UK Immigration Blog, Thoughts and Opinions

The Home Secretary recently announced Government's plans to limit non-EU economic migration. The Government is currently consulting the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) on the most effective implementation of limits on the number of migrants being allowed to enter the UK and establishing the level at which limits should be set for the first full year of their operation.

For Tier 2, this interim limit will cover Tier 2 (General) and it's intended to prevent a surge of applications between 19 July 2010 and April 2011. The routes for Intra-Company Transfers, Ministers for Religion and Elite Sportspeople will not be affected.

The number of Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) available to both existing Tier 2 sponsors and new sponsors will be henceforth reduced. The new allocation will be based on the number of CoS used in the equivalent period last year and the UK Border Agency expects all sponsors to hire less migrant workers during the interim period. Each sponsor will be notified shortly about their revised CoS allocation.