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UK EXTENDS EMERGENCY VISA SCHEME

Risk of Christmas being tumbled down by driver scarcities forces ministers to increase range and duration of visas.

Boris Johnson’s government has made a melodramatic about turn in an effort to protect Christmas – with a bundle of extended emergency visas to help decrease labour shortages that have been the cause of empty shelves and petrol station queues.

The UK government announced late on Friday that the New immigration changes will permit 300 fuel drivers to come to the UK immediately and stay until the end of March 2022, while around 100 army drivers will take to the roads from 4 October 2021.

Approximately, 4,700 further food haulage drivers will come to the UK from late October 2021 and leave by the end of February 2022.

The rules denotes that the UK government has changed its mind to lobbying from the fuel and food industries and prolonged some temporary visa schemes past Christmas Eve and into the new year.

The change, intended to challenge lingering disturbance to supply chains, is a key modification in policy after ministers in the past claimed they will not ease immigration rules in response to the catastrophe.

A Cabinet Office announcement mentioned that Fuel haulage drivers from outside the UK will be permitted to work in the UK instantly, and will not be subjected to prior obstacles.

The announcement also established that 5,500 poultry workers will come to the UK from late October 2021 and will be permitted to stay until the end of 2021.

The visas were pronounced after poultry producers, which in the past relied on labour from eastern Europe, informed about the risks to Christmas and possible congestion on farms due to lack of workers.

Restaurants and Supermarkets across the UK are anticipated to import hundreds of thousands of birds from the EU after small number were raised by farmers in Britain.

The UK Home Office had been in opposition to adding HGV drivers to the formal occupation shortage list but is believed to have been persuaded to back a more short-term visa scheme.

It is anticipated that other sectors deteriorating from labour shortages – for example hospitality and social care – will now put stress on ministers to allow them exemptions too.

The UK government’s announcement claimed that it will come back to its promise to train UK workers and no longer depend upon bringing in workforce from outside the UK.