Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the recommendation of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom to introduce a new emergency visa for journalists at risk.

We maintained a regular dialogue with the FCDO in response to the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom’s recommendations, including meeting with the report’s author. The Foreign Secretary wrote to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 2 February 2022 with our full response.

The Home Secretary’s existing discretion to grant leave as outlined in the New Plan for Immigration and ability to use this – for example in exceptional humanitarian circumstances – is sufficient to respond to such individuals. We have already seen discretion used in the context of the Afghanistan crisis.

In August 2021, we offered granted over 70 journalists and other employees of UK media organisations, including employees from BBC World Service, the Guardian, and The Times, leave to enter the UK outside the rules.

Further, journalists are eligible to apply under the skilled worker route of the Points-Based system, providing they meet the specified requirements.