Immigrant Council Claims That UK Visa Cap Will Limit Non-EU Skilled Workers To UK

30 Sep 2010

Immigrant Council claims that UK visa cap on non-EU migrants introduced by the coalition government of the UK will limit the number of non-EU skilled workers to move to UK.

Hence, the JCWI (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) has urged for a review of the temporary cap on the UK visas.

According to chief executive of the JCWI, Habib Rahman, the UK has one of the robust systems of immigration in the Europe. He doesn’t consider that the public services of the nation are strained due to current immigration levels in the UK. And, so no government can introduce restrictions on number of immigrants for any reason –legal, economic and political.

He considers that immigration is and will continue to remain a vital lifeline to different industries of the UK and to the NHS as well. Mr.Rahman asserted that any efforts to introduce arbitrary caps on the UK immigration will put the survival of the industry at risk and will put hospitals and businesses at risk.

The UK government has introduced an interim limit on the annual quota of non-EU skilled workers moving to the UK. So, 24,000 non-EU skilled migrants can immigrate to the UK from April 2011. The UK visa cap was proposed ahead of the permanent UK immigration cap in July this year.

The coalition government of the UK is making consultations over the proposed UK visa cap since the new UK immigration limits have been criticized. This month, the government ended a consultation period on the policy change and is expected in coming months to announce the permanent rules that will take effect in April.

The current restrictions already are having a negative impact, employers and their lawyers say. There is an increased need for non-EU social workers in the UK to meet the looming skills shortage until the nation works towards training programs for producing desired skilled workers in the UK.