Immigration Skills Charge (Amendment) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-07
Topic: Immigration
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining these regulations, although I am not entirely clear about them. She said that they are about the immigration skills charge and underinvestment by business in skills training, but then said that the money paid does not go into skills training, which I found a little confusing. The charge applies at a rate of £1,000 per migrant per year for big businesses, with reduced amounts for small companies and charities I presume that the regulations are necessary to bring the existing immigration skills charge in line with the new points-based system to be introduced from 1 January. If I understood the Minister correctly, that EU migrants from 1 January will have to pay the immigration skills charge is being dealt with under separate legislation and not under these regulations I am also a little confused by the Explanatory Note, however brief, which says: "Regulation 3 adds exemptions to the requirement to pay the charge." That is clergy, sports players, sports coaches, instructors and officials. My understanding was that these people were exempt already, so I do not understand what "adds exemptions" means if they were already included I have a lot of sympathy with the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft: why sport? I understand that the guidance available on Home Office websites may not be up to date, but for a sportsperson to be exempt, they need to be "internationally established as a player or coach at the highest level." That indicates that the sort of people we are talking about will be those who earn a considerable amount of money. I understand that sport covers from grass roots up to international level, but these will be internationally established people on extremely high salaries, so why are they exempt? I understand that it might be argued that the sort of skills training that sportspeople get is not impacted, but surely, as she explained, this money goes into some central pot to assist with skills training generally. Can the Minister explain why internationally established players or coaches at the highest level are exempt from the immigration skills charge We have discussed only in the past week or so in the House the issue of immigration, the job market and the resident market test in terms of encouraging employers to employ UK workers rather than foreign workers, so I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He asked whether £1,000 was really enough to encourage employers to employ UK staff rather than people who are migrants, particularly as the resident market test is being done away with I can understand clergy being exempt from the charge, because one does not normally expect clergy to be paid an extraordinary amount of money. It therefore does rather concern me that the guidance in relation to clergy states that, once you have been sponsored for three or six years, you cannot return to the UK under level 2 within the next 12 months unless "the salary for the job that the Certificate of Sponsorship Checking Service shows you are being sponsored to do (including any allowances listed as acceptable for this purpose in paragraph 79 of Appendix A to the Immigration Rules) is £159,600 or higher." I think—although I do not know—that it would be unusual for members of the clergy, who I understand include monks and nuns, to be paid this salary or higher, or that the sort of accommodation with which they are provided, which can be included, would run to that sort of cost. So, all in all, this is very confusing However, if these regulations do not add these other people as exemptions because they are already exempt, and if their purpose is simply to align with the new points-based system from 1 January, I am content.