The UK is reversing its plan to impose a minimum salary of £38,700 on foreign spouses.
The UK is reversing its plan to impose a minimum salary of £38,700 on foreign spouses. The earnings threshold will only increase to £29,000 in the spring; subsequent increases are not tied to a timeline.
The controversial plan to make it harder for people to bring foreign spouses into the country was weakened by the UK government.
As part of a significant legal migration overhaul unveiled earlier this month, the Home Office announced that it would raise the minimum salary that immigrants or British citizens currently residing in the country must demonstrate they are making in order to grant family visas to their relatives.
The current threshold is £18,600, but it was intended to increase to £38,700, taking into account the renewal of current visa holders.
This led to concerns that the policy would upend plans for family reunions and tear apart already-established U.K. families.
However, the department now states that the threshold will only increase to £29,000 in the spring—a change that was leaked just before the Christmas break.
The government claims that additional increases are still planned, but there is no set date for when they will be implemented. The Home Office stated that in order to provide predictability, the threshold “will be increased in incremental stages.”
Another modification is that the new earnings threshold will not apply to current visa holders renewing their visas.
It means that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is continuing to tighten regulations significantly, which has infuriated some members of his ruling Conservative Party on the left, but by less than anticipated two weeks ago, a move that has already infuriated right-leaning MPs.
Ex-Minister of Immigration Damian Green, who chairs the One Nation Conservatives caucus of centrist Members of Parliament, told POLITICO London Playbook, “That seems like a very sensible change.”
The package as a whole, according to a representative for former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who left Sunak’s administration last month after being accused of weakening asylum laws, “needs to be implemented now, not long-grassed to the spring or watered down.” Not fewer, but more measures are required.
Another conservative on the right The European Research Group’s deputy chair, David Jones, called the change “alarming” and expressed regret that it had not been announced while the House was in session.
“Transitional arrangements”
Home Secretary James Cleverly had previously informed the Commons that the crackdown on legal immigration would “take effect from next spring.” It also includes significant increases in earnings thresholds beyond the spousal changes.
The £38,700 threshold was defended by No. 10 Downing Street the following day as “fair and balanced.” Subsequent to the uproar, Sunak informed the prime minister’s questions last week that “transitional arrangements” would be made.
On Thursday night, Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove sent a letter to Members of Parliament outlining the timing of the change as well as a number of other “transitional arrangements.”
Pursglove and Cleverly are careful to stress that the package as a whole might still cut immigration to the United Kingdom by 300,000.
The situation was referred to as “chaos” by Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, whose own opposition Labour Party has long struggled with immigration policy.
Labour hasn’t publicly opposed the package, despite polls suggesting that it is likely to form the next government. However, it states that the government’s impartial Migration Advisory Committee ought to look into it.
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