Campaigners hope family visa hike is scrapped after Labour-ordered review

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A Conservative policy criticised as having “devasted” the lives of families by requiring them to have a much higher minimum income to stay in the UK is being reviewed.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has asked an expert committee to look again at the policy introduced by the previous government, and report back in nine months.

The minimum income for family visas rose by more than £10,000 to £29,000 from April and was due to rise further to £38,700 by early 2025.

The measures were part of what the Tory administration had described as “an accelerated and comprehensive programme of reforms” to address “unsustainable” levels of legal migration to the UK.

Ms Cooper said in a statement at the end of July that there “will be no further changes” to the current limit until the review is completed.

In a letter on Tuesday confirming the committee will undertake the review, its chairman Professor Brian Bell said it will launch a “full Call for Evidence for this review which will provide stakeholders with an opportunity to give their views”.

In June, campaign group Reunite Families UK said it had filed a legal challenge in which it intended to ask the High Court to quash the decision on the minimum income requirement on the basis that the then-home secretary James Cleverly had acted unlawfully.

In response to confirming Labour has ordered a review of the policy, Caroline Coombs, executive director of the campaign group, said: “Our ideal, as is for the many thousands of British and settled citizens we represent, is that the review will recommend the complete scrapping of the MIR policy, as it has failed and continues to fail loving couples and families who are forcibly separated as a result of the harshness of the rules with children often being the first victims of this senseless policy.

“For too long, hidden in plain sight, the policy has devasted the personal life of countless loving couples and families who were denied the possibility of being together in the UK just because they didn’t earn the right amount or couldn’t meet the increasingly impossible hurdles put in front of them in order to do so.”

Before April, the minimum income requirement had remained unchanged for more than a decade, and is aimed at helping to ensure families are self-sufficient and not relying on public funds, whilst making a positive impact on the economy, the Home Office has previously said.