Spousal Visas

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for his constituents. The Minister will have heard that and I concur with what my hon. Friend said. I am conscious that I have only a couple of minutes before the Minister is due to reply, but my honourable neighbