Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason chefs were removed from the Shortage Occupation List under the Skilled Worker visa route; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of that decision on (a) small and (b) independent hospitality businesses.

As set out in the Immigration White Paper ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System’, published on 12 May, this Government’s approach is to link migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies, so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems in the UK.

Chefs were removed from the Shortage Occupation List upon the recommendation of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) in their 2020 review under the previous government. In their 2023 review the MAC found that entry to the now defunct Shortage Occupation List would ‘contribute to downward pressure on wages in the occupation’.