Comments
Indian professionals (doctors, nurses, IT engineers, etc) and businessmen can hope for improved access to job opportunities in the United Kingdom (UK), following the relaxation announced recently in the Tier-2 visa route (meant for skilled migrants) of the UK government.
Speaking exclusively to BusinessLine , Philip Hammond, UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that although there was an overall cap of around 22,000 visas under the Tier-2 route, they have recently made a change so that doctors and nurses will not be included in that cap.
He said, “We have created head room by taking out all doctors. So 8,500 people who were coming through Tier-2 visas as doctors will now come under a different category. That’s created additional capacity in Tier-2.” While welcoming doctors to the National Health Service (NHS), he said that most doctors coming into the UK were Indian.
Asked about further relaxations, Hammond said that “India is the dominant player in our visa marketplace,” while pointing out that the UK issues more visas to skilled people from India than from all the rest of the world put together.
Asked to comment on the common man’s perception that the UK seems to be a haven for the wrong kind of businessmen to get in very easily (a number of fugitives, including Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi, are presently reportedly holed up in the UK), Hammond confined himself to saying, “Our job is to make sure that the wrong kinds of people don’t get in and the right kind of people are attracted to come. We are open to skilled people and entrepreneurs and so we have created a new entrepreneur visas route.”
Arguing that the UK government would always have to balance public concerns about managing migration and the needs of its economy, Hammond clarified, “Our economy clearly needs to be an open economy, open with the largest economies of the world. So we will continue to be an open economy but we will have to do that in a managed way.”
Hammond was in Mumbai today to meet with government, businessmen, investors and some start-ups.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.