Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department makes a comparative assessment of salary differentials in different parts of the UK in respect of granting visas for skilled non-European workers.

Immigration is a reserved matter. The Government considers the needs of the UK as a whole and is committed to developing an immigration system that serves the national interest.

Applying different immigration rules to different parts of the UK would complicate the immigration system, harming its integrity, and cause difficulties for employers who need the flexibility to deploy their staff to other parts of the UK.

The independent Migration Advisory Committee has repeatedly recommended that we should not operate different salary thresholds for different regions and countries in the UK.