Correspondence

Response letter from Professor Brian Bell to the Home Secretary, 7 July 2025 (accessible)

Updated 8 July 2025

Migration Advisory Committee
2nd Floor Peel Building NE
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
enquiries@mac.gov.uk                                                                        

Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

7th July 2025

Dear Home Secretary,

Thank you for your letter dated 2nd July 2025 in which you have asked the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to look at the salary requirements for visas, including discounts, and also to review the Temporary Shortage List (TSL). 

We accept these commissions and note your request that our reviews be carried out within a six-month timescale and twelve-month timescale respectively. 

To conduct these reviews simultaneously within the periods set out, we would be grateful for the full co-operation of government and Home Office colleagues to swiftly provide us with data, including, but not limited to:

• Home Office Management Information on Certificate of Sponsorships and visa applications for the Skilled Worker Route, Health and Care Route, Global Mobility Routes, Scale Up Route, and predecessors of these routes, for main applicants and dependents. This should include data from 2014 to present including SOC codes, detailed SIC codes, job titles, sponsoring organisations, sponsor licence number, salary, age, and whether any salary discounts were applied to the application.

• HMRC and Home Office linked data for those on the Skilled Worker Route, Health and Care Route, Global Business Mobility Routes for main applicants and dependents, from 2019 to the most recent available.

• Migrant Journey data for visa holders across those work routes, at individual level, from 2018 to present.

• Data for each occupation at RQF 3-5 level eligible for Skilled Worker Route and Health and Care Route on visa refusals, sponsor suspensions, sponsor revocations, asylum claims following previous work on these visas, and volume of safeguarding issues relating visa holders working in these occupations, from 2021 to present.

• Linked migration data matching main applicant to dependents where possible.

We will provide an update by 8th August 2025 if progress in accessing the data is not made, as any delays in receiving the data will lead to a delay in publication of our reports.

For the review of salary requirements and discounts, we will be undertaking targeted stakeholder engagement alongside technical analysis.

We intend to undertake the TSL review in two stages to meet your requests:

1. Stage 1 will include analysis and recommendations on the visa terms and conditions for occupations on the TSL. Alongside this we will provide an assessment of which RQF3-5 occupations are crucial to delivering the UK’s Industrial Strategy or critical infrastructure to take forward for further consideration in Stage 2. We aim to publish our analysis and recommendations on Stage 1 in October.

2. Stage 2 will include further analysis of the occupations we have identified as crucial to the Industrial Strategy or critical infrastructure, to assess whether they meet the criteria be on the TSL, as set out in the Immigration White Paper. This will include an assessment of shortages, the sector workforce plans, the extent to which the plans are underpinned by a skills strategy and commitment to recruit from the domestic labour market, and the risk of exploitation of workers. We aim to undertake significant stakeholder engagement with relevant sectors on their workforce plans and run a Call for Evidence as part of this stage. We will publish the MAC’s analysis and recommendations from Stage 2 within 12 months.

In relation to the TSL review, we will engage actively with the Labour Market Evidence Group on gathering data and analysis as part of the joined-up, evidence-led approach you set out. 

We look forward to continuing to provide the government with independent analysis and evidence-based advice. 

Yours sincerely,

[signed]

Professor Brian Bell

Chair, Migration Advisory Committee