Immigration Barristers' Blog

The National Audit Office (NAO) has issued a report on the 2009 implementation of a points based route, known as Tier 4, by which students from countries outside the European Economic Area can study in the UK.

The report has found that the UK Border Agency implemented Tier 4 with flaws which were predictable and could have been avoided. The Agency has not dealt efficiently and effectively with overstayers and students in breach of the rules.

Under the previous system of student immigration for non-EEA students, replaced by Tier 4, there was no limit to the number of students whom a college could enrol and students were free to move college and course as they wished without notifying the Agency. Under Tier 4, each student must be sponsored by educational institutions licensed by the Agency and cannot change college without applying to the Agency. Sponsoring colleges are responsible for judging students' intentions to study.

The Agency implemented Tier 4 before the key controls were in place. Based on college enrolment rates and changes in application patterns, the NAO estimates that, in its first year of operation, between 40,000 and 50,000 individuals may have entered the UK via Tier 4 to work rather than to study. The Agency did not check that those who entered the UK as students were attending college.

The Agency introduced new controls in 2011 and a fully-documented compliance strategy in December 2011 that are likely to reduce the number of problem students. But it will not be possible to determine the value for money of the Points Based System for students, unless the Agency establishes ways to measure its success in tackling abuse, including how it deals with overstaying, and to establish the full cost of its Tier 4 related activities.

A package of measures designed to drive forward radical reforms to the immigration system and ensure the UK attracts only the brightest and best migrants has been laid in Parliament.

A new minimum pay requirement of £35,000 for skilled temporary workers wishing to apply for settlement will mean that only those who make the biggest contribution to the UK economy will be able to stay here permanently. The income requirement will take effect in April 2016.

The annual limit for the Tier 1 exceptional talent route - designed to meet the needs of exceptionally talented leaders in the fields of science, humanities, engineering and the arts - will remain the same for the next two years, at 1,000 visas.

There will be a number of changes to the student entry route, which will take effect on 6th April, including:

• the closure of the post-study work route,
• the introduction of a five-year time limit for study at bachelors and masters degree level, to ensure the student route serves its proper role as a means of temporary entry to the UK, not of achieving permanent settlement here;
• limiting the time students are allowed to spend on work placements, to crack down on those who come to the UK to work, rather than study; and
• offering the brightest and best university graduates who have a compelling business idea the chance to stay on through our graduate entrepreneur scheme.

When reforms to the student visa system have been fully implemented, the government estimates that there will be around 70,000 fewer student visa grants a year and around 20,000 fewer visas issued to dependants.

Other Immigration Rules changes laid before Parliament include provisions to:

• provide for mandatory, rather than discretionary, curtailment of leave to remain in the UK when a migrant fails to start or withdraws from their job or study course;
• reform the overseas domestic worker routes, as announced by the Home Secretary last month; and
• allow certain professionals, artists, entertainers and sports-people to carry out paid activities in the UK for up to one month, also as announced last month.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has spoken out against the government's proposed changes to the student visa system.

The Director-General of the IoD, Simon Walker, said: “The Government’s moves to eject foreign students after graduation unless they earn at least £20,000 working for Home Office approved companies are a retrograde step which will continue to diminish both Britain’s higher education sector and its global influence.

“Most non-EU students come from emerging economies where the youth population is growing and education is highly prized. In business and geo-political terms it is particularly vital that future leaders from BRIC nations, the Middle East and other strong economies of the future have had a positive formative relationship with the UK. Other countries welcome such students: Britain makes it difficult and artificially expensive for them to enter, and now proposes to eject them ignominiously when their studies are finished.

“These are misdirected reforms which will produce no benefit for the UK. It is pure sophistry to manipulate immigration figures by shooing to the door highly-trained international students with MBAs to make way for unskilled migrants from the EU.”