Applying for a licence

Under the Workers and Temporary Workers sponsorship system, UK-based employers are required to apply for a licence from the Home Office if they wish to sponsor workers from overseas.

If granted a sponsor licence and one or more (‘undefined’) Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS), the sponsor must issue the CoS itself, once it is happy that the relevant criteria are met. For Skilled Worker sponsors, where an individual will be applying from overseas, the sponsor must first request and obtain a ‘defined’ CoS from the Home Office. Issuing a CoS will not guarantee that the applicant will be able to work for an employer, as they have to then submit an entry clearance or permission to stay application which have their own separate, although in most cases linked, points-based and additional criteria (as set out in the Immigration Rules).

Sponsors are subject to significant responsibilities. The relevant Sponsor Guidance gives a long list of sponsor duties and responsibilities which sponsors must meet on an ongoing basis. A prospective sponsor must be confident that it has sufficiently efficient and robust HR systems to be able to comply with these.

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Conservatives announce plans to withdraw from the ECHR and abolish the Immigration Tribunal

The leader of the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch MP, announced at the party conference on 5 October 2025 that the next Conservative election manifesto will contain a commitment to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. This follows the completion of an advice document by the Shadow Attorney General, Lord Wolfson, which looked at whether remaining signed up to the Convention would constrain a future Conservative government in the following areas: making a ‘stringent’ border policy possible; protecting soldiers from ‘vexatious’ legal claims, especially over Northern Ireland and overseas operations; placing blanket restrictions on foreign nationals in terms of social housing and benefits; setting mandatory sentences for serious crimes and banning ‘disruptive’ protests; and delivering infrastructure and energy projects without extensive human rights and climate-based litigation. In his separate address to the conference, the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp MP, asserted that current judicial interpretations of the ECHR impede effective border control and the deportation of foreign offenders. He also announced that, following withdrawal, the party proposed to legislate for a Borders plan that would prohibit all asylum and other claims made by those entering the UK unlawfully, including those arriving by small boats. Such individuals would be removed immediately to their country of origin, or, where that is not possible, to a designated safe third country such as Rwanda, within one week of arrival.

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