Latest news with #partnerVisa
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Lowering UK's income requirement for family visas ‘would increase net migration'
Ministers could cut the amount a British citizen or settled resident must earn to apply for a partner's visa but that would result in a rise in net migration, a report by the government's independent immigration panel has said. The migration advisory committee said that ministers could set any future minimum income threshold between £23,000 and £25,000. Since April 2024, applicants have had to earn at least £29,000 to apply for a visa for their partner. The panel has suggested scrapping a Tory plan to raise the minimum income threshold for family visas to £38,700, saying it would conflict with human rights laws. The committee gave some options, including that a threshold of £24,000 to £28,000 could give more priority to economic wellbeing, such as by reducing the burden to taxpayers, than to family life. It also suggested a threshold of £23,000 to £25,000 could ensure that families could support themselves without necessarily requiring them to earn a salary above the minimum wage. The committee said lowering the amount to £24,000, for example, could mean an increase of about 1-3% of projected future net migration. The Conservative government of the former prime minister Rishi Sunak planned to introduce the higher threshold for family visa applicants to be equivalent to the skilled worker level. But the committee's report said: 'Given the family route that we are reviewing has a completely different objective and purpose to the work route, we do not understand the rationale for the threshold being set using this method. 'We do not recommend the approach based on the skilled worker salary threshold as it is unrelated to the family route and is the most likely to conflict with international law and obligations (eg article 8).' Article 8 of the European convention on human rights is the right to private and family life that can be applied to migration cases in the UK. The UK's current £29,000 threshold is high compared with other high-income countries reviewed by the committee. The committee's chair, Prof Brian Bell, said: 'While the decision on where to set the threshold is ultimately a political one, we have provided evidence on the impacts of financial requirements on families and economic wellbeing, and highlight the key considerations the government should take into account in reaching its decision.' The committee advised against raising the threshold for families with children as, despite them facing higher living costs, the impacts on family life appear 'particularly significant' for children. It also recommended keeping the income amount required the same across all regions of the UK. The committee also said their review was 'greatly hindered' by insufficient data and urged for better data collection by the Home Office on characteristics of each applicant to be linked to outcomes to inform further policy decisions. Campaigners welcomed some recommendations but are disappointed that the committee has not suggested scrapping the minimum income threshold, which they say keeps families in separate countries. Caroline Coombs, the co-founder of Reunite Families UK, said there should be no minimum income requirement (MIR), given its impact. 'Any threshold even at minimum wage would still separate many groups of people who just want to be a family here in the UK. 'We were struck by the MAC's acknowledgment that any decision on the MIR is a political decision. For this reason, we are calling on the home secretary to have the political courage to change a system … destroying the lives of British and settled residents and their children for over a decade,' she said. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'The home secretary commissioned the independent migration advisory committee to undertake a review. 'We are now considering its findings and will respond in due course. More broadly, the government has already committed to legislate to clarify the application of article 8 of the ECHR for applicants, caseworkers and the courts.'
Irish Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
I wrote down all my relationships and why they ended: ‘I cheated', ‘he cheated'
Along with putting on an already damp swimsuit, writing a list down of all my past relationships and why they failed is one of the least enjoyable tasks in life. Normally if anyone tried to pry into my business this much, I would push them off with a dismissive 'who's asking?!'. But in this case it was the Australian government doing the asking. We were finalising the end of the partner visa application and I had to fill out my side. I was getting the paperwork done on my big culchie I imported from the west of Ireland. Everything was fine until we hit one last question at the end of the 60-plus page application. The one that asked me to list all my previous relations and the reason they ended. Logically I could understand why. They want to make sure the relationship is genuine and that I'm not a serial sponsor of partners. I have to prove I'm not running some kind of black market importation of Irish people to fill the GAA teams of Sydney. But on the other hand, surely this must be the work of some nosy public bureaucrat desperate to liven up their day by reading about the intimate failings of others. It's exactly what I would do if I had that job. READ MORE If you are the type of person who skips to the 'personal life' section of Wikipedia profiles, you are my people. Learning about someone's contribution to a historical event or the modern world as we know it is great and all, but I need to know how many wives and lovers he had. You could excuse this as advocating for women who are so often the footnotes of history. But it's just me excited to find out the whole tea on the situation. I cannot separate the art from the artist. If a writer or painter immortalised his love in art but acted awful to her in real life, I will be judging accordingly. For example, I was delighted when Rory McIlroy won his Grand Slam, I really was. However, I'm also the kind of buzzkill who will ruin the moment by whispering 'Caroline Wozniacki' along with 'and the invitations already out and all'. I'm sorry. Now, in a case of live by the sword die by the sword, I have to lay all my dirty laundry out on the line for a public servant to read. What choice do I have? I can't have them send my beloved back down into the bog to toil in a life of hardship, I cry. 'I work in tech,' my ever patient boyfriend replies, 'I grew up with an indoor swimming pool, I have softer hands than you.' That may be true but I would like to have him live in the same country as me. So I sat there and wrote out every relationship and where it all went wrong. Which is much harder than you think. There are no explicit rules but I imagine it would be frowned on to write 'was a bit of a prick' and call it a day. You have to really examine all the heartbreak and sum it up in a sanitised answer that makes you look semi-sane. One ex got 'long distance', which covered up all the underlying surface issues we'd had for years before I moved away. Some 'I cheated' or 'they cheated'. Another got 'mutual decision' when in fact he tried to win me back by singing Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones blind drunk to me at a steelworker's pub karaoke night. [ I am the victim of the most middle-class crime ever committed Opens in new window ] Then came the realisation that the common denominator in all this heartbreak was me. I imagined the public servant looking through the answers and surmising I was in fact, the problem. They wouldn't be wrong. That's the thing about having to face up to all the painful parts of your past. Maybe sometimes you were the arsehole, as they say on Reddit. Strangely, I couldn't remember the 'why' of some break-ups. I could remember they involved fighting in the streets and all kinds of dramatic declarations of love like return flights to London . They ended for reasons that seemed complex and philosophical. But 10 years later, for the life of me I can't remember them at all. Other than that, we were silly and immature and didn't know how to love properly yet, which is something I wish I could go back in time and tell myself in my 20s. That it will all be okay and while this will teach you something, none of it matters in the end. Only to the nosy bureaucrat reading your forms.
