Settlement: solicitor urges government to extend six-week period to three months

Home Office immigration rules are too restrictive on foreign lawyers who wish to take holidays or travel abroad on business while working in Britain, a solicitor warned this week.


Roger Gherson, a partner at Gherson & Co in London, said the Home Office had not gone far enough in relaxing its policy on the amount of time professionals can spend outside the country without losing their right to settle here after four years.


Mr Gherson successfully achieved a concession from the Home Office in August when he threatened a judicial review action on behalf of a client who had entered the country as an investor. The client had been refused indefinite leave to remain in Britain because he had spent too much time abroad in the past four years.


The Home Office extended the amount of time a foreign investor can spend outside the UK from six weeks to three months, or 25% of their time, in August. However, Mr Gherson said the government had 'refused the opportunity' to clarify whether that extension would apply to those who are not here as investors.


Foreign lawyers may come to the UK as investors. However, they are more likely to come on a work permit, employed by a law firm in the UK; as a highly skilled migrant, either employed or self-employed; or under the foreign lawyers' concession, which allows foreign lawyers to establish themselves in a self-employed category.


Under the new Home Office rules, only lawyers who enter as investors may spend up to 25% of their time outside the UK - the rest are still tied to the six-week period.


Mr Gherson said: 'Following our issue of judicial review proceedings, the Home Office agreed that those who come as investors may be out of the country for 25% of the time - but it refused to use that opportunity to clarify the position for those in the other categories.


'Even 25% absence is very restrictive on foreign lawyers. Any foreign commercial lawyer who goes home with his wife and kids for the holidays, and then has to travel for commercial reasons, is likely to exceed three months' absence in a year.'


A Home Office spokeswoman said it will be publishing guidance shortly on how the period of residence is assessed in applications for settlement.