Vape shops in the UK will have access to a fast-track skilled worker visa scheme designed to bring in ‘high-skilled’ employees, despite fears that the stores are being used as fronts for organised crime.
The Home Office’s public register of licensed sponsors for worker and temporary worker immigration routes lists almost 80 different vape companies across the UK.
The scheme means that the businesses can apply for skilled worker visas – restricted to employees in graduate professions – making it easier to sponsor and hire foreign workers.
This comes despite widespread concern among senior Tory MPs that vape shops around the UK are being used as fronts for organised crime gangs.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, called for the Government to ‘immediately’ strip vape shops of their sponsorship status, calling their inclusion on the Home Office’s list a ‘total joke’.
Just last week, the Government announced a £30million crackdown on ‘dodgy high street shops’.
A major operation led by the National Crime Agency listed vape shops as one of the targets for the crackdown, which intends to target money laundering, tax evasion, and illegal working over three years.
Senior MPs have previously raised concerns that vape shops in the UK are being used as fronts for organised crime
The Government announced it would be recruiting officers from Greater Manchester, Kent, the West Midlands, and Essex.
Vape shop hotspots in the UK are Manchester, London, Birmingham, and Bolton, although they are increasingly present in towns across the country.
The Government scheme announced on May 19 said: ‘The NCA estimate at least £12 billion of criminal cash is generated in the UK each year, with £1 billion laundered through high street businesses like mini-marts, barber shops, vape stores and sweet shops.
‘Some businesses are also connected to the sale of fake goods, tax evasion, illegal working, and illegal drug supply.
‘Thousands of businesses are expected to be raided, hundreds of arrests made and millions in cash seized as a national intensification campaign will be put on permanent footing annually to drive coordinated enforcement across the country.’
Tory MP Chris Philp told the Telegraph: ‘Labour’s claims that they are only giving immigration visas to high-skilled people are clearly nonsense. Here are dozens of vape shops allowed to sponsor immigrant workers.
‘Many of these vape shops are fronts for organised crime and even those few that are legitimate certainly don’t employ high-skilled workers.’
The Home Office’s application to sponsor an employee through the skilled worker visa route requires thorough evidence from employers, including proof that businesses are offering a real job at the required skill and wage.
Although the vape companies are listed on the public register, they are not necessarily using their sponsor license – nor does their inclusion mean that any sponsored visa application will be approved in future.
Trading Standards predicted that as many as half of all convenience stores and vape retailers in some areas are linked to organised crime.
A Home Office spokesman told the Telegraph: ‘After record high levels of migration under the previous government, net migration has fallen by 82 per cent.
‘Whilst holding a sponsorship licence is no guarantee of a visa, we will never tolerate abuse. That is why we have tightened requirements including doubling the length of time employers who commit repeat offences are prevented from sponsoring workers.
‘Meanwhile, skilled sponsor revocations are up, more than 100 occupations have been cut from overseas recruitment access and the skilled salary threshold raised.’
