Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide special visas to people in war zones who have strong technology skills.

The Home Office’s response to people fleeing war zones is to bring into place humanitarian schemes which are more simple to administer and assist as many people in need as possible. These include the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family Schemes and our resettlement programmes such as the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme. People who enter the UK under these schemes have full work rights and it is therefore unnecessary to only support those with specific skills.

Outside of these schemes we have a broad range of safe and legal routes which cater to those with specific tech skills including our Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Innovator and the new High Potential Individual and Scale-up routes which are open to all nationalities, including those who are refugees.

A pilot in partnership with Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) to explore how we might support highly skilled displaced people to access a Skilled Worker visa to the UK is already underway.