- The establishment of a Skills Advisory Body to identify these shortages;
- Consolidating entry clearance and work permit applications into one transparent single stage application;
- A system of sponsorship by employers and educational institutions to ensure compliance;
- Financial securities for specific categories where there has been evidence of abuse to ensure that migrants return home at the end of their stay; and
- The ending of employment routes to the UK for low-skilled workers from outside the EU except in cases of short-term shortages
|
| Proposals for a points-based
system for managed migration are a key element of the Home Office's
five year strategy for asylum and immigration 'Controlling our
borders: making migration work for Britain'. |
| The system aims to ensure
that only those migrants who benefit the UK - for example the
highly-skilled such as surgeons or scientists or those who are
coming to fill gaps in the labour market that cannot be met
from the domestic workforce such as teachers and nurses, can
come to work or study, while introducing new measures to ensure
that migrants comply with their leave to remain and go home
at the end of their stay. |
