New Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules (2014)

This week the minister for Immigration and Security, James Brokenshire, announced a new Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules. Minister James Brokenshire explained the reason for the new changes as ‘the government is making a package of changes to Points-Based System work routes to improve flexibility for applicants and help to boost economic growth.’ Please find below a brief summary of the changes:

• Tier 2 migrants can be granted leave for up to five years, rather than three years at present;
• Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) route will be made simpler, the restriction of some places to MBA graduates will be removed, so there will be 1,900 places available to graduates from any subject;
• Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) will be expanded to include leading talent in the digital technology sector, who are endorsed by Tech City UK;
• For the Points-Based-System categories, there has been some changes to the salary and maintenance fund requirements (we will set out the exact changes to the maintenance requirement in a separate article);
• For Tier 5, there will be a new category for overseas government sponsored language teachers;
• The Home Office will have further power to take action against those who attempt to abuse the immigration changes;
• Venezuela will be added to the visa national list.

It is also anticipated that the Tier 1 (Investor) category will change given the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee, however as the report was only published last month it left little time for the government to include Tier 1 (Investor) changes in this Statement of Changes. We will keep you updated.