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LONDON - The British government's proposed changes to immigration rules for skilled migrant workers are unfair and break human rights law, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday.
The committee took issue with changes announced by the government last year to its Highly Skilled Migrant Programme, which allows people such as doctors and financial experts to come to work in Britain.
The government said the changes were designed to ensure that stricter checks on foreign workers were carried out in Britain and abroad to guard against abuse.
The committee said the changes were unfair because they retrospectively changed the rules for people who had already come to Britain under the programme, making it more difficult for them to settle in Britain permanently.
Committee chairman Andrew Dismore, a legislator for the ruling Labour Party, said the government was entitled to change the rules for future migrants.
"But it is not right to pull out the rug from under those who have already given up lives, homes and jobs elsewhere in the world and settled themselves and their families here," Dismore said in a statement.
The committee said the changes were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to respect for home and family life.
It urged the government to send its proposals back to parliament to be changed.
The committee said the government had made two changes to the immigration rules which affected people already granted leave to work in Britain as highly skilled migrants.
One changed the requirements highly skilled migrants must satisfy when they apply for permission to extend their stay in Britain under the programme.
The other lengthened the qualifying period for migrants to be allowed to settle in Britain from four years to five.
- REUTERS
