Budget 2003 (4): Overseas workers encouraged

The Budget contained two announcements which could result in more 'fast track visa' workers as the Government again demonstrated its commitment to improve the UK skill base by all means possible, including the import of qualified overseas workers.

As reported in the UKTECH interview with DTI Minister Stephen Timms, the Government sees the need to improve skills as central to raising UK productivity growth.

It believes that: "Skilled labour is an important driver of economic performance and helps to deliver a more flexible and adaptable labour market, enabling firms to update working practices and products at the rate demanded by global markets and making the economy more flexible and productive in the long term.

The importance of harnessing overseas technological talent was recognised in two Budget announcements:

• improvements to the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme, including a new threshold for eligibility to encompass a wider range of highly skilled applicants, a new category for younger applicants, and taking partners’ achievements into account in assessing individual applications.
  The changes will take effect from August 2003; and
• further steps to facilitate migration as a source of skills in the UK, including a new entitlement for foreign students of science, technology, engineering and maths to work in the UK for 12 months after graduation from a UK institution, reform of the Working Holidaymakers scheme, and action to improve potential migrants and employers’ access to information on migration routes.

In August 2002, IT skills were removed from the skills shortage list which closed one avenue for the immigration of overseas workers to the UK. However, the Government believes that encouraging talented overseas workers is vital to improving the UK economy and productivity and has clearly ruled out any measures which could be seen as 'protectionist'.

There have been some claims of abuses relating to the Intra-Company Transfers Scheme, where employees can move easily within companies on an international basis; and other migrant workers schemes, where positions can be filled from overseas if there is no suitable UK applicant. But to date, the Government has shown little willingness to tighten up on these schemes, and the announcements in the Budget would indicate that the Government is minded to move in the opposite direction in order to attract the qualified workforce it wants in the UK.