The United Kingdom has banned Overseas healthcare workers including Nigerians from bringing their dependants to the country.
The Home Office in a statement issued on Monday said the new plan is to slash migration levels and curb abuse of the immigration system.
The Home Office noted that the new measure would deliver the biggest-ever reduction in the country’s net migration.
Britain’s government said it was a way of reducing “unprecedented” and “unsustainable” levels of legal migration to the country.
According to the Home Office, the revision will encourage “businesses to look to British talent first and invest in their workforce.” This will help the UK deter employers from over-relying on migration while bringing salaries in line with the average full-time salary for these types of jobs.
Interior Secretary James Cleverly said his plan would result in 300,000 fewer people coming to the UK in the coming years.
Under plans set out by Cleverly, workers would need to earn at least £38,700 to obtain a visa, up from £26,200, while care workers would be barred from bringing in dependants from next April.
He said, “The first of our five points will be to end the abuse of the care visa. We will stop overseas care workers from bringing family, dependants and we will require firms in England to be regulated by the Health Care Quality Commission in order for them to sponsor visas.
“We recognise that healthcare workers do great work in our NHIS and health sector, but it’s also important that immigrants make a big enough financial contribution. Therefore, it will increase the annual immigration healthcare charge by 66% from £624 to £1035 to raise, on average, £1.3 billion for the health services of the country every year.
“Second, we will stop immigration undercutting the salary of British workers. We will increase skilled workers’ earning threshold by a third to £38,000 from next spring in line with the medium, full-term wage for those kinds of jobs.
“Those coming on social and health visas will be exempt, so we will continue to bring healthcare workers,” he said.