Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel ordered a review of intra-company transfer (ICT) visas issued primarily to Indian companies transferring employees to UK offices for varying periods, ahead of a new immigration regime point-based effective January.
Official figures show that the ICT visa is mainly issued to Indians, reflecting the increasing number of software and other Indian companies establishing a base or providing services to clients from a base in the UK.
In the year ending June 2020, 48% of Level 2 visas were issued to Indian professionals.
The ICT visa is part of the Tier 2 visa pathway. Overall, there was a 20% drop in Tier 2 visas granted, with officials saying that almost all of the drop was due to a decrease in granting of visas from ICT, which decreased by 38% (21,227) to 33,971 in the year ending in June. 2020.
Much of this decline is due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they added.
In commissioning the review, Patel asked the Migration Advisory Committee to advise the Home Office on the salary threshold to enter the ICT route; what items, if any, beyond the base salary must count to meet the salary requirement; whether different arrangements should apply to the highly paid; what skill threshold for the path should be the path conditions, particularly those where it differs from the main Level 2 path.
He wrote to MAC President Brian Bell: “It is our intention that the ICT route will sit alongside the new skilled worker route in the new points-based immigration system that we are launching in January and that the terms of the route of ICT should, initially, be the same as now “.
The ICT route currently has a different (and higher) salary threshold compared to the main Tier 2 route and different requirements, and the absence of any related to the English language. It also contains a subcategory for graduate students.
Indian stakeholders have been urging the UK authorities to exclude ICT visa holders from paying the mandatory National Insurance contribution as they do not stay long enough in the UK to be eligible for the state pension. . NI contribution is paid along with income tax.
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