Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of nurses from outside the European Economic area who will lose their Tier 2 visas because of the requirement that within six years of coming to the UK they must be earning £35,000 or more.

The Government first announced in 2011 our intentions to reform the settlement rules, and those new rules would apply to migrants who entered Tier 2 from 2011.

Following a public consultation, we announced the details of the new rules in 2012. From 6 April 2016, Tier 2 (skilled worker) visa holders who apply for settlement in the UK will be required to meet a minimum annual salary requirement of £35,000.

The Home Office published a full impact assessment on the changes to Tier 2 settlement rules when they were laid before Parliament on 15 March 2012. The impact assessment is available on the gov.uk website at:

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