Anand Kumar, an Indian physiotherapist who has lived in the UK for the past eight years, launched a petition on the British Parliament website this week calling for the government to exempt staff from a rule that requires non-EU workers to earn at least £35,000 a year in order to gain permanent residency.
His petition and situation highlight the impact that Britain’s toughening immigration stance has had had on Indian workers in the UK, and particularly in the public sector, where pay levels remain subdued.
Since last April non-EU citizens wishing to apply for permanent residency in the UK must earn £35,000, or they will be forced to leave. “I find this rule discriminates unfairly against those who chose to work in the National Health Service (NHS), where such a salary is impossible within the first five years of employment,” reads Kumar’s petition.
Kumar, who came to the UK to do his Masters at Sheffield Hallam University in 2009, has worked in the NHS since then, working at a hospital in Birmingham.
While the additional hours he does each week take his salary over the €35,000 threshold, his contracted salary remains considerably below that level and it is this figure that matters: under current government rules, additional hours, bonus and incentive payments do not count towards that minimum level.
If his salary does not reach the threshold levels, he will be ineligible to remain in the UK when his deadline for applying for permanent residency — or leaving the UK — comes up in two years’ time.
Contentious issueThe issue of the €35,000 threshold hit a nerve when it was first implemented last year: a petition calling on the government to scrap it because it discriminates against low earners attracted over 114,000 signatures, triggering a parliamentary debate on the topic.
Harsev Bains of the Indian Workers Association in the UK said there are many Indians working in the NHS and across the public services in the UK who have found themselves faced with no choice but to leave the UK as their salary failed to meet the permanent residency threshold. “The NHS is in a crisis with a shortage of skilled people; we should be keeping the resources we’ve developed and skilled over the years to help and support the NHS,” he said.
Responding to a request from this newspaper to Kumar’s petition, the Home Office said: “It has been too easy for some businesses to bring in workers from overseas rather than take long-term decisions to train our workforce at home; these reforms ensure businesses are able to attract skilled migrants while also prioritising the recruiting and training of UK workers.”
Kumar says the rules were quite different when he arrived in 2009. “I came to this country with two bags and now have a house — I have built up a life.” The physiotherapist works in the trauma and orthopaedic department.
“(Now) They want us to come and earn and go back, which I think is depressing for all of us,” he says.