Your immigration newsletter

PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal LLP

Home Ofce fee changes from

April 2014

On 3 February 2014 the Home Ofce

announced its proposed fee changes for

2014-2015 for visas, immigration and

nationality applications and wider premium

services. The proposals will be laid before

Parliament on 14 March 2014 and if

successful, will come into effect from 6 April

2014, with a small number of overseas fees

taking effect from 31 March 2014.

The proposals most applicable to your

business are as follows:

• removal of the current 25% discount given

to dependants when making in-country

applications. Dependant applications

made outside of the UK already carry the

same fee as the main applicant;

• increasing the premium service fee for

applications submitted in person at a

Public Enquiry Ofce from £375 to £400

per applicant;

• increasing the priority postal fee from

£275 to £300 per applicant;

• reducing the application fee for migrants

applying under the Tier 2 category if their

role falls within the Shortage Occupation

List.

The Home Ofce has also proposed to

introduce a new long term Tier 2 visa which

will allow an initial grant of leave for 5

years, rather than the current grant of 3

years. This application will incur higher

application fees than the standard 3 year

application, and the grant of leave must still

be linked to the length of the assignment.

Table of fee changes to applications most

commonly submitted:

Current

Fee

New Fee

Tier 2 Certiﬁcate

of Sponsorship

£184 £184

Tier 2 Entry

Clearance - Long

Term

£494 £514

Tier 2 Further

Leave to Remain -

Long Term

£578 £601

Tier 2 Further

Leave to Remain -

Dependants

£434 £601

Indeﬁnite Leave

to Remain (ILR) -

main applicant

£1,053 £1,093

Indeﬁnite Leave

to Remain -

dependants

£788 £1,093

We will provide further information on the

fee changes once they have been conrmed

by the Home Ofce.

Malta’s Individual

Investor Programme

In November 2013 Malta announced that it

would implement an Economic Citizenship

Scheme, known as the Individual Investor

Programme (IIP), whereby individuals

would be granted Maltese citizenship for a

payment of €650,000. Upon receipt of their

Maltese passport, individuals would have

the right to live and work in any of the 27

member states of the European Union (EU)

and could travel to more than 160 countries,

including the US, without the need to apply

for a visa.

Your immigration

newsletter

www.pwclegal.co.uk

February 2014

Tuberculosis Screening Exemption

Further to previous updates, applicants from

certain listed countries (including China,

India and Nigeria) are required to undertake

Tuberculosis (TB) screening before they are

able to submit an entry clearance application

seeking immigration permission for more

than 6 months.

We have recently obtained conrmation

from the Home Ofce that there is an

exemption to this requirement. Applicants

who have been resident in the UK for at

least 6 months prior to their application,

and are only returning to their country of

legal residence in order to submit an entry

clearance application, are not required to

undertake TB screening. This exemption

means that eligible migrants, and their

eligible family members, can submit their

applications without the usually mandatory

TB screening certicate.

This exemption is very useful and has the

potential to reduce the amount of time an

applicant must remain outside of the UK for

the submission of their application.

Global Update

Please nd a brief selection of recent global

immigration updates. Should you wish

to receive our regular global newsletter,

with detailed information on immigration

changes around the world, please email

Stephanie Odumosu at stephanie.

odumosu@pwclegal.co.uk.

Singapore: Fair Consideration

Framework

In late 2013, the Ministry of Manpower

(MOM) announced the Fair Consideration

Framework (FCF), designed to ensure that

fair consideration is given to Singaporeans

before approving employment passes

for foreign professional workers. The

FCF includes a mandatory advertising

requirement, increased scrutiny of HR

practices, and enhanced employment pass

qualifying requirements.

Economic Citizenship is not a new concept.

St Kitts and Nevis and Grenada began

offering similar schemes in the 1980s,

and the UK also has the Tier 1 (Investor)

category which allows individuals willing

to invest over £1 million to apply for

immigration permission to live and work

in the UK, with the potential to apply for

permanent residence in 5 years.

Malta has faced considerable international

scrutiny over the IIP scheme. In a European

Parliament debate on 15 January 2014, there

was substantial criticism of the programme

from across the EU, culminating in a vote

where 89% of the European Parliament

members voted for Malta to bring its current

citizenship scheme in line with the EU’s

values. Although the vote is non-binding, the

European Commission has said that it would

examine all the citizenship schemes allowed

by Member States to ensure they are in line

with the letter and spirit of EU law.

On 29 January 2014, following the

aforementioned vote, the Maltese

government announced amendments to

the IIP scheme, which now includes the

requirement for applicants to have been

resident in Malta for at least 12 months

before being granted citizenship.

The requirements for the IIP scheme are

now as follows:

• applicants must show genuine links with

Malta by having a minimum residency

period of 12 months prior to any grant of

citizenship;

• applications will cost €650,000 for

each main applicant with an additional

€25,000 for a spouse and €50,000 for a

child/parent;

• there must be an acquisition of property

valued at €350,000, or applicants must

rent a property with a cost of at least

€16,000 per year; and

• applicants must invest €150,000 for 5

years in stocks/bonds/debentures in

Malta

While the MOM are still working to nalise

the specic implementation details before

August 1, 2014, further details on the

changes were recently provided to PwC

following meetings with MOM. Most

notably, details regarding exemptions from

mandatory advertising were provided. It

is expected that these details and other

implementation arrangements will be fully

conrmed by MOM in due course.

South Africa: South African

Government amends its Immigration

Act

The proposed new South African

Immigration Regulations will be published

within the next few weeks for further

public comment. The implementation

date of the Regulations will be dependent

upon the extent of the public’s response

to the consultation which will be open for

approximately 30 days from publication.

Note that there are scheduled elections

in South Africa in May 2014, which may

further impact the timing and extent of

actual changes to the new regulations.

Kenya: Work Permit Backlog to be

Cleared by 16 February 2014

The backlog of work permit applications at

the Department of Immigration in Kenya,

which has been increasing since the terror

attack in 2013 as well as the suspension of

15 senior immigration ofcials last year,

was due to be cleared by 16 February 2014.

The initiative involved, the Approvals

Committee, which issues the nal decision

on each work permit application, will be

meeting twice as often as usual in order to

clear the backlog.

Hot Topic

Here is this month’s hot topic from our

employment law team which we hope is of

interest to you.

New system of shared parental leave

The Children and Families Bill 2012-13 will

implement the family-friendly proposals

contained in the government’s Consultation

on Modern Workplaces. Amongst other

things, the Bill will introduce a new system

of shared parental leave. The government

hopes to create a new, more equal system

which will allow both parents to keep a

strong link to their workplace and encourage

more fathers to play a greater caring role.

New arrangements for shared parental leave

and pay are intended to come into effect for

babies due on or after 5 April 2015. Under

the new system, mothers will be able to

convert their rights to statutory maternity

leave and pay into shared parental leave

(up to 50 weeks) and statutory parental pay

(up to 37 weeks). The new leave and pay

will be available to both parents (who have

caring responsibility for the child) to share

provided they meet eligibility criteria.

The administration of the new system

will be challenging for many employers.

Consideration must be given to how to

arrange cover for an employee absent on

parental leave if this is for short but repeated

periods over a calendar year. Employers

must also decide how they will monitor

periods of shared parental leave taken to

prevent employees abusing the system and

taking more than their entitlement.

In addition, employers will need to prepare

a new policy on shared parental leave and

consider whether they wish to amend their

existing policies. In particular, employers

must decide whether they want to change

elements of enhanced maternity or family

benets such as childcare vouchers,

enhanced maternity pay etc.

Please contact Nick Willis (020 7212 1659)

or Louise Coyne (020 7804 9870) should

you wish to discuss this in more detail or any

of the other services our employment team

can provide.

Jurga McCluskey

Partner

020 7804 4777

jurga.mccluskey@pwclegal.co.uk

Contacts

Julia Onslow-Cole

Partner

020 7804 7252

julia.onslow[email protected]

James Perrott

Senior Manager

020 7213 2681

[email protected]

Frederique Montalti

Senior Manager

020 7212 4340

[email protected]

Stephan Judge

Senior Manager

020 7212 1094

stephan.judg[email protected]

Anjali Greenwell

Senior Manager

020 7212 3357

anjali.greenwell@pwclegal.co.uk

Lindsey Barras

Senior Manager

020 7212 1362

lindsey.h.bar[email protected]

www.pwclegal.co.uk

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accept or assume any liability, responsibility or duty of care for any consequences of you or anyone else acting, or refraining to

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