The Home Office have issued temporary visa schemes for HGV Drivers and for Poultry Workers.
The scheme for HGV drivers is for those employed to transport food goods. The drivers must have a HGV licence recognised for use in the UK and the Home Office scheme itself applies to EU, EEA and Swiss licence holders only. The drivers must also hold an HGV (category C or C+E) licence.
The new scheme for Poultry Workers covers various different work categories including Butchers and Meat Packers. The Home Office have issued 5,500 temporary visas available for Poultry Workers and 4,700 available for HGV food drivers and the deadline for applying for Poultry Workers is 12 November 2021 and the temporary visas will expire on 31 December 2021.
The deadline for applying for HGV drivers is 1 December 2021 and such visas will expire on 28 February 2022.
In terms of the application process, it is the UK employer who needs to apply to the Home Office scheme and all applications are made through one of the current four approved scheme operators. The current operators all have different application processes so employers will need to contact these organisations directly in order to ascertain the application process and procedure.
For advice on this or any other immigration matter, please do not hesitate to contact Sohan Sidhu below.
