IMMIGRATION RULES for the world’s wealthiest people are to be relaxed in the UK. The aim is to attract the new rich of China, India and the Middle East, who will be able to qualify for British citizenship in five years if they have £10 million in the bank.
The measure is part of new immigration rules announced by home secretary Theresa May yesterday. These will allow multi-national companies to transfer as many workers into UK operations as they wish on one-year contracts, so long as they are paid more than £40,000 a year.
Meanwhile, a cap will be placed on the entry of lower-paid immigrant workers from outside the European Union.
The concessions to business follows a major lobbying campaign. “I don’t expect to see businesses gaming around these arrangements. We’ve listened to business in putting these arrangements in place and we’ve delivered a package that I believe is right for business. There are genuine reasons sometimes why businesses need to bring people in for less than a year,” the home secretary told the House of Commons.
The number of skilled migrant workers coming to Britain from outside the EU will be cut by a fifth and capped at 21,700 from next year. The number of skilled workers with job offers entering the UK on visas under the existing points-based system will be capped at 20,700 and limited to graduate-level jobs, she told MPs to general approval.
The total figure, therefore, will represent a drop of 13 per cent down on those allowed in legally last year under the Labour government.
The package marks a compromise between the Conservatives, who had insisted before Ms May’s election that they would put an immigration cap in place, and the Liberal Democrats, who adopted a more pro-immigration position, arguing that the UK had benefited greatly from it.
The compromise does, however, reflect a success for the ability of the coalition to reach a consensus. The Conservatives have their cap, the Liberal Democrats receive rare praise from the business community and both parties are lauded by Migration Watch UK – an anti-immigration lobby group – for a policy that would lower the number of foreigners entering Britain.
This is a considerable achievement for the coalition as it was thought the cap was unworkable, and it will also be a pep pill for the embattled home secretary. But it is also a victory for business secretary Vince Cable, who was being praised by businessmen on the airwaves yesterday morning. Mr Cable and Ms May have also been praised by Migration Watch’s Andrew Green for attempting to tackle Britain’s net migration.
Final agreement has not been reached on the future of non-EU migrant students, though it is understood that the home secretary is determined to close down bogus language schools that dealt with up to 130,000 people in recent years. Instead, foreign students will be encouraged to apply for high-cost degree college courses, even though this could affect the number of places available for British students.