UK migrant workers will be asked to go

London: Thousands of migrant workers will be asked to go home after a few years in Britain under policies to be made public this week.

Immigrants from outside Europe who do not have valuable skills or high earnings will lose their right to live permanently in this country.

Ministers indicated that a transformation of immigration policy will leave room for only the brightest and best to build new lives in Britain.

The revamp is expected to end the long-standing arrangements under which skilled workers allowed into the country on work visas may stay permanently after five years if their employers say they want to keep them.

It may set an income hurdle for migrants who hope to stay. Last year Home Office advisers said that only those earning more than £35,000 (Dh202,064) a year should have the right to settle permanently in Britain.

It is estimated that around 60,000 skilled workers a year, including chefs and nurses, win the right to permanent settlement under the present rules. But Immigration Minister Damian Green said that in future those who come in on a work visa will find it more difficult to win the right to stay permanently.

"You have to show genuine serious usefulness to British society," he said.

"What we are saying is: if you are a particularly exceptional person we will make it easy for you to come here in the first place and we will allow you to stay for a certain amount of time and in some categories we will make it easier for you to stay here. "What we need is a system that goes out to seek those people who are either going to create jobs or wealth or add to our high-level artistic and cultural aspirations.

"Getting the number down is the absolute key but what I am aiming at is fewer and better."

He added: "We want permanently to make Britain the most attractive country in the world for the brightest and the best. The era of mass immigration is over."

The new policy follows a consultation by the Home Office last summer which said that Tier Two migrants — skilled workers from outside the EU who do not have outstanding qualifications or large sums to invest — should expect to leave Britain after five years.

— Daily Mail