Putting families at the heart of family visa policy - consultation: SG response

Family Visa Route Financial Threshold

1. In July 2012 the then UK Government introduced a number of changes to the Family Visa route. These changes were part of a suite of changes that the coalition government introduced with the stated aim of reducing migration. It is important therefore to note that the underpinning rationale for the changes to the Family Visa route introduced in 2012 was to reduce levels of family migration.

2. The changes introduced in 2012 included a tightening of the Adult Dependent Relative route, which had often been used to allow elderly parents to be brought to the UK to be cared for by family members, and the introduction of a new financial requirement, the ‘minimum income requirement’.

3. The rationale for the introduction of a minimum income threshold was that an individual’s right to enter or remain in the UK on the basis of their family life needed to be balanced with the need to safeguard the economic wellbeing of the UK. The UK Government therefore determined that the threshold should be set at a level representing what would be needed to support the family member at “a reasonable level that helps to ensure that they do not become a burden on the taxpayer and allows sufficient participation in everyday life to facilitate integration.”^[4]

4. The Migration Advisory Committee was commissioned by the UK Government to consider what the ‘minimum income threshold should be for sponsoring a partner and dependants in order to ensure that the sponsor can support them independently without them becoming a burden on the State.’^[5] Following receipt of advice from the Migration Advisory Committee the UK Government set the minimum gross annual income threshold at £18,600 with a higher threshold for further dependents.

Additional gross annual income of £3,800 will be required for the first child sponsored in addition to the partner and an additional £2,400 for each further child.

5. The impact of the minimum income threshold on families has been felt in two distinct ways: families who have not been able to move to the UK as a single family unit and who have therefore made a decision to make their home in another country or families who, unable to live together in the UK as a family, have been separated with some members living in the UK and others in another country.

6. It is difficult to estimate how many individuals have not been able to come to the UK as a result of the minimum income threshold. The impact assessment undertaken by the Home Office at the time of these changes suggested that the introduction of the minimum income threshold would result in a reduction in family route visa grants by between 13,700 and 18,500 visa grants per annum or that between 35% and 45% of people who would otherwise have applied successfully to the route would not meet the income requirement.^[6]

7. In terms of the number of individuals impacted by family separation, the Children’s Commissioner for England published a report in 2015 that estimated that up to 15,000 British children were growing up in what the Commissioner referred to as ‘Skype families’, i.e. families where the immigration rules meant that both parents were unable to live together in the UK because of the family migration rules.^[7]

8. In December 2023 the then Home Secretary, James Cleverly, announced a significant increase to the minimum income threshold for the family visa route: initially to £29,000 from £18,600 with further increases planned to take it to £34,500 and then £38,700 by early 2025.

9. The then UK Government also removed the separate child element from the minimum income threshold whereby the minimum income salary threshold was increased by £3,800 if an individual wanted to sponsor a child as well as a partner and then by an additional £2,400 for each further child.

10. The current UK Government has paused those further increases and commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to undertake a review of the minimum income threshold. The current minimum income threshold is £29,000.