Reeves Urged To Open Door To US Business Talent Fleeing Trump
5 min read
Promises to welcome the best and brightest ring hollow, say experts
Some way behind Botswana but ahead of Slovenia, the UK’s place in the latest IMD World Talent Ranking is underwhelming.
Although the effort to score the international race to recruit the “best and brightest” has its critics, experts acknowledge such rankings tell a broad truth. Switzerland – which has topped the table for 11 straight years – must be doing something right, while the UK – ranking 27th – clearly has room for improvement.
Administrations of every stripe always make an exception for those with talent, money or both as they promise to reduce numbers of migrants arriving in the UK. Last month’s immigration white paper was just the latest, with promises to liberalise the ‘global talent’ scheme and look again at the ‘investor founder’ visa.
Generally, there is little obstacle for firms who want to recruit talented staff from abroad if they can prove they have the right skills and will earn enough. It becomes harder, however, if applicants do not have a current employment sponsor.
Immigration lawyers say the government risks missing out on talented business executives escaping Donald Trump’s America, for example. His presidency, and in particular his assault on universities, is leading to a spike in interest from US citizens – both businesspeople and academics – looking to move to the UK.
When it comes to the former group, there is currently little that the current visa system can offer, says Nicolas Rollason, head of immigration at Kingsley Napley. While the global talent visa offers routes into the UK for high performers in the fields of science and the arts, there is nothing equivalent for business executives looking to relocate to the UK, he says, other than existing work visas.
So, a former chief executive of a Forbes 500 company looking to move to the UK has, at present, no option. “Global talent is very flexible,” Rollason says. A visa that allows so-called C-suite executives to come to the UK – without an immediate requirement to work – would, he thinks, help tip the balance in this country’s favour.
By contrast, Rollason says, raising the standard minimum from five to 10 years before allowing people to claim settlement risks repelling high-net worth US citizens, who are subject to global tax and are therefore less deterred by the changes to non-dom rules.
“A fast track to permanent residence is important if you’re one of those people. That’s something that the government should be looking at if they want to really get the movers and shakers in the business world.”
'People move for opportunities. They don’t move for a good visa.'
Experts say the Home Office “got its fingers burnt” by previous attempts at so-called ‘golden visas’. “We ended up with a bunch of Russian oligarch wives,” says one close observer of those taking up investor visas.
Attempts to attract entrepreneurs were also reportedly badly abused. “Some of these people were employing two people on minimum wage in a single café – but were ticking the right boxes.”
But ministers over-corrected and now have a system that is cumbersome and off-putting, claim critics. There was a drop in the number of ‘global talent visas’ issued last year, while the ‘investor founder visa’ is notoriously difficult to obtain. Not only do applicants have to prove their idea is genuinely unique – they must also prove that it could never be copied.
Part of the problem is that while it may be clear what constitutes a world-class violinist (and the Home Office even lists the music prizes which it recognises as elite), it is less obvious who the next AI visionary might be. The endorsing body – Tech Nation – is not as well-established as those for other fields such as, for example, the Royal Society. Rejection rates are higher and critics fear that talent is being turned away.
Perhaps surprisingly, what isn’t a problem is the speed with which decisions are taken. In fact, Rollason says the turnaround speeds are the fastest in the world. Fees, while high by international standards, are not generally a deterrent. (A global talent visa costs £766 plus an annual NHS surcharge fee of £1,035.)
Madeleine Sumption, head of the Migration Observatory, argues that there is some anecdotal evidence that fees are a deterrent, but other factors tend to be much more important when it comes to high-end applicants. Indeed, she believes the whole notion of a race for a limited pool of talent may be misleading.
“The rhetoric around competition for talent suggests that there’s this pool of widgets – a fixed number of them. I think there is some evidence that it is not a zero-sum game in the sense that people’s decisions on, say, setting up a business are dependent on where they have networks or what languages they speak.”
She adds: “People move for opportunities. They don’t move for a good visa.”
We are not – yet – ready to follow countries like Chile which offer start-up capital for incoming entrepreneurs, or China which offers tax breaks to attract back talented émigrés. But it does seem ministers may be ready to move to usher in US refugees with a recast investor visa: the whispers are plans are well-advanced. Rachel Reeves will – no doubt – be delighted to welcome them at Heathrow.
