Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of whether chefs, occupation code 5434, should be added to the Shortage Occupation List.

Up until 6 April 2021, Chefs were on the Shortage Occupation List. The Government accepted a recommendation from the independent Migration Advisory Committee to remove Chefs from the SOL citing;

‘…the reduced restrictions and lower salary threshold under the Skilled Worker route compared to Tier 2 (General), and the on-going and persistent concerns that not enough is being done to train chefs from within the domestic workforce.’

Due to the expanded eligibility under our new system, for both salary and skill levels, chefs may now be recruited through the Skilled Worker visa without the requirement to demonstrate 5 years experience, and they can be paid £25,600 or more per year rather than the previous threshold of £29,570.

A job does not have to be on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) to qualify for the Skilled Worker visa and being on it does not exempt a job from other requirements such as the English Language requirement.

Our Plan for Jobs is focused on helping people across the country retrain, build new skills and get back into work, rather than providing alternatives to this via immigration policy. Beyond the Points Based System, there is the resident labour market which includes UK workers and non-UK citizens with general work rights.