Government hints at leeway for people renewing family visas despite legal migration crackdown

Rishi Sunak has hinted that the government could U-turn on its policy that anyone renewing their visa will be hit by the new legal migration crackdown.

Last week, James Cleverly announced a range of measures designed to reduce the amount of immigration to the UK, including banning social care workers from bringing dependents and increasing the minimum salary requirement for a skilled overseas worker to £38,700.

The most controversial aspect of the policy was increasing the minimum income threshold to get a family visa - which is mainly used by Britons to bring foreign partners to the UK - from £18,600 to £38,700. The Prime Minister was accused of putting a price on love for a policy that would only reduce immigration by around 10,000 people, when the latest net migration is at 672,000.

Initially Downing Street said the new rules would apply to people already in the UK renewing their visas, with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman saying: “It’s not retrospective but it would apply to renewals in the future. We would expect people would need to meet the visa requirements of the day.”

That led to headlines that the new rules might break up families, and No10 has since said it is reviewing renewals and is “extremely mindful of that”. Unison general secretary Christina McAnea criticised the government over the confusion. 

She said: “The government will tear families apart with this heartless policy. Overseas care workers in the UK have been left in limbo as Christmas approaches. Ministers haven’t said if their children and partners must leave.”

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, Sunak confirmed that the government may be about to U-turn. The Labour chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee Sir Stephen Timms asked him to provide “transitional help for families” after the “marriage plans of thousands of couples were dashed” in the wake of the “sudden announcement”.

The Prime Minister said that the Home Office was looking at “transitional arrangements” for changes to family visa earnings thresholds to make sure they are “fair”. Sunak’s official spokesman has said ministers are looking at how all visa renewals will work.

New Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the government did not want the hike to apply “retrospectively”. This morning, James Cleverly told LBC that these are “forward looking proposals rather than backward” when asked. 

It comes as the government’s key immigration adviser has said that raising the income threshold for family visas will have a minimal impact on immigration numbers. These rule changes will not be a “major player in reducing net migration”, according to Professor Brian Bell, chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC).

Prof Bell said the number of visas in question is “not that big” and is “dwarfed” by student and skilled worker visas, adding: “So I don’t think in the overall package it will be a major player in reducing net migration.” A spokesman for Keir Starmer told NationalWorld: “We want the Migration Advisory Committee to look at these proposals. It wasn’t initially clear what the benefit would be given the small number of people affected.”

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.