Current rules give rise to mental and financial distress, found Reunite Families UK, and the migration advisory committee agrees.
In April 2024, the Conservative government raised the minimum income requirement (MIR) for overseas partners from £18,600 to £29,000 and proposed to raise it further to £38,700. This has caused undue hardship and distress to many families.
Lisa Young* was hoping that her Japanese husband could settle in the UK with her to raise their child. But when the minimum income requirement (MIR) for foreign partners was raised to £29,000, this was out of the question.
She was faced with an impossible choice: stay in Japan with her husband or live alone on benefits in the UK. Lisa was in effect forced into exile. Her Japanese spouse visa cost £20 compared to £4,525 for a British visa on top of the MIR.
Lisa’s story is just one of many similar heartrending accounts, collected by Reunite Families UK, of families forced into long-term separation or exile from the UK by a system that few people are aware of.
Families belong together, report Reunite Families
Reunite Families spent three years working with Coram children’s charity to collect evidence of the impact of UK’s partner migration rules, which are some of the harshest in the world. With the support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the findings have been published in a report, Families Belong Together, and were presented at Parliament in a four-day exhibition at the end of June.
The research found that current requirements cause “significant emotional and psychological harm”: they have serious effects on the mental health of adults and children, give rise to financial insecurity and undermine the right to family life. Children separated from a parent experience “life-changing trauma and distress”, says the report.
Gender, class and ethnicity impacts of MIR rules
The MIR rules particularly discriminate against female ‘sponsoring partners’, especially mothers, those living outside the south-east, working class and low income sponsors, and black and minority ethnic workers.
British fathers such as Leighton Allen are also affected. Leighton, a petrol pump attendant, hoped to bring his Tanzanian partner, son and stepson to live in the UK, but when the MIR threshold was raised, this became impossible. He feels he is “being punished for being working class and in love”, and his partner has to bring up the children alone in Tanzania.
Caroline Coombs, co-founder of Reunite Families UK, said: “The reality is clear: the minimum income requirement disproportionately impacts working-class and racially minoritised families. The rules must be rebalanced to prevent these unfair and damaging consequences.”
Lower the family visa requirement, says migration committee
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) agrees. The committee recently reported on their six-month review of the family visa requirements. The MAC has advised the government not to make any further increases to the MIR, to decouple it from skilled worker rules and lower the threshold to £23,000-25,000.
They cite the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR article 8) on the right to family life and evidence that current rules are causing huge distress and mental health problems, as well as financial hardship.
Their report states: “Separations due to the MIR have the capacity to inflict severe and lasting damage on British and settled people’s families.”
They particularly emphasise the potential damage to children owing to family separation: “We are not convinced that the current system sufficiently takes into account the negative impacts of separation on British children.”
What will the government do?
The MAC recommendations will now be considered by the government. What they decide has the potential to reunite families currently separated by the policy, ending in some cases years of living in limbo – or to continue with this cruel policy.
Reunite Families UK recommend a separate route for those with children, as they are the most affected by the rules. Their own view is that the MIR should be ditched altogether, but if it is maintained, that overseas partners’ prospective income should also be taken into account (not currently the case).
This is a personal matter for my family too, as we are living with the possibility of my daughter, overseas partner and new baby being exiled from the UK if current MIR rules continue to apply.
Although PM Keir Starmer now claims to regret using the phrase “an island of strangers”, his government’s draconian policies on migration do not give me much hope that things will change for the better. And for many families, their own children will become strangers to them.
*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
See more about the families affected by the family visa rules on: https://reunitefamiliesuk.co.uk/families-belong-together/photo-exhibition/
Read Reunite Families UK’s report on: https://reunitefamiliesuk.co.uk/families-belong-together/report/
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