Fair game...

All information provided is current as on 08/01/2008

Immigration rules

http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/hsmp/

The Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) is designed to allow highly skilled people to come to the United Kingdom to look for work or self-employment opportunities.
Anyone outside the United Kingdom can apply for entry to the HSMP. If you are already in the United Kingdom, you may be able to move onto the programme without needing to leave the country.
Unlike our work permits or business people schemes you do not need a job offer or detailed business plan to apply to the HSMP. Your application will be awarded points based on your skills, experience, age and past earnings. If you are awarded enough points you will be accepted onto the HSMP.
The HSMP can provide you with a route to permanent residency (settlement) in the United Kingdom.

http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/hsmp/settlement/
To qualify to settle in the United Kingdom under the HSMP you must:
- be living legally in the United Kingdom for the last five years; and
- currently have permission to stay in the United Kingdom as a highly skilled migrant; and
- have been in the United Kingdom as a highly skilled migrant, work permit holder or innovator throughout the five years; and
- have maintained and accommodated yourself and any dependants without the use of public funds throughout the five years; and
- have been employed, self-employed or a combination of the two throughout the five years; and - have sufficient knowledge of language and life in the UK

Legal challenge:
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions (Hearing date: Tuesday 30 October 2007)
This appeal concerns the lawfulness of two government measures:
1. the alteration without consultation by the Home Secretary of the Immigration Rules so as to abolish permit-free training (PFT) for doctors who lack a right of abode in the United Kingdom; and
2. advice given by the Department of Health to NHS employers that doctors on HSMP whose limited leave to remain was due to expire before the end date of any training post that was on offer should be offered the training post only if the resident market labour criterion was satisfied (i.e., after UK/EU graduates are considered).

Relevant sections from the verdict:
60. Department of Health had raised its concerns with the Home Office but the Home Office
"… had doubts about the feasibility of excluding International Medical Graduates at postgraduate level from the HSMP without fundamental alterations to the provisions of the Immigration Rules governing the HSMP”

'it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Department of Health decided to "go it alone" and, in so doing, issued a document, the nature and purpose of which was to regulate the conditions attaching to the immigration status of an identified group.'

'the Home Secretary cannot introduce a change to immigration status without obtaining the necessary authority of Parliament. It would be absurd if another department of state could achieve the same forbidden result by acting independently. '

The Lord Justices Sedley, Maurice Kay and Rimer were unanimous in agreeing that the DH guidance was wrong.

Post graduate training opportunities for non UK graduates

Final Report of the Independent Inquiry into Modernising Medical Careers (Tooke Report), Page: 29
FINAL RECOMMENDATION 11
Department of Health should have a coherent model of medical workforce supply within which apparently conflicting policies on self-sufficiency and open borders/ overproduction should be publicly disclosed and reconciled. We recommend that overseas students graduating from UK medical schools should be eligible for postgraduate training as should refugee doctors with the right to remain in the UK.

Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) Recruitment FAQs
What is the position on International Medical Graduates?
Doctors who graduated abroad, not least those from the Indian sub-continent, have made a massive contribution to the NHS and its patients. We do not want to prevent such doctors from working in the NHS, but we do think there is a case for trying to make sure that specialty training, which is funded by the taxpayer, gives priority to doctors who graduated in the UK. Every developed country provides some similar way of prioritising their domestic medical graduates.
In February 2007 guidance to the NHS on this was found by the High Court to be legally justified. However, in November this year, the Court of Appeal disagreed with that verdict, and we are unable to implement the guidance in 2008 as a result.
We are looking to see if there is anything else than can be done, but if a way is found to give preference to UK graduates, it will almost certainly not be possible to implement it in 2008.

Response from BAPIO (British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin):
“Our client is concerned that a reference to whether the tax payer should be investing in training doctors from outside Europe as distinct from UK medical graduates, coupled with the link to the consultation document which sets out the justification for the Department of Health preferred option, implies that HSMP graduates and our client are to be held to be causing difficulties for the Department of Health and UK medical graduates. It is incumbent upon the Secretary of State for Health to act in accordance with the law and as such we do not consider it is appropriate for the Department of Health to now act in such a way that the planning difficulties of the department appear to be attributable to our clients when the Court has ruled that the Secretary of State is acting unlawfully”.
“In the circumstances we consider that the Department of Health should revisit the website and amend the wording to reflect the ruling of the Court of Appeal, notwithstanding the petition to the House of Lords”.

Bottomline?
no jobs for bloody foreigners, even though they contribute to UK society through their professional services, pay the same tax as any UK citizen (note the 'UK tax payer' gambit by the government), have no access to UK public funds (i.e., not a drain on resources like some UK citizens) and have been asked to sign a statement promising the UK government to stay in the UK long term at the time of issuing their HSMP visa