UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has defended his rowback on plans to hike the earnings threshold for migrants bringing family members to Britain after right-wing Tory MPs branded the move a “regrettable sign of weakness”.
Mr Sunak said the minimum salary requirement would still be raised to £38,700, but conceded the hike would be “phased” in after it came under fire.
The UK government on Thursday quietly announced the threshold would first be increased to £29,000 in the spring, and then increased in “incremental stages”, without setting out a timetable.
On a visit to the headquarters of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance on Friday, he told broadcasters: “We’re increasing the salary threshold significantly, and we’re doing it exactly as we said we were doing it, we’re just doing it in two stages.
“So we’ll go up in a few months’ time, and then it will go off again the full amount in early 2025. So it’s exactly what we said we’re doing, just phasing it over the next year or so.”
The climbdown has angered hard-line Conservative MPs in favour of tighter migration controls.
David Jones, deputy chairman of the right-wing European Research Group, told the PA news agency on Friday: “The latest net migration figures very starkly showed the extent of the crisis we face. Increasing the threshold was absolutely necessary to address that crisis.
“The government should have stuck to its guns. Yesterday’s decision was a regrettable sign of weakness, made worse by the fact that Parliament was not sitting and therefore was unable to interrogate ministers on the reasons for the decision.”
Legal migration to the UK is too high and unsustainable.
That is why the Government was right to introduce tough and necessary new measures to get numbers down, and demonstrate control of our borders.
This decision is deeply disappointing and undermines our efforts. https://t.co/59GjmtOx9W— Jonathan Gullis MP (@GullisJonathan) December 21, 2023
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Jonathan Gullis, a Conservative former minister, wrote on X: “This decision is deeply disappointing and undermines our efforts.”
UK home secretary James Cleverly had announced in early December the sharp increase from £18,600 to £38,700 as part of a package of measures to curb legal migration.
It came after the Office for National Statistics revised its net migration figure – the difference between the number of people arriving in the country and leaving – to put 2022 at a record of 745,000.
But the move was criticised for threatening to tear families apart, with many having their future thrown into doubt as the UK government considered the details of the policy.
The revised policy, announced in answer to a written parliamentary question by Home Office minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom, said the earnings threshold would be “increased in incremental stages to give predictability”.
This would begin in spring, with the increase to £29,000, rising to £38,700 “in the final stage of implementation”.
However, no date for when the threshold would rise beyond £29,000 was given.
The slowed-down implementation has also caused upset among Tories on the right of the party.
Former UK immigration minister Robert Jenrick has called for measures to help the UK government meet its 2019 manifesto commitment to reduce net migration from 2019 levels to be imposed immediately.
A source close to Mr Jenrick said: “The whole package needs to be implemented now, not long-grassed to the spring or watered down. More measures are needed, not less.”
Former minister Sir John Hayes, chairperson of the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs, said the earnings threshold should rise to £38,700 “quickly” to give people “certainty”.
“If we’re going to £38,700, which seems to be very sensible, then that needs to be done with speed so that people know where they stand,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Sunak previously told MPs the UK government was looking at “transitional arrangements” for changes to the thresholds to make sure they are “fair”.
In a factsheet detailing its plans, the Home Office confirmed that changes to the family visa scheme would only apply to new applicants.
Downing Street had already rowed back on its position on whether the new minimum income rule would apply when existing visas come up for renewal, initially saying they would but then suggesting just days later that had not been decided.
Mr Cleverly insisted the plans would still reduce net legal migration by 300,000 people a year.
But a UK government adviser recently said even the initial proposal to raise the threshold to £38,700 would have a minimal impact on immigration numbers.
Professor Brian Bell, chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, said earlier this month that the number of visas in question was “not that big” and was “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.”
Requiring many Britons to have a salary of £38,700 – above the national median gross annual salary of £34,963 – to bring over their foreign spouses was only expected to cut numbers by the low tens of thousands.
In a letter to MPs on Thursday, UK Home Office minister Tom Pursglove said the changes would be introduced in a “stepped fashion throughout early 2024”.
He said: “We believe that this strikes the right balance between the immediate need to start reducing net migration and giving those affected adequate time to prepare for upcoming changes.”
Opposition parties said the policy was in “chaos”.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said ministers “failed to consult anyone on their new proposals and took no account of the impact of steep spousal visa changes on families next year, so it’s no surprise they are now rowing back in a rush.”
The Liberal Democrats suggested the planned £38,700 threshold had always been “unworkable”.
The party’s home affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael added: “This was yet another half-thought-through idea to placate the hardliners on their own back benches.
“James Cleverly needs to put down the spade and stop digging. Decisions like this should be made by experts and politicians working together.”
