Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of visas that would be eligible for exemptions from paying National Insurance contributions in the UK under the Double Contribution Convention with India that will be issued in each of the next five years.

The Double Contributions Convention (DCC) is not a visa route. It will be a reciprocal international treaty between countries which ensures that detached workers are only liable to pay social security contributions in one country at a time on the same earnings.

A detached worker is an employee who is sent by their employer to carry out a period of temporary work in another country. The definition of a detached worker does not map onto any single visa route and is a distinct test applied for National Insurance.

Around 17,000 Indian nationals (main applicants) came to the UK to work in 2024 on Skilled Worker and Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker visas - however, only a subset of these types of workers will be eligible to be treated as a detached worker and continue paying contributions in India rather than the UK. This will be reciprocal for UK detached workers in India. Dependents are not detached workers. If a detached worker’s family members take up employment in the UK then they pay UK National Insurance.