Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that UK-based science research teams can employ foreign researchers without restriction.

Immigration reforms since 2010 have explicitly taken account of the needs of scientists and researchers. The Government has consistently enhanced the treatment of scientists and science in the immigration system.

In Tier 2, the skilled work route for non-EEA nationals, PhD-level occupations have higher priority when allocating places within the annual limit. These occupations are also exempted from the £35,000 earnings threshold for settlement applications, and we have relaxed the Resident Labour Market Test to allow the best candidate to be appointed, regardless of nationality.

We have introduced the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route for world leaders in science, engineering, humanities, the arts and digital technology.

The Tier 5 (Temporary Work) route contains further provisions which enable sponsored researchers to participate in international research collaborations