Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to update the Shortage Occupation List; if she will update that list more frequently than once every 12 months; and if she will make a statement.

The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) reviews the Shortage Occupation List when commissioned to do so by the Government.

The MAC has carried out two full reviews and four partial reviews of the Shortage Occupation List since May 2010. The MAC recently reviewed the teaching sector and published its report in January 2017, alongside an updated methodology on assessing labour market shortages, and published a review of nursing in March 2016.

Further information about the MAC’s methodology and the reviews it has carried out are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee