UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Sunday promised to review the country’s immigration system to overcome a monthly immigration cap preventing professionals such as Indian doctors from being brought in to tackle shortages in the state-funded National Health Service (NHS).
“I see a problem with that and it is something I am taking a fresh look at. I hope to think about this more carefully and see what can be done,” Javid told BBC in reference to the Tier 2 visa cap that has hit doctors and other highly-skilled professionals from outside the EU.
His remarks came as a new “Scrap the Cap” campaign online petition raised over 1,600 signatures. The campaign, launched by the ‘British Medical Journal’ and backed by the UK’s leading Indian doctors’ association – British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) – is calling for a “common sense approach” to the UK’s immigration system.
The cap under the Tier 2 visa category to allow companies to bring in professionals from outside the EU is set at 20,700 per year, with a monthly limit of around 1,600.
Until December last year, that limit had been exceeded only once in almost six years but since then that cap has been hit nearly every month.
According to latest figures, between December 2017 and March 2018, the UK Home Office refused over 1,500 visa applications from doctors.
A number of the ruling Conservative Party’s own MPs have been lobbying the government for a review of the cap, which Javid seems to now be looking into.
Javid also indicated a possible softening of the UK government’s immigration policy in other areas, distancing himself from the phrase “hostile environment” and adopting the phrase “compliant environment” that makes a clear distinction between illegal migrants and legal ones.
