Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the ability of SMEs to (a) fund skilled worker visa applications and (b) access foreign labour markets after the transition period.
The Impact Assessment for the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill included an assessment of how Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) may be affected by the future skilled worker route. This previously published analysis did not model the additional economic effects of Covid-19 on the UK labour market; however, these effects and their impact on SME’s future engagement with the skilled worker route are highly uncertain.