Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of ending the Tier 1 (Post-Study Work) visa on the ability of businesses to recruit people with the necessary skills.

The Tier 1 (Post Study Work) route was closed in April 2012.

A published assessment of Tier 1 migrants in October 2010 found that three in five users of this visa were in unskilled work and we also saw a large number of fraudulent applications. This undermined our work routes and damaged the reputation of our education system. We have no current plans to re-introduce a post study work route that does not lead to skilled work.

We already have a comprehensive offer for graduates seeking to undertake skilled work in the UK after their studies.

Students studying courses lasting 12 months or more are given 4 months leave at the end of their course to look for a job and those with an offer of a graduate-level job, paying an appropriate salary, may take up sponsored employment through Tier 2. Many of the requirements for a Tier 2 skilled work visa are relaxed or waived for those applying to switch from the Tier 4 student route within the UK. This includes exempting switching students from the Tier 2 cap of 20,700 and allowing employers who wish to recruit them to not carry out the Resident Labour Market Test.