Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:34 pm on 14 May 2024.
My Lords, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has produced an excoriatingly critical report of the Home Office’s handling of these regulations, which introduce what it describes as a “substantial increase” in the minimum income required—MIR—to bring a partner to the UK, from £18,600 to £29,000, with further increases to £38,700 planned by early next year. Indeed, it was so dismayed by this
“further example of the Home Office failing to provide adequate information to Parliament to allow informed scrutiny” that it held a special evidence session with the Minister. But this did not assuage its
“doubts about the appropriateness of the Home Office’s overall approach to policymaking, which too often” fails to proceed from
“rigorous analysis … supported by evidence” and, where appropriate, consultation.
The committee declared “unacceptable” the failure to publish an impact assessment and equality impact assessment, even though the Explanatory Memorandum states that a full IA has been prepared. In its follow-up session with the Minister, the latter acknowledged that the situation was “regrettable” and publication was “urgent”. Yet, seven weeks later, it still has not appeared. The committee pointed out that this has implications not only for Parliament’s ability to scrutinise legislation but for the development of policy itself, saying:
“That the Home Office may still have no accurate idea of the expected impact of its policies, even after they have come into force, is alarming”.
In response to written questions from the committee, the Home Office blamed the “complexity of analysis” for the failure to publish the IA as planned and assured the committee that it was
“working at pace to ensure this is published promptly so the impact of changes can be assessed”.
That was in March. It is now well into May and we still are not in a position to assess impact.
The same goes for the EIA, yet it is obvious that the impact is likely to be indirectly discriminatory, as submissions received by the committee warned. Whether we are talking about gender, ethnicity/race, disability, age or region, any EIA worth its salt would demonstrate the unequal impact of such a high earnings threshold. The response to a petition to the Commons on
In the Commons, the Minister for Legal Migration simply did not answer the questions about the failure to provide either an IA or EIA. Will the Minister please explain now why, despite the SLSC’s criticisms, they still have not been published? I cannot believe the analysis is that complex. If it is, surely the policy should have been paused until it was clear what its impact would be. Call me a cynic, but my suspicion is that the impacts revealed by the assessments were so damaging that it was decided it was safer to keep them under wraps.
The committee’s concerns were
“compounded by a lack of consultation … which might have helped to shed light on the real-world impact”.
It was dismissive of the Home Office’s argument that consultation
“would be disproportionate given the nature of the changes”,
and noted that advice had not even been sought from the Migration Advisory Committee. Why was advice not sought from MAC, which, in its 2020 annual report, had advised that it was now time to look again at the MIR? Perhaps the Home Office preferred not to hear its views, given that it had suggested that, hitherto, too much weight had been placed on fiscal arguments and not enough on the benefits to families and society from partner migration. I hope the Minister can give a more lucid response to the question than that offered in the Commons to my right honourable friend Sir Stephen Timms MP.
As if that was not all damning enough, the SLSC criticised the lack of any coherent overall rationale for the increase and what it is trying to achieve. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, the MIR
“is being amended as it has not been increased for over a decade and no longer reflects the … income required by a family to ensure they are self-sufficient and do not need to rely on public funds”.
Where to start? First, the point about public funds simply does not make sense, given that anyone allowed entry by this route would have no recourse to public funds for five or 10 years anyway, and the proportion for whom the condition is lifted is tiny.
Secondly, there is no real attempt to justify linking the level of the MIR to the skilled worker visa requirement if the key objective is a family’s self-sufficiency. On that basis, half of UK employees would not meet the current self-sufficiency test, and as many as seven out of 10 would not do so when the MIR is raised again next year.
Thirdly, can the Minister explain how the salary of the sponsoring partner represents a test of the contribution that the migrating partner would make to the economy and the public finances, another element of the supposed rationale, given that no account can be taken of the latter’s current or prospective earnings, even if they had a job offer in this country?
As it is, the policy is likely to cause hardship and heartbreak, even more so than it already does. Reunite Families UK reported in 2020 that the consequences
“included not just emotional impacts of separation” from partners, and of children from parents,
“but financial, mental and physical hardship”.
