blog
Welcome to the DBS Law blog.
POSTED 04.05.12
The changes to the Immigration Rules which come into force on 6th April 2012 will affect all foreigners coming to the UK under the points based system (PBS). This guide seeks to explore how the recent changes will affect students.
Changes to Tier 4 include:
-
Financial requirements to apply
-
Duration of student visa
-
Post study worker route
-
Graduate Entrepreneur route
-
Financial requirements to bring dependents along
-
Curtailment
The government estimates that when reforms to the student visa system have been fully implemented, there will be around 70,000 fewer student visa grants a year and around 20,000 fewer visas issued to dependants.
FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS:
...
POSTED 07.03.12
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO) returned for report stage in the House of Lords on Monday. The government has made concessions in relation to the evidence needed to prove domestic violence, following an amendment proposed by former Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, founder of the Eliminate Domestic Violence Global Fund.
The present proposals, if they had gone ahead, would have restricted legal aid to victims of domestic violence who are able to provide evidence such as a non-molestation order, a criminal conviction against the perpetrator or an active child protection plan within the preceding twelve months. This would have severely restricted the...
POSTED 17.02.12
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has expressed frustration and anger that a Bill to help save scores of lives on UK roads was talked out of the House of Commons January 2012.
Despite widespread popular support in the UK, the backing of the Government, and more than 120 MPs, Rebecca Harris’s Daylight Saving Bill was effectively killed by just a few politicians.
The Bill was simply calling for a cross-departmental review of the benefits of Single/Double Summer Time (GMT+1 in winter / GMT+2 in summer). If the evidence proved compelling - and was accepted by all UK governments - it could have triggered a trial.
RoSPA has been campaigning on this issue for...
POSTED 24.01.12
The glossy magazines and adverts promise an easy, non-surgical solution to unwanted hair.
The problem is that, it is these very adverts that trivialise such treatments promising permanent hair removal. We all want to look our best and more so, during the Spring/Summer months. We store away our Winter coats, buy a new wardrobe of summer clothes and are ready to enjoy the sun. However you must be aware of the disastrous side effects that can potentially arise with hair removal treatment.
All premises offering Laser Skin Treatments, including Laser Hair Removal and Thread Vein Removal are required by law to be registered with the Care Quality Commission [CQC]. Part of the CQC’s role...
POSTED 13.01.12
The Prime Ministers threat to cull the health and safety culture brings us frighteningly close to the days of Charles Dickens in the year we celebrate his 200th birthday. The PM and his advisors must be so closeted in the privileged corridors of Parliament that they really are living two centuries ago.
Was the PM playing the Christmas panto baddy perhaps, or does he really think the lives of hard working people are so dispensable?
If the PM is sincere then his is a nightmare vision of the future for working people akin to that of Ebenezer Scrooge before he is visited by three ghosts in Christmas Eve. A future where Health and Safety regulations are meaningless and rogue employers...
POSTED 11.01.12
Cycling has enjoyed a renaissance since the Millennium. It is cheap, and often quicker and more pleasant than public transport The Government continues to tell us about the environmental and health benefits of cycling but is enough really being done by them to make the roads safer for those who cycle on them.
The conclusion reached by a recent report “infrastructure and cycling safety” commissioned by the Department for Transport into road safety for cyclist (that cutting vehicle speeds particularly at junctions would be the single post affective measure to increase the safety of cyclists )will come as no surprise to many. There is no doubt that significantly more needs to be done to...
POSTED 14.12.11
Christmas is fast approaching and ideas for presents for the ones we love may be getting thin.
Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week has come and gone again this year without significant coverage given by the media of the importance of this campaign. The awareness week emphasises the importance of audible alarms to detect and warn of the presence of this deadly gas yet needless injuries and deaths continue to occur. The gas is highly toxic, odourless and can arise in the home from faulty appliances Symptoms can often be mistaken for unrelated causes and can include dizziness, drowsiness, distorted vision, stomach pain and breathlessness. High levels of this poisionous gas can cause brain...
