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Indian workers’ case figures in Lords

LONDON: The issue surrounding the controversial retrospective changes to the Highly-Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP), affecting nearly 30,000 Indian workers, figured in the House of Lords on Wednesday with Lord Navnit Dholakia, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House, saying that their effect on individual lives was “catastrophic.”

Urging the government not to apply the new rules to those who came to Britain legally after qualifying the requirements applicable at the time, Lord Dholakia said the Joint Committee (of MPs and peers) on Human Rights had declared the retrospective changes “unlawful” under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The committee, in its report, said: “We recommend that those who had already been granted leave as a highly skilled migrant on the HSMP when the relevant changes took effect should be treated according to the rules which applied before those changes.”

Lord Dholakia said: “Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just returned from his visit to India... I am aware that during his previous visit, the Prime Minister of India discussed with him the impact of retrospective changes affecting migrants and their families who entered the U.K. legally from the Indian subcontinent under the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme …. The effect on individuals has been catastrophic… There are those who have returned to India with their families and have lost everything. They felt that the British government had cheated them.”

His intervention followed similar criticism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, civil liberties groups and a host of MPs cutting across party lines. The campaign group, HSMP Forum, which has called for a judicial review, said it was “unfair” to subject the old lot of migrants to the new rules.

“Many HSMP immigrants don’t qualify under the new rules and are being forced to wind up their establishments, careers, schooling of their children, and investments and are being forced to leave the country. This has resulted in a serious human rights violation,” said Amit Kapadia, executive director of the Forum.

Some 49,000 professionals from around the world, including 30,000 from India, came to Britain lured by the promise of permanent residency under the HSMP, introduced in 2002 to attract talent in a range of areas of specialised skills such as information technology and finance.

In November 2006, however, the rules were changed and they were asked to “re-qualify” if they wanted to stay on. It is the decision to apply the new criteria retrospectively to those who are already here that lies at the heart of the dispute.

The government has justified the changes, saying there was widespread “abuse” of the system and that many who came under HSMP switched over to low-skilled jobs. The new rules, it says, are designed to make sure that only those who can “benefit” Britain are allowed to live and work here.

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