Sharon Hodgson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of proposed changes to Tier 2 visas on the recruitment of people with specific skills from overseas to the video games industry.

James Brokenshire

The Government has commissioned the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to advise on restricting Tier 2 to genuine skills shortages and jobs which require highly-specialised experts, but with sufficient flexibility to include high value roles and key public service workers. There are 18 jobs in the video games industry currently included on the Shortage Occupation List.

The MAC is looking at selection criteria such as, but not limited to, salaries, particular attributes, economic need and skills level. The MAC is not due to report until December and we do not yet know what its findings and recommendations will be. We await the report with interest and will consider it carefully before making any significant changes to the Tier 2 route.