POSTED 29.11.11
On 23 November 2011, Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the Governments plans for Employment Law Reform during a speech at the Engineering Employers’ Federation in London.
The speech set out the following plans:
-
Requiring complaints to be submitted to ACAS for pre-claim conciliation before a tribunal claim can be issued.
-
Introducing “protected conversations” to allow employers to raise workplace issues “in an open way, free from the worry it will be used as evidence in… tribunal”.
-
Simplifying compromise agreements.
-
Creating a “rapid resolution scheme” as a quicker and cheaper alternative to tribunal for “more straightforward matters” such as holiday pay disputes.
...
POSTED 24.11.11
Pay awards have been high on the political agenda in the UK recently, and this week sees reports from the Office for National Statistics that earnings have risen at a rate well below the level of inflation for the year to April. There is some good news though; the pay gap between men and women seems to have narrowed, albeit only slightly.
The figures suggest that there was no change in median average gross weekly earnings for all UK full-time and part-time workers in April 2011 compared to a year earlier, but the typical full-time employee earned £26,200 in the year to April, up 1.4% on the previous 12 months, with the biggest growth being seen for female workers.
The median gross...
POSTED 23.11.11
Security of tenure in a simple form means that when the expiry date of a lease passes the lease does not automatically come to an end. It continues by operation of law and the tenant ‘holds over’ until a new lease is entered into by the landlord and tenant on substantially similar terms as the lease that has expired. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (“the Act”) covers the security of tenure provisions. The lease can only be terminated by one of the provisions referred to in the Act.
Security of tenure is granted by the Act to protect tenants. Tenants often spend a lot of money, time and effort building a business and with this comes goodwill. Arguably, it is the goodwill element that...
POSTED 21.11.11
by Paul Griffin
It would appear from the news yesterday that education unions are urging the government to put the issue of youth unemployment at the centre of the political agenda.
Their concerns have been raised as figures from the Office for National Statistics are published which show the jobless total for the age group between 16 and 24 has hit a record of 1.02 million.
It seems the unions concerns stem from Government cuts and moves to axe grants for young people, which they say are damaging the age groups job prospects.
The BBC has reported Business Secretary Vince Cable as saying he took the problem “very seriously”, however The University and College Union urged the...
POSTED 21.11.11
The Supreme Court in Jones v Kernott has given guidance on how the assets of cohabitees, who are separating, are to be distributed. The Court has clarified the approach to be taken when calculating beneficial interests in a property, held in joint names, where the owners are an unmarried couple. In this case, there was no express statement of how the beneficial interest should be shared. The Supreme Court held that the parties’ intentions as to ownership, changed after the separation.
For more details visit the folloving link
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed89313
by Farhat Akbar
POSTED 07.11.11
Theresa May, the Home Secretary is facing scrutiny regarding the reduced passport checks for potential terrorists and illegal subjects entering Britain which has been implemented since June 2011. The Home Office holds a “warning index” which must be carried out at ports and airports prior to entry to assist national security checks, however there are fears that these have been disregarded. Downing Street has confirmed that the decision to relax passport checks on UK and European biometric passport holders entering Britain was a departmental one and that it did not need to be referred to the cabinet for consideration.
Home Office sources confirmed on Friday 04 November 2011 that these...
POSTED 01.11.11
A recent review of the adoption process has shown that on average it can take over two and a half years before a child is placed into the care of adoptive parents. It has been proposed that performance tables containing details of the performance of each local authority, assessed by reference to various key indicators, should be published. The aim of this is encourage discussion and debate and ultimately to reduce the delays that are currently being experienced within the adoption system.
Follow link to read full story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15492467
by Farhat Akbar
POSTED 28.10.11
Lottery win share awarded to ex-husband by court. A hotel porter has won £85,000 of his ex-wife's £500,000 National Lottery prize in the High Court because she had used some of it to buy a family home. Read full story here (via www.bbc.co.uk)
