The (Unsettling) Shape of Things to Come?

Just when we've begun to relax about our 'highly skilled migrant' status, there comes news of an proposed change in the immigration system here in the UK with an aim to model it on the way it runs in Australia. To quote Liam Byrne (UK Immigration Minister), "a new Australian-style points-based system will be simpler, cheaper and easier to enforce."

The Highly Skilled Pigrant Programme (HSMP) is a relatively new work permit category introduced with a view to bringing into and keeping skilled talent in the United Kingdom. This has been achieved, to a large extent, by dangling mainly the ease-into-permanent-settlement carrot. Also, before HSMP, if you had a work permit it meant you were tied to one employer and your status was dependent on them. HSMP allowed you the flexibility to do whatever you liked, as long as you could show you had been 'economically active' for the first probationary year, after which you were given a three-year further leave to remain (FLR) extension, after which you would be eligible for indefinite leave to remain(ILR), after one year of which you could apply to be a citizen of the UK, if that's what you wanted.

To cut a long story short, when the HSMP scheme started, it looked like this:

Initial 1-year HSMP -> 3-year FLR -> 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

It was then changed to this:

Initial 1-year HSMP -> 4-year FLR -> 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

Then it was changed again to:

Initial 2-year HSMP -> 3-year FLR - 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

This doesn't look terrible on paper but they've also made a significant fundamental change in that it's not sufficient to prove you've been 'economically active' (yes, you can shelve 'that' idea now) but you have to retake the points test and prove that you've been in what the government deems to be skilled occupation. This again, may not sound like the end of the world, but what is most unfair is making this legislation effective in retrospect. Additionally, you have to take an IELTS test and get a minimum score, which seems unecessary if they thought your English was okay to come here in the first place and now that you have lived in this country for one year! On reassessing themselves with the new points scale, a lot of people have found themselves terribly disadvantaged especially on the counts of age and earnings. Basically, if you were over 30 and didn't earn a Canary-Wharf salary (our euphemism for the ridiculous figures paid to the 'professionals' in uptown London), you could now be in serious trouble.

So you decide to move to England, get all your information together and apply, stating on the application form why you are keen to make the UK your permanent home (yes, that is one of the questions on the form) and sign it, saying you understand the terms and conditions they explain. When your application is approved, I believe the government enters into a sort of 'contract' with you, assuring you it will support your legal endeavours to make the UK your permanent home, particularly so if you are required to live here with 'no recourse to public funds' and yet pay full taxes to augment those 'public funds'. That is precisely why it seems absurd to have to prove your eligibility and immigration-worthiness all over again, using new critieria at the end of one short year. I am all for review and change with a view to improving efficiency, but I very strongly believe it is grossly unfair to make the new regulations applicable in retrospect.

We were lucky we were able to meet the new tighter regulations when applying for our extensions, but who knows what it's going to be like when we come up for our ILR permits? All this said, we really have had nothing to complain about since we've been here - and yes, a country has to put its own interests before all else. In that light, it looks like it's going to be change for the better. It just makes you think longer and harder about where and why you want to want to 'settle' or if you should really 'settle' at all.