Partner and Spousal Visas: Minimum Income

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George.

I speak very much in opposition to the higher threshold, which is discriminatory. Over the years since I was elected, many of my constituents have come to me because they have struggled to make the £18,600 threshold and have been separated from their family and loved ones as a result, despite working multiple jobs to try to reach that target. There have been people who have missed out on the target by the equivalent of an hour’s overtime and consequently have been unable to bring their loved ones to live with them.

The announcement of an increase in the threshold to £29,000, to £34,000 and eventually, it is believed, to £38,700 just before Christmas has caused great distress among my constituents, which has been echoed in the many contributions by Members this morning. People were extremely distressed because they did not know what that would mean for them, their families and their ability to have a family life. I want to put it on the record that the people affected by this change are our friends, our families, our neighbours and our constituents. I thank them all for the honour they have paid to Scotland by choosing it as their home. They deserve much better than having a price put on love and family life by the Conservative Government.

Many of these people do valuable jobs; they are not necessarily well-paid jobs, but they are indeed valuable to our economy and our society. As hon. Members have already highlighted, these jobs are in a wide range of sectors. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) talked about people in the hospitality sector and other Members have talked about the impact on universities. The £38,700 threshold that has been talked about is well above the salaries of most post-doctoral researchers, so it will undermine Scotland’s ability to compete and attract people to work in science and technology, which are the great sectors where we want people to come and innovate. Such people are already hampered by the impact of Brexit, but they will be further hindered by the inability to attract people to come here.

Such a researcher visited my surgery quite recently. He had two teenaged children and sought to bring them here; eventually he hoped that his children would attain British citizenship. He had that all planned in his head as to how it would work. He knew it would be phenomenally expensive for a family of four to come here and do that, especially when we take into account the fact that they would have to renew their visas every two and a half years and the immigration health surcharge. Nevertheless, he was prepared to do that. However, the difficulties put in his way by the Home Office have led him to think, “Why am I doing this? Why would I incur so much expense when the Government make me feel as if it is not worth it and that I am not welcome?” That is an awful message for this Government to send out. As other Members have said, the system is already extremely expensive and people see little reward in it.

I was also contacted by an Australian-born British citizen who, over the years, has lived in both Scotland and Australia. He says that he wants to come here and bring his family with him, to bring up his children in Scotland. However, he has found the system prohibitively expensive and, once again, he wonders why he should engage with it. How many skills will we lose because this Government cannot see the value in what those people bring to our society?

Members have also pointed out that there is a disproportionate impact of the discriminatory and expensive proposal from the Government on women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, young people and people who live in places where average earnings are not very high, particularly in Scotland. The Government have produced no equality impact assessment—I have not seen one—to say what the impact of this policy will be on people in different geographies, on women, ethnic minorities, self-employed people and young people. It seems absolutely ludicrous that they have gone ahead with this policy without publishing an equality impact assessment.



I had an email from somebody whose family had moved abroad, who is worried that the door is now being closed on such families to prevent them from ever returning. He writes:

“My British-born nephew living in Canada and married to a Canadian citizen would never be able to return to the UK with his family”.

This measure is not about a group of foreigners who want to come here. This affects people who are already here and people who moved abroad for work, love or study. They have had the door closed upon them by this Government. It is absolutely appalling.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for bringing this debate to the House. I apologise to him for not being able to come down immediately; this is my day on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. I want to put on the record my support for those across the United Kingdom who have the same problem as we do in Northern Ireland. I have fought a number of spousal and partner cases over the years, involving countries such as South Africa and the United States, where the issue of money has been critical. What the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and others have outlined is replicated in Northern Ireland, unfortunately, with greater severity, primarily because people in Northern Ireland have a smaller income than people in the rest of the United Kingdom, so for us it is critical. I commend both hon. Members for what they have said.

[Alison Thewliss]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a very pertinent point. I would like to hear from the Minister what consideration he has taken of the effect on the nations of the United Kingdom. There does not seem to me to be any objective assessment of what this will mean and the impact it will have. The Scottish Government have expressed concerns. We in Scotland have presented an alternative to the UK’s hostile environment and awful, expensive immigration system, which damage Scotland’s economy and society. We would like to see devolution in the short term, and full control over the immigration system in the long term. At the moment, it certainly does not benefit the people of Scotland or work in our interests.

The impact on hospitality, retail and tourism of ending freedom of movement has been huge. The Labour party wants to continue that economically and socially devastating policy. A recent newspaper report about an Italian restaurant in London, where there is a better level of pay, said that the end of freedom of movement and visa thresholds were catastrophic for the industry. I have heard the same for many years from people working in Indian restaurants who want to bring particularly skilled chefs over from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. This barrier in their path has an impact on the sustainability of those businesses. They cannot pay wages at the higher £38,700 level.

Will the Minister say why the salary threshold is £38,700? That figure has not yet been justified. Was it plucked out of air? We know that it did not come from the Migration Advisory Committee. I would like to know the evidence it is based on. If that is the minimum that anybody needs to live, why are wages in this country not £38,700 per person? Why has that been selected and plucked out of the air?

It is not that these people are a burden on the state, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) mentioned. They cannot be, because they have no recourse to public funds; they cannot claim benefits. They pay into the NHS through the immigration health surcharge, which the Government have recently increased. They are not any kind of burden on the state; it is a complete untruth and deeply unfair to say they are. I would like the Government to tell us on what basis they consider that might be the case, because they have been deeply unclear about that.

In an excellent contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) talked about this policy being a means test on marriage. It is absolutely true that it is a tax on love. He talked of the impact on children, which I see regularly at my constituency surgeries in children who have been separated from their parents for a very long time. He spoke powerfully about the impact on children’s mental and physical health.

The Government claim that theirs is a family party, but it is not a family party if the only people picked are born in Britain and happen to be white. It is not a family party if it discriminates against people who happen to have been born somewhere else, or who fall in love with someone from somewhere else and have a family with them. The Government should think about the discriminatory impact of their policy and the message that that sends out about the status of Britain in the world. It does not happen in Scotland’s name. We seek an alternative—an independent Scotland where we can value everybody who comes, contributes, works, settles and lives in Scotland. We thank them for doing that. We do not close the door and make them feel unwelcome.