Migrant graduates will face English tests to stay in UK under crackdown
Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, is understood to have intervened by writing to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Migrants who opt for the Graduate Route in order to stay in the UK after finishing university will be asked to undergo compulsory English tests as part of a Government crackdown.
The Home Office yesterday announced a raft of restrictions aimed at cutting the number of people entering Britain ahead of official net migration statistics set to be published on Thursday.
Among these is a tightening up of the rules in respect of a scheme permitting overseas students to work in this country for two years - often at below the minimum wage.
However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is understood to have watered down the proposals after Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote to him personally.
The Government is planning to strip universities and colleges which have high dropout rates of their licences to recruit overseas, while agents who lure foreigners away from their studies with promises of low-paid work will also be targeted.
However, initial plans to reduce the two-year working window and limit the scheme to top institutions have been scrapped.
There were 43,600 main applicants for a sponsored study visa from January to April 2024, down 12 percent from 49,400 in the equivalent period in 2023, the Home Office announced today.
Dependants included in these applications fell 79 percent from 38,900 to 8,300.
The Home Office said it will be "necessary to await the peak in student applications for the next academic year", which usually comes in August and September before it will be possible to see the "full effect of recent policy changes and any other impacts".
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Speaking yesterday, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride unveiled measures including a ban on overseas care workers bringing over family dependants, a drastically hiked salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700 and reforms to make it harder for Britons earning under the national average to bring over foreign spouses.
He acknowledged that the rules, which aim to reduce the number of people arriving in Britain by 300,000 a year, present a "recruitment challenge" for employers but insisted the Government was building a new economic model "based on British talent".
He added: "It's a plan providing more opportunities for people here at home to get on, to progress, and to increase their pay.
"I know this presents a recruitment challenge for some employers in certain sectors, particularly those that have relied more on migration in the past.
"But this is also a huge opportunity for the thousands of jobseekers within our domestic workforce to move into roles that have previously been filled by overseas workers."