Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to engage with businesses, employers and other stakeholders before making a final decision on future salary thresholds for skilled workers from outside the UK; and whether that timescale will be shortened in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Following the publication of the Government’s White Paper ‘The UK’s future skills-based immigration system’ (Cm9722) on 19 December 2018, Ministers and officials are undertaking an extensive year long engagement programme with a wide range of stakeholders across the UK, including with the private, public and voluntary sector and local government, as well as industry representatives and individual businesses. We have already delivered over 100 events in every nation of the UK, reaching almost 1500 stakeholders.

As part of our engagement, on 24 June 2019, the Government asked the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to consider the issue of minimum salary thresholds in more detail. As part of this new commission, we have asked the MAC to look at a number of issues including the approach to calculating salary thresholds, the levels at which they should be set, the case for greater regional variation and the impact of exemptions from minimum salary thresholds. This report is due by January 2020.

We have been very clear that no decision on the levels at which salary thresholds should be set will be taken until we have completed the UK-wide engagement process that is currently underway.