Home Office refuses early information on foreign artist visas

Published Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 16:55 by Lalayn Baluch

Home Office ministers have rejected calls to notify the industry immediately when UK producers begin hiring foreign musicians or actors under new and less restrictive visa rules which come into force this year.

The points-based system, with five different tiers for applicants, will be introduced in stages from the autumn. Tier five, which covers temporary workers, including performers, will allow managements to hire from overseas without the prior need for any third-party approval.

Unions and employers’ organisations support demands for Equity to receive email notification from Whitehall as soon as a sponsorship certificate is sanctioned by the government. Without it, they say it will be impossible to check all producers are obeying the law. But this week it was revealed that immigration minister Liam Byrne has rejected the proposal.

The news prompted a critical response from Equity research and parliamentary affairs officer Matt Payton, who told The Stage: “The government’s rhetoric about protecting the resident labour market has been powerful, but we’re concerned the rhetoric doesn’t match up to reality.

“We struggled with how to ensure compliance with these codes and our solution was to have instant notification, and the ability to report that to the Home Office quickly. If we don’t have that, it is questionable whether the codes are going to deliver the sort of protection for the resident labour market that we hope they would.”

Equity has been told the Home Office might be able to supply “restricted view access to the system or periodic reports” to allow sponsorship certificates to be monitored. But Payton warned that UK performers’ employment prospects would receive no protection from retrospective monitoring. The request for notification forms part of a code of practice drafted by the union, together with the National Campaign for the Arts, Independent Theatre Council, Pact, Society of London Theatres, Theatrical Management Association, Bectu and the UK Film Council.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We will continue to engage with the industry to inform the design of the new system. Prospective migrants will be able to assess themselves against the points criteria, to see whether they qualify before paying the application fee.”

The Home Office publishes further details of the visa rules this week.