Family visa income requirement should be lowered, says review
The minimum income requirement (MIR) has long been contested by couples who are unable to meet the threshold and, in some cases, are therefore forced to live apart.First introduced in 2012, it increased from £18,600 to £29,000 in April 2024, as part of measures by the previous Conservative government to reduce immigration.The Labour government commissioned an independent review of the policy, which has been carried out by the MAC, and was published on Tuesday.The current threshold applies only to the British partner or settled resident and does not account for potential earnings from the foreign partner once settled in the UK - a rule the review is also calling on the Government to reconsider.
The review received 2,089 responses - the highest ever for a MAC consultation - and contributions from 36 organisations.Reunite Families UK, a not-for-profit helping families navigate the UK family visa route, provided evidence including testimonies from families evidence relating to the mental health of the children involved.Their analysis reported, as well as feeling stress and loneliness, some children showed symptoms of anxiety, selective mutism and inability to focus in school.One testimony included in the review reads: "My daughter's lived without her dad since she was six. From six to 11, the main memory of childhood is with her dad through a screen."Caroline Coombs, co-founder and Executive Director of Reunite Families UK, said: "The Home Secretary previously said that her work would be led by evidence."We ask her to look to that evidence - those very real-life experiences - when it comes to making her decisions which could ultimately make or break British citizens and settled residents' family life."
'MIR should be removed'
The MAC review considered various factors including whether lowering the income requirement would increase net migration.It suggested a range of possible new thresholds. For example, it said a level between £23,000 to £25,000 would enable families to support themselves.It did suggest lowering the threshold from £29,000 to roughly £24,000 may increase net immigration by up to 8,000 people.But Ms Coombs said the Government should consider removing the MIR altogether:"Any threshold even at minimum wage would still separate many groups of people who just want to be a family here in the UK," she said.
Carla Denyer, Green Party co-leader and MP for Bristol Central, described the minimum income requirements for family visas as a "cruel tax on love"."[It] tears families apart and puts untold stress on those with the misfortune to simply fall in love with someone who is not from this country," she said.She said she has heard "devastating stories" from constituents who have been "forced to move halfway across the world" because of the income threshold."Whether it's for love, for work, or to flee violence or oppression, people move – that's a fact of life, and it's down to the government to make it work," she said.
'Real trade-off'
Net migration in 2024 was an estimated 431,000 people, down almost 50% on the previous year. This followed record high levels in recent years, with the government under political pressure to get numbers down further.The previous Conservative government planned to increase the threshold further, to £38,700, thus aligning it to the Skilled Worker Visa.But the MAC said it "did not understand the rationale" for it and said a higher threshold was "likely to conflict with international law and obligations", referring to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to family life.Committee chairman Prof Brian Bell said balancing family life and economic wellbeing was a "real trade-off"."There is a cost to the UK economy and UK taxpayers of having this route, and we should just be honest about that and say there is a trade-off," he said."But similarly, on the other side, people who say 'we should set it at very high numbers to make sure that we don't lose any money' ignore the massive impact that has on families and the destruction of some relationships and the harm it causes to children."A Home Office spokesperson said the government was considering the review's findings and would respond in due course.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
13 minutes ago
- The Sun
Labour's taken state spying of social media to whole new level – leaked emails read like their from dictatorship not UK
THE Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok has often aroused fears that personal data collected on its users could end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. What fewer people imagined was that our own Government would try to use TikTok in order to police speech in Britain. Yet that is exactly what has happened. 7 7 7 Leaked emails show that a shady branch of government known as the National Security Online Information Team has been leaning on TikTok to suppress content that is critical of official migration and criminal justice policy. On several occasions during the riots which followed the Southport murders a year ago, the unit approached TikTok requesting that it 'assess' some posts made by its users — effectively a crude instruction to suppress what they were saying. Legitimate debate Britain, like every other country, operates security services that spy on terrorists who are plotting atrocities as well as organisations involved in propagating serious public disorder. Were a government organisation to prevent a bomb attack which could have killed dozens of people, no one would be too bothered about how it had obtained the vital information. But the emails show activity which goes far beyond the demands of national security. In one case, officials drew TikTok's attention to a post that suggested a large number of migrants were 'undocumented fighting age males'. Another suggested that TikTok take a look at users who spread 'concerning narratives about the police and a two-tier system [of justice] '. I am sure the police and courts will defend themselves robustly against a charge of operating two-tier justice, but whether or not you think they are doing this, it is a perfectly legitimate area for public debate, just as is the question of whether ethnic minorities suffer disadvantage in the workplace, schools, hospitals and so on. Those who made online accusations of a disproportionate response by the police towards protesters, and who dubbed our