Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason she decided to use NHS pay bands instead of local authority pay bands when determining income requirements for overseas social workers applying for a skilled workers visa.

We use Office for National Statistics (ONS) data to set salary requirements for occupations, except where a national pay scale exists. In the case of social workers, the NHS Agenda for Change is the only available national scale, as Local Authority rates vary. Using Agenda for Change means the salary requirements are lower than they would be if we used ONS data.

On 2 July we asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise on future salary requirements for Skilled Worker visas. We look forward to receiving their recommendations in due course.