Maternity Leave and Tier 2 Extention

Hi,

I was issued a Tier 2 Visa in July 2016 which will expire on July 2019.

I recently went on 8 Months Maternity leave and was on full pay during this period (6 Months leave at full pay plus 2 months of accrued leave).

I resumed work on April 1 as normal. As my Visa is due to expire, can my employer refuse to extend it?

- I was employed as a permanent staff
- I was promoted while on maternity leave so they are happy with my performance.

My concern is that they intend to move most of our team outside of UK (leaving only a few) and have said instead of making people redundant, they will not replace anyone that leaves but this plan is over a 3 year period. I am concerned that this will affect me as they might use it as an excuse not to extend my visa


Can they do this?
Do I have Legal right given that I was away on maternity leave when this decision was made?

Thank You

They don't have to continue sponsoring and give you a CoS if they don't wish to.

Also in redundancy situations Tier 2 are not allowed to be kept on in front of a settled worker. So if you are doing the same role as a settled worker you have to be made redundant before or at the same time as the settled workers.

There is no compulsion for a Sponsor to issue a COS for your extension application so if they wanted to reduce head count it is a viable option not to do so especially from a HR point of view.