Government criticised for lack of consultation over UK’s new immigration rules
The cross-party House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has criticised the Home Office after it made significant changes in immigration policy without undertaking proper consultation.
The Home Office recently announced changes to the Skilled Worker visa route by tightening the conditions for granting such visas and removing the social care sector from the list of occupations that can recruit migrant workers. This will have a wide impact, affecting around 180 occupations.
The committee called out a lack of any consultation exercise in advance of these changes, and that no impact assessment (IA) has been carried out.
“The lack of an IA is particularly regrettable given the changes are likely to have significant economic effects. Its absence suggests that the measures in the Statement were formed before these effects had been fully analysed and understood. Moreover, the lack of an IA makes it impossible for the Committee to fulfil its duty to scrutinise the Statement,” it said.
The Home Office accepted that its approach ‘should not be common practice’. The Committee has called on the department to publish the IA by the end of the current Parliamentary summer recess.
“It is a point we have made repeatedly, particularly to the Home Office, that whenever the Government lays legislation which potentially has significant real-world consequences, it must provide information on the impact. Despite acknowledging this to be correct practice, the Home Office has again failed to provide adequate supporting information on the effect of these changes,” said Lord Watson of Invergowrie, Chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
He noted that the restrictions on Skilled Worker visas are expected to lead to a drop of 40% in the grant of these visas, and that the effects on the care sector may be particularly acute.
“It is inexplicable that information on the impact of this was not included in the Explanatory Memorandum accompanying the Statement.
“We are severely hampered in fulfilling our parliamentary scrutiny role as a Committee, on behalf of the House of Lords, when we are not given the level of detail necessary to enable effective scrutiny of secondary legislation, and we will continue to highlight examples where departments fall short of this obligation.”
