Committee advises against further increase to minimum income requirement for families

The Migration Advisory Committee has published its report on the minimum income requirement for families of British or settled migrants and has recommended that the government does not increase the minimum income threshold to the skilled worker threshold of £38,700 from the current level of £29,000. The call for evidence last year received 2,089 personal responses, the highest ever for one of the committee’s consultations, and responses from 36 organisations.

The recommendations are set out in full at the end of the report. At the outset of the report, the impact of the minimum income requirement on families is set out in fairly stark terms and is worth quoting in full:

The MIR can have significant negative impacts on the family life of British citizens or settled residents, and their children. Applicants who met the MIR usually found that these impacts were small, although some experienced stress and temporary periods of separation while establishing eligibility. Not surprisingly, the most negative impacts fell on people who did not qualify or who were separated for long periods before qualifying—in some cases, many years. The impacts include stress and mental health problems caused by separation, as well as financial problems caused by the lack of support from the partner. The impacts on British children separated from one of their parents are particularly concerning. There is evidence of mental health problems among children, difficulty establishing meaningful parental relationships with the absent partner, and feelings of rejection. While not everyone’s experience is uniform and in some cases the impacts were milder, separations due to the MIR have the capacity to inflict severe and lasting damage on British and settled people’s families.

The distressing impact that this policy has on families is set out in detail in the report, with many examples provided by those affected.

The report noted that the UK’s income threshold of £29,000 is high compared to other high-income countries that were reviewed and “In other words, other countries tend to put more weight on family life relative to economic wellbeing”. As I can see that the Shadow Home Secretary has already started frothing at the mouth over mentions of article 8 in the report, it is worth pointing out that these other countries which are more generous to their families include several which are not signatories to the ECHR. They treat the families of their citizens and settled residents better simply because it is the right thing to do.

The committee also looked at the impact of family migration on economic well-being, both from the perspective of the affected families, as well as the UK generally. The report points out that “around half of the British resident population are expected to pay less in taxes than it costs to provide them with public services and other state support over their lifetime” and so the expectation that a person has no negative impact on public finances is a high bar. The report also says:

Many families with below-average incomes can still be considered to have enough income to support themselves (including to support themselves without being eligible for benefits), even if they do not have a positive net fiscal impact.

The committee noted that a family’s income level depends on various factors, including where they live, however did not recommend a system of regional variations in the income requirement. If concerned specifically about higher wages in London distorting the figures, the committee said that the government could consider a threshold based on data that excludes London salaries.

The committee advises against a requirement for an additional amount of income where families have children, because of the “particularly significant” impacts on children, especially in cases involving an out of country application where families are separated. The report states:

We are not convinced that the current system sufficiently takes into account the negative impacts of separation on British children. In particular, we recommend a review of eligibility for the Parent route to consider making parents of British children eligible regardless of their relationship status. 

The committee also noted the difficulties that families experience in providing all of the evidence required by the Home Office in a timely manner, for example the requirement for six months of payslips, and suggested that families with children should not be “separated purely by this administrative requirement”.

The committee described the adequate maintenance test as “incoherent and unnecessarily complex” and suggested that it is replaced with either a more coherent calculation or an assessment of housing suitability only.

Currently, only the income of the sponsor is taken into account in out of country applications. The committee noted that the Home Office could not provide a clear rationale for this and said that the government should look into counting the applicant’s income where they have a verified job offer in the UK. This would help mitigate the current issues experienced by British women who are the main caregivers who struggle to move back to the UK with their main earner partner. 

The committee also set out several recommendations for the Home Office to improve its data in this area, to include:

• Whether the application is subject to the MIR or AM test, which makes it difficult to understand precisely how many people are using this route and refusal rates;
• Reason for refusal or decision to place an applicant onto the 10-year route, which makes it difficult to understand the impact of a change in the MIR;
• The breakdown of sources of finances used to meet the income requirement (benefits, savings, salary, other), income levels, and whose income was used (applicant, sponsor, both), which makes it difficult to estimate the potential impact of any changes in the MIR levels;
• Any information on the sponsor, again making it difficult to understand the impact of a change in the MIR (age, earnings, gender);
• Location, which we understand is recorded by case workers but isn’t available for use in any datasets; this makes it difficult to understand the impact of changes to the MIR by region;
• Whether fee waivers had been used;
• If being tested using the AM, which disability benefit the individual received; and,
• The range of case types (sub-categories of the Family visa route) used for the Home Office Management Information within the Family visa category is relatively complex, and in some cases do not necessarily align with published statistics particularly for in country visas. Simplifying these for use in statistical analysis and mapping them to published statistics categories may support further analysis of routes, such as child dependants and adult dependent relatives.

Minimum income threshold recommendations

Several options for a minimum income requirement are set out in the report, each with different considerations for the government to take into account.

The committee recommends that the threshold is regularly uprated to avoid large and unexpected increases, as was the case with the most recent increase.

Conclusion

All of the committee’s recommendations are lower than the current threshold of £29,000. It seems fairly safe to assume that the government will not lower the income threshold, as they tend to only follow the recommendations of the committee when it suits (see also: permission to work for people in the asylum system), but hopefully this review will prevent the further increases planned by the previous government.