New UK Visa For Investors And No Back Down On Visa Cap

09 Nov 2010

A new category of UK visa is intended to be introduced to invite investors and do business in the country. This was stated by David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister in a speech and invited investors all over the world to come and set up their businesses in UK.

This visa which will be available from next year is introduced to increase the creation of private sector jobs in the UK. This step is taken to dispel increasing concerns over imminent cap on UK immigration with effect from April 2011. With regards to the visa cap, he stated that the cap will not be applicable to ICTs (Intra-company transfers) which accounted for 60 percent of UK Tier 2 visas in 2009.

UK immigration minister Damian Green appeared on BBC Two’s Newsnight and he mentioned that he was aiming for a reduction from last year’s net immigration of 196,000 to “the tens of thousands”. Also added, once the limit is put into place, they will concentrate on looking at student route, family routes to up to hit the tens of thousands.

With regards to the clarification on Cameron’s statement about intra-company transfers, Green said only the most senior staff would be exempt from the cap.