The UK Government is determined to push ahead with its agenda for immigration, nationality and asylum in 2023, as the next General Election is now less than two years away. Projections for immigration – and policy developments for the year may include:
- focus on digitalisation, including the roll-out of the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme and fully digitalised immigration statuses;
- processing time improvements to Family visas (Appendix FM), asylum claims, and sponsor licence applications;
- changes to business immigration due to labour market trends, such as the introduction of clawback clauses of immigration fees, companies shifting employees on Graduate visas to Skilled Worker visas, and global competition for talent amongst multinational companies;
- continuation of recruitment struggles for SMEs, with only 2% of small businesses having sponsored a non-UK national in the past 12-months (according to the Federation of Small Businesses).
