UK Family Visa Rules Changing | Big changes are coming to UK visa rules
Kier Starmer may halt plans to raise the income criterion for spouses of immigrants(UK Family Visa). The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, requests that the Migration Advisory Committee examine the appropriate threshold.
Sir Keir Starmer is thinking of delaying the Tory-backed plan to raise the pay threshold for spouses of immigrants.
Earlier this year, as part of a series of steps to cut net migration by about 300,000, the income level required to bring a foreign partner to the UK was raised from £18,600 to £29,000.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has put off plans to raise the barrier even higher to £38,700 in the upcoming year and requested that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) assess the appropriate threshold level.
She informed lawmakers that the government must “balance a respect for family life whilst also ensuring the economic wellbeing of the UK is maintained” in a statement to the Commons.
The Minimum Income Requirement [for the family visa] is now fixed at £29,000, and until the MAC review is finished, there won’t be any adjustments, she continued.
When former Home Secretary James Cleverly announced intentions to raise the threshold to £38,700 last December, there was a significant backlash. Experts in migration predicted that thousands of relationships would be impacted and marriages would be called off.
Additionally, the administration disregarded Home Office officials’ suggestion not to raise the threshold to £38,700. They cautioned that the Human Rights Act’s and equality laws’ protection of family rights would likely cause the proposal to be overturned in court.
The MAC’s current chairman, Brian Bell, expressed worries about the policy as well, pointing out that it would only have a “quite small” influence on net migration and that the negative effects for Britons looking to bring their spouses to the UK would probably outweigh the change.
“You should think about the benefit in terms of the welfare of people in Britain,” he stated at a briefing. These individuals are British nationals who wish to immigrate to the country with their spouses. I believe that action has both social and welfare benefits, and it shouldn’t be disregarded.
In addition, Mr Bell stated that he did not see any rationale behind raising the criteria to £38,700, which places it in line with the new income threshold that skilled foreign workers wishing to enter the UK must meet. It is more than the £34,963 median average income for full-time workers in the UK from the previous year.
He noted that the MAC had first recommended that the income level needed for a citizen to be ineligible for benefits be used as the cutoff point for bringing in a foreign spouse. For this reason, it was set at £18,600 when it was first fixed in 2011 and hasn’t increased to reflect inflation.
If the MAC applies the same approach, it may choose to accept a price that is less than the existing £29,000, even though it will not reveal the review’s findings until after the summer.
“This change will open the doors at our borders and ensure that net migration keeps climbing, and the British people will pick up the bill,” stated Mr. Cleverly, who is currently the shadow home secretary.
Nonetheless, Ms. Cooper has stated that Labour will carry out all other Tory policies intended to lower net migration from its present peak of 685,000 in the year ending in December 2023.
These include limiting the ability of international students and carers to bring family members into the country, increasing the salary requirement for skilled worker visas from £26,200 to £38,700, and doing away with the 20 percent going rate discount, which allows employers to no longer underpay foreign workers in occupations that are in high demand.
Ms. Cooper also asked the MAC to look into ways to train and hire more British nationals to help the engineering and IT sectors wean themselves off of their dependency on foreign labour.
“Immigration should not be exploited as a substitute for addressing skills shortages and labour market failings in the UK, even though we will always benefit from international talent and skills, particularly in maintaining our competitiveness on the world stage. We are laying out a new strategy as a result,” she stated.
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