got this from another forum
as you know, the law has been passed, it is now up to the policy team at Home Office to do the small prints.
Christine Lee, the solicitor, who successfully lobbyed againist some of the original unfair clauses in the bill, hold regualr meeting with Home office to monitor the progress of the new law.
Here is her report on the recent meeting. (See Chinese report from SingTao THU13/04/2006)
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On 10th April we had a meeting with the Policy Team of the Home Office on the Point based System, they were two officers from Croydon and two from Sheffield. There is very little advance from what we knew already. I have a feeling the Home Office is just playing their cards very close to their chests. However one thing did come out very strong and that is they will be drafting their new rules (point system) very much in line with their published policy. Nothing much we say is going to make a difference. Their words are this is published policy back in July 2005.
We were invited to give our views on the specific impact and difficulties of the new system to the Chinese and Asian catering businesses. But in return they told us nothing new. One thing came out unmistakable is that the HO’s concern is only how to control incoming workers. They have not thought about the impact on the local British businesses. It is all about controlling migrants in and the ways to settlement. We came out of the meeting feeling absolutely deflated in that what we have campaigned for and all the reasons and difficulties raised in Parliament and with the Politicians have either not filtered down to the Policy team or deliberately ignored.
However the main points of the meeting are
1 We raised the issue of the 4 to 5 year settlement change of rule. This is not what the meeting was about but they commented that this is pretty much what the government is going to do and nothing much we can do about it. We shall see how we get on with the Politicians gain.
2 Regarding the point based system. For the “enterprise” (their term, not mine) categories, i.e. Investors, Business Investment, Retired Person of Independent Means, the HO says they have no rules set out yet. I tried to push them to give us a clue, but absolutely nothing. I raised the issue of current clients from Shanghai (who is contemplating applying) concern about the change to the new system probably at the time of the extension application (2 +3). I asked for comfort from the Policy team that whatever they draft they should recognise that those came in already should automatically covert to enough points under the new system. But nothing. The best I could get out of them is they will have to look at it and cannot commit.
3 I also raised issue why they are tempering with non-working categories, e.g. retired person. Also trying to have one system to fit all with such diverse criteria is madness. Also the new system looks inflexible and no discretion allowed. The response is that this is the Home Office’s policies as set out in the consultation documents in July 2005.
4 We then went onto the most problematic issue for our meeting. It appears the knowledge of English is going to be applied stringently and a absolute pre requisite to all Tier 1 and 2 applicants. We have had meeting after meeting with Ministers and were pacified to say it will be alright. We spent best part of an hour arguing to our faces became blue why English requirement would kill all applications for investors or chefs from China. The most ridiculous line I got from them was “if the chef wants to come they should go and learn English”! They insist that to work in the UK the migrant must have a minimum standard of English. It is meant to help integration. The best I could achieve was for them to look at the level of the English requirement. We felt it is not genuine. We are going back to the Politicians on this point.
5 We didn’t really have time to discuss Tier 3, except that the Asian business are more concerned than the Chinese and the HO team will talk separately with the Asian community. The non settlement route is not useful to the Chinese community in the UK, not many Chinese workers will come if no settlement.
6 We had to leave Tier 4 & 5 to a future meeting.
Whatever the politicians told us before we have to start all over again. We are running the same arguments and scenarios with the Policy team. Our battle goes on……….
Regards,
Christine Lee & Co.
Please see the latest update of Christine's meeting with the Policy team at the Home Office here:
http://lkcn.net/eubbs/index.php?act=ST& ... ntry882636
Although the signs are not very encouraging, it is to be expected becoz these guys are only civil servants, and they tend to play it very safe in fear of making any promises they cannot keep. (Coz only politician can make the final decisions)
Really have to wait till Chistine meet the minister when he come back from holiday before we have a real indication whether the lobbying is gonna be successful.
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本文章由
joseph.DJ@558.net于 13 Apr 2006, 10:33 重新编辑过
