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The UK government has said its plans to increase the salary threshold needed to sponsor a loved one for a visa will begin with a jump to £29,000, after a widespread backlash to proposals to increase the level as high as £38,700.
Home secretary James Cleverly earlier this month set out reforms to the UK’s points-based migration system, including increasing the earnings threshold for skilled workers and prohibiting care workers from bringing over dependants.
The government had been under pressure from parts of the Conservative party and the public to cut arrival numbers after net migration climbed to a record 745,000 last year.
The biggest surprise in Cleverly’s package of reforms was a sharp increase — from £18,600 to £38,700 — in the minimum salary that British citizens or migrants already settled in the UK must earn in order for immediate relatives to join them.
The policy triggered a backlash from campaigners and migration experts, who said it would make Britain’s salary requirements for spousal visas among the harshest in the world and risked separating lower-paid British people from their families.
On Thursday, the government released a policy document outlining the “estimated immigration impacts” of the various measures. In it, the Home Office stated the salary threshold would have an “initial increase” to £29,000, rather than £38,700.
Another statement released on Thursday stated that in spring 2024, the government will raise the threshold to £29,000, moving to £34,500, and finally £38,700. However, it did not state when these threshold changes would come into effect.
The document also said the policy would likely impact an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 people “who may otherwise have qualified via the family route”.
Immigration lawyers have been preparing a legal challenge against the government over whether the new threshold is compatible with existing human rights legislation.
Alistair Carmichael, home affairs spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said “it was clear to everyone else that the raising of the earnings threshold was unworkable”.
“This was yet another half thought through idea to placate the hardliners on their own backbenches,” he said. “Decisions like this should be made by experts and politicians working together.”
The Home Office estimated that the suite of measures announced in early December would reduce net migration by about 300,000, based on the total number of people that came over in the year to September 2023.
Prohibiting care workers from bringing over any dependants would reduce net migration by about 120,000, according to the policy document.
Increasing the salary threshold of skilled workers to £38,700 and removing discount rates offered to employers for some shortage occupations would reduce the total by about 15,000.
Requiring social care companies that hire staff from overseas to be registered with the Care Quality Commission, the government agency that regulates health and social care providers in England, would reduce numbers by a further 20,000.
Previously announced measures to remove the right for international students to bring dependants unless they are on postgraduate courses would have the most significant impact on figures, reducing the total by 140,000, the document said.
The Home Office was contacted for comment.
