Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration on 30 April 2019, Official Report, Col 85WH, how many applicants for positions on the Migration Advisory Committee satisfied the criteria of having had experience of business in recruitment processes that have taken place since January 2013.

Any appointment to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) will be made in line with the Cabinet Office Governance Code for Public Appointments 2016. The Government will consider the position of the MAC Chair shortly.

Information about the business experience of candidates is not collected in the form requested.

Following the publication of the Governance Code in 2016, candidates for public appointments have been given the option to declare the sector of their principal employment. In the recruitment campaign for MAC members in 2017, two candidates, neither of whom was appointed, declared that their principal employment was in the private sector. This does not mean that other candidates did not have business experience which they chose to highlight in their application or, if appropriate, their interview.