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GOVERNMENT DELAYS REVIEW OF THE SHORTAGE OCCUPATION LIST

Date Posted March 2nd, 2023.

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The government has delayed a planned review of the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) until further notice, despite net migration to the UK reaching its highest level on record.

In September last year The Minister for Safe and Legal Migration wrote to Professor Brian Bell, Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), to commission an independent review of the list. Professor Brian Bell replied accepting and welcoming the commission and it was expected that they would produce their final report and recommendations in spring 2023.

The SOL is a feature of the government’s post-Brexit immigration system and lists occupations where employers face a shortage of suitable labour and where it is sensible to fill those shortages with migrant workers.

The occupations on the list are given some special dispensations within the immigration rules designed to make it easier for employers to access migrant labour to fill vacancies in those areas of identified shortage.

The Government periodically commissions the Migration Advisory Committee to recommend which occupations should be placed on the SOL but ultimately it is for the Government to decide which occupations are selected.

The Government had been under growing pressure to commission a new report, with numerous sectors including food, experiencing severe labour shortages, driven by the pandemic and a post-Brexit fall in workers from the European Union. The last review of the list was in 2020 but the then-home secretary Priti Patel rejected most of its recommendations.

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