Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate the Government has made of the number of NHS workers affected by the new income requirements for Tier 2 visas.

In June, the Government commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to provide advice on significantly reducing non-EEA economic migration, including raising minimum salary thresholds to ensure that those entering the UK on Tier 2 (skilled work) visas are not undercutting the resident labour force.

The MAC published its interim report on 13 August, which recommended waiting until its final report in December, which will analyse the impacts of Tier 2 salary requirements further and their interaction with other issues we have asked the MAC to consider. The Government is currently considering its response. No decision has yet been made regarding changes to minimum income requirements for Tier 2 (skilled work) visas.

In 2012, the Government announced it would implement a minimum pay requirement of £35,000 for Tier 2 migrants applying for settlement from April 2016. An impact assessment for that policy change was published in March 2012 and is available at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/117957/impact-assessment-tier2.pdf