Prime Minister 'two-tier Keir', had good reason for raising their concerns. Ten days before the Southport murders, the Harehills area of Leeds erupted into rioting after children from a Roma family were taken into care. Protesters descend on Canary Wharf migrant hotel as police surround building amid fears over 'summer of riots' Days later there was a machete fight on Southend seafront. Keir Starmer had little to say about those grim developments, yet went into overdrive when protesters took to the streets following the Southport riots. True, there were plenty of thugs among them, but to insinuate that all protesters were driven by nothing more than 'far-right hatred' was outrageous. I am not going to defend Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for 31 months for remarks she made in the wake of the Southport killings — her words read like a pretty clear incitement to violence even if she did not intend them to. But it is perfectly reasonable to question whether her punishment was consistent with the treatment handed out to extreme Islamist preachers and Irish Republican sympathisers. Take the Prevent programme, which was set up by the Blair government specifically to deal with the threat of Islamist terrorism in the wake of the 2005 Tube bombings. 7 7 7 Over time it seems to have become more concerned with the far right. Nineteen per cent of those reported to the programme in the year ending March 2024 were recorded as supporting a far right ideology, against only 13 per cent with Islamist ideology — in spite of the latter being responsible for far more terror attacks and killings than the former over the past two decades. For Government officials to try to stop us discussing these matters is something you might associate more with a dictatorship than with British democracy. We have a human rights lawyer as PM, but where is he when it comes to defending our long-held right to free expression? Labour, however, has taken state surveillance of social media to a new level To be fair to Starmer, it is not just his government that has been trying to silence its critics. The National Security Online Information Team was derived from a body set up during Covid to try to gag critics of vaccines and lockdown. The Online Safety Act, which places obligations on social media companies to police content — and which the Government has used to put pressure on TikTok and other companies — was the brainchild of the last Conservative government. Deep concerns Labour, however, has taken state surveillance of social media to a new level. Particularly disgraceful was Technology Secretary Peter Kyle's attempt this week to claim that Nigel Farage was on the side of Jimmy Savile for daring to criticise the Online Safety Act. To listen to Kyle you would think the act was about nothing other than age verification for users of online pornography (not that Savile used the internet to abuse his victims). There are many people, myself included, who support the age verification measures but who have deep concerns about the act's other provisions, in particular its demand that technologies companies act against anything that could fall under the vague definition of being 'harmful to children'. Even the day's news could be deemed harmful to children if it upsets their immature sensibilities. The trouble is that the Online Safety Act was pushed through on the back of emotional propaganda, with few people realising the dark and disturbing ways in which it could be used to silence any of us. We are belatedly realising that now. 7
Reuters
13 minutes ago
- Reuters
Judge blocks Trump from fast-tracking deportations of immigrants paroled into US
Aug 1 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from fast-tracking the deportation of potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were paroled into the United States under Biden-era humanitarian programs. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C. said it served the public interest to put on hold the Department of Homeland Security's expedited removals for those who entered with temporary parole, rather than cause irreparable harm to immigrants by allowing them. Cobb also quoted a recent dissenting opinion by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in rejecting DHS' assertion of a substantial interest in carrying out President Donald Trump's policies, including the prompt removal of immigrants not entitled to stay. "This case presents a question of fair play," Cobb wrote. "This court will not endorse the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law." DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Expedited removals could allow immigrant parolees to be deported without hearings or lawyers. The lawsuit challenging them had been brought by three immigrant rights groups whose members included parolees subject to that process. "Over the last few months, immigrants who entered the country with parole have been living a nightmare," Ama Frimpong, legal director of one of the groups, CASA, said in a statement. "They can now sleep a little easier with the relief, however temporary it is, that this court decision has offered." Trump, a Republican, has sought to deport record numbers of immigrants, but complained that courts and existing laws get in the way. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in recent months arrested immigrants at courthouses, following a legal maneuver where immigration judges dropped people's cases so that they could be placed in expedited removal. Cobb was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden. The case is Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights et al v Noem et al, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 25-00872.
Daily Mail
13 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Anti-migrant protesters face off with counter demonstrators in Southsea as disquiet grows over asylum seeker hotels across the UK
Anti-migrant demonstrators faced off against counter-protesters from Stand Up to Racism this evening outside a hotel on the south coast used to house asylum seekers. Protesters gathered outside the Royal Beach Hotel in Southsea, Hampshire, on August 1. Anti-migrant demonstrations have taken place across the South of England today, with locations including Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth. More are expected across the UK this weekend as the topic of migrants continues to prove inflammatory.
