CIC Responds to Government Immigration White Paper

The Creative Industries Council (CIC) has submitted a response to the Government's White Paper on Immigration.

The CIC submission recognises the Government's desire to reform the immigration system to include EU workers post-Brexit as reflected in the White Paper, published by the Home Office in December 2018, and welcomes its commitment that Britain will stay open for business under the new approach.

The CIC submission details how several measures in the White Paper will benefit the UK creative industries and urges the UK Government to make further commitments in a number of areas to ensure the creative industries continue their record of impressive growth.

These commitments include:

• Revisiting a proposed minimum threshold of a £30,000 flat salary for applicants for Tier 2 UK work visas in order to enable highly productive creative workers on salaries below £30,000 - and the organisations that employ them - to benefit from increased flexibility
• Continue supporting the Tier 5 (Creative and Sporting) visa, which was developed to reflect the distinctive working practices of the creative industries
• Reinstating the two-year post-study work visa abolished in 2012
• Introduction of a visa for freelancers, who make up more than a third of the overall creative industries workforce, and a much higher proportion in categories such as visual effects
• Changes to the Shortage Occupation List to cover additional roles within the creative industries, and to improve data collection on new and fast-changing creative employment categories
• Abolition of the Immigration Skills Charge
• Reform to temporary movement rules
• Improvements to the UK immigration decision-making system to streamline the process and help keep employers and applicants be better informed about the status of applications
• Better coordination and consistency across Government departments and messaging about immigration and trade to make the UK even more attractive to visitors, students, workers, and investors.

The Government is engaging through events and advisory groups in 2019 and plans to introduce the new system in a phased approach from January 2021.

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