By Alan Oakley
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent, non-departmental Home Office-sponsored body that advises the government on migration issues, has recommended that the right to settle in Britain be sold to the highest bidder in a report made public this week.
Under the present system, migrants who invest £1m, £5m or £10m can apply for permanent residence in the UK through the Tier 1 (Investor) route after living here for five, three or two years respectively. They do not need to satisfy the requirement to speak English and are permitted to bring spouses and dependants.
According to Professor Sir David Metcalf CBE, chairman of the Committee, the current scheme brings few if any economic benefit to British citizens, since most applicants buy gilts in order to qualify; effectively lending the money to the UK. Under the MAC’s proposal, the minimum investment would double to £2m and slots auctioned with a reserve price of £2.5m. Winners of the 100 or so auctioned slots would be able to settle in Britain after two years instead of the existing five year wait (for investors below the £5m threshold). Surplus funds received through the scheme could be used to support good causes in a similar way to National Lottery profits, says the report.
Although the Committee found that investor migrants bestow an indirect beneficial impact through their general expenditure in the UK, particularly on things such as private education, it believes the reforms recommended around the direct investment itself will make it much more likely that UK residents gain from this route.
Sir David explained the main benefit to UK residents from the current investor route was from the stamp duty they paid on property purchases but this had been greatly exaggerated because “someone else would buy the house if the investor did not”. He argued that the migrant investors and their families, on the other hand, benefited from Britain’s property rights, schools, capital markets and legal system.
Sir David said: “We have focussed our attention on how UK residents may gain from this migration route. We express some healthy scepticism regarding the value to UK residents of high net worth individuals coming to the UK.
“The Committee has recommended some straightforward reforms that we believe make it much more likely that UK residents will benefit while continuing to show that Britain is open for business.”
The changes recommended in the Committee’s report would apply to settlement rights only and not citizenship. Auction winners would also benefit from relaxed residency requirements, effectively halving to 90 days the amount of time an individual has to remain resident in the UK per year.
Immigration lawyers have attacked the idea as sending out the wrong message. Nick Rollason, Head of Business Immigration at Kingsley Napley, told The Times it would create an “eBay culture” and leave a bad taste with the British public.
Sophie Barrett-Brown, a senior partner with Laura Devine solicitors, told The Times: “An auction system has, rightly, been rejected by the Home Office previously when the points-based system was first introduced, and sent out the wrong message to the public.”
But Sir David Metcalf suggested the lawyers were only interested in the “fat fees” they received from their foreign clients, adding: “Why don’t they have the same concern for British citizens? Why are they hostile to a good causes fund?”
Sir David said causes such as the fight against prostate cancer or providing sports equipment for inner-city schools could be funded by auctioning off visas, adding that the fund could even be administered by the National Lottery.
The amount investor migrants have had to pay to settle in Britain has not changed in the 20 years, since 1994, that the scheme has operated. Last year, 560 investor visas were issued, with a further 1,030 issued to applicants’ dependants. The figure has gone up from 140 applicants in 2009, with 264 dependents.
Nearly half of the 1,647 investor visas issued since 2008 have gone to Russian or Chinese nationals – 433 and 419 respectively – followed by US citizens (93), Egyptians (46), Indian (44), Kazakhstanis (41), Iranians (38), Pakistanis (38), Australians (36) and Canadians (36).