The stress created by this situation often had a serious impact on both mental and physical health. One woman said she was scared of her own desperation, and another affected had attempted suicide.
In this context, the Minister’s statement in a Written Answer that
“family life must not be established here at the taxpayer’s expense” reads as distinctly callous and misleading, given that those seeking to bring partners here are themselves taxpayers and, by the time their partners had recourse to public funds, family life would already be well established. For the once self-styled party of the family, it would seem that only some families count. Indeed, the previous Children’s Commissioner, after the introduction of the original MIR, commented that
“the UK’s family migration Rules are among the most family-unfriendly of any of the developed countries”.
Can the Minister tell us whether the Government’s family test was applied to the MIR increase? If yes, what did it conclude, and if no, why not?
Where there are children, the state is in effect creating lone-parent families, who are more likely to have to claim social security support because of sole responsibility for looking after those children, and the abolition of the child element of the MIR does not change that. The Explanatory Memorandum advises that
“the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children” continues to apply. Can the Minister explain how the welfare and best interests of children, as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, are promoted by splitting up their parents against their will?
In a recent study by Reunite Families UK, even on the original MIR, two-thirds said that their child received a formal diagnosis of a mental health condition. The earlier study on behalf of the former Children’s Commissioner also found children suffering distress and anxiety as a result of separation from a parent, compounded by the stresses faced by some lone-parent families. She concluded:
“If the price of the public policy is interference with children’s rights that impact on their emotional and mental well-being, sense of stability and security, and ultimately happiness and development, then the interference is disproportionate and is not in their best interests”.
The situation will be much worse now than when she wrote that warning.
The Minister’s Written Answer also stated that
“family migrants must be able to integrate if they are to play a full part in British life”.
Will he please explain exactly what he meant? Since when is integration measured by the size of your partner’s pay packet? If anything, keeping families apart is likely to reduce integration overall. To quote from one of the submissions to the SLSC:
“The MIR makes it harder rather than easier for mixed nationality families to participate fully in society”,
given the sacrifices that they have to make to survive. It warns that
“marginalising these families fosters societal division and tension”.
The Home Office’s response to many of the criticisms has been to point to the possibility of an exceptional circumstances application, such as under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but such an application is far from straightforward and the price for the few who succeed is a 10-year path to settlement, which carries its own problems and insecurities. Moreover, the Home Office has acknowledged that it has no idea how many successful applications there might be, so we do not even know how likely the increase is to meet its own objectives.
The SLSC asked the Home Office for its response to suggestions for the mitigation of the rules, in particular through how other sources of income are treated. Its answer was simply to say that there was no flexibility and that it was “right and fair” that the rules be
“consistently applied in all cases”,
but no one is asking for inconsistency, as potentially the mitigations could apply to anybody, nor is it explained why there is inconsistency between this group and the Armed Forces and those who are called “high potential individuals”.
My Motion to Regret was partly prompted by an email I received from the mother of a young woman in a long-term relationship with an American who had recently got a new job which meant she would finally meet the MIR after six months, only for the goalposts to be moved under her feet. Not surprisingly, the family are upset and angry about what in their view is the very opposite of a fair approach, as the Home Secretary described it.
Given the criticisms, the anticipated discriminatory and family-fragmenting harmful impact and the slipshod manner in which the regulations were introduced, it behoves the Home Office to respond positively to these Motions. It should use the welcome pause in moving to £38,700 to produce the necessary impact assessments and immediately refer the increase to MAC so that it can be properly reviewed with reference to the purpose and impact of the MIR and the planned further increases. At the same time stakeholders, including experts by experience such as Reunite Families UK, should be consulted. To quote the SLSC:
“We do not believe that the Home Office can fully understand the effects of its policies if it does not consult those who will be impacted”.
In conclusion, while I am supportive of the hard-cop Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, using the proposed pause to consult urgently—the soft-cop option—is the very least the Government should now commit to. I beg to move.