Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to monitor the use of Tier 2 intra-company transfer visas to ensure they are used legitimately.

Employers must justify the reasons why they wish to sponsor migrant workers when they apply to the Home Office. We also routinely carry out compliance checks and visits on sponsoring employers.

On 24 March 2016, the Government announced reforms to the ICT category, to align it more closely with its original intention as a route for senior managers and specialists. From April 2017, we will require all transferees (except graduate trainees) to qualify under a single category with a minimum salary threshold of £41,500.

We will also review the extent to which allowances may be counted as salary, to ensure we have appropriate safeguards in place against undercutting of the resident labour market.