Controversial immigration cap would have excluded just 6,300

The Government’s new annual cap on skilled workers from outside the EU will reduce visa numbers by only 2.8 per cent – or 6,300 people, according Home Office figures.

A maximum of 21,700 will be allowed to come to the UK this year, with 4,200 places available this month, followed by 1,500 in each month after that.

The cap, announced by the Immigration Minister, Damian Green, is part of a number of policies designed to help meet the Government’s pledge to reduce net immigration to “tens of thousands”.

The latest immigration figures show that 572,000 immigrants came to the UK in the year up to June 2010 while 346,000 Britons emigrated, producing a net immigration figure of 226,000.

“We are overhauling all routes of entry to tackle abuses, make the system more effective and bring net migration back down to the tens of thousands.” Damian Green

Immigrants fall into five broad categories: those seeking asylum, people joining family members, foreign students (by far the biggest group), temporary workers like au pairs and sports professionals, and those seeking long-term employment.

The new cap applies only to the last category – long-term workers. But it does not apply to people who come from other European Union countries to seek work in Britain.

And there are further exemptions, such as entrepreneurs, investors and workers who earn more than £150,000. Furthermore, the annual limit does not apply to people who have been transferred within multinational companies and who earn at least £40,000 a year.

When all the exemptions have been taken into account, Home Office figures suggest the cap would only reduce immigration by up to 6,300, which would equate to 2.8 per cent of net migration, on the latest figures.

Much therefore is expected of the Government’s recently-announced reform of the student visa system which is intended to deliver major cuts in the number of immigrants.

Before last year’s General Election, David Cameron said: “We would like to see net immigration in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands”.

Although it was not clear at the time whether the Conservative leader was referring to immigration from outside the EU, the legal impossibility of barring EU migrants was reflected in the Coalition Agreement, which said the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats “agreed that there should be an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work”.

But Cameron’s pledge of a substantial cut in numbers has been repeated by other Ministers.

‘Overhaul’

On Wednesday the Immigration Minister, Damian Green, said: “We are overhauling all routes of entry to tackle abuses, make the system more effective and bring net migration back down to the tens of thousands.”

Mr Green added that businesses should look to hire unemployed Britons instead of relying on foreign workers, saying: “We need employers to look first to people who are out of work and who are already in this country.”

All skilled workers from outside the EU will need a graduate-level job, as defined by the Migration Advisory Committee’s list, speak an intermediate level of English, and earn at least £20,000.

The measures are designed to stop non-EU migrants coming to the UK as skilled workers but then working in fast food outlets, beauty salons and estate agents.

Firms will need to have already advertised the job in the UK and failed to find a suitable candidate.

Intra-company transfers, used by firms to bring their own people into the UK for more than a year to do specific jobs, are excluded from the cap, and businesses will still be able to bring non-EU workers in for less than 12 months as long as they earn £24,000.

Student visas

The number of exclusions suggests that reducing student visas will now become the central plank of the government’s programme on immigration if it intends to meet its “tens of thousands” target.

Last month Theresa May announced plans to cut the number of foreign students coming to Britain by a quarter – a move she said would see up to 100,000 fewer students and dependents getting permission to come to the UK.

But Labour’s Yvette Cooper called the Home Secretary’s announcement a “con”, saying the Government was putting restrictions on student visas but increasing student visitor visas, which do not count towards net migration targets.