Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expedite the issuing of Tier 2 visas.

Tier 2, our main immigration route for non-EEA workers, operates an annual cap of 20,700 places per year. The cap, which was set on advice from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), ensures that the Government can control migration and encourages employers to look first to the domestic workforce before recruiting from overseas.

Places are allocated on a monthly basis to ensure consistency and that places can be allocated according to priority. Places are allocated first to those in occupations which are in national shortage and which appear on the published Shortage Occupation List (SOL). The SOL is drawn up on the basis of advice from the MAC.