This report has been commissioned by the City of London Corporation to explore the possibility of creating a 'regional visa' for all non UK nationals seeking to live and work in the UK.
This offers the potential to allow regional decision makers to assess and address the immigration needs of their region in a post Brexit world in a way that would support local economies and overall UK competitiveness.
The challenge for a regional visa is designing a system that allows the very different labour and skills needs of regions to be met, while addressing the challenges migration can pose, and being practicable to implement and enforce. This paper looks at how such an approach could be structured, and considers the experiences of countries such as Australia and Canada – both of which have implemented visa systems that can be tailored to local needs.