Immigration Controls

Pete Wishart
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many appeals were made by applicants under the Highly-Skilled Migrants programme where applications were refused because their savings fell below the required level; and how many such appeals were successful in each year that the scheme has operated.

Mr. Woolas
The information requested is not available for either in country appeals or out of country administrative reviews. This is because the UK Border Agency’s Case Information Database is unable to extract data on the specific reasons why an application is initially refused. This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost by the examination of a large number of individual case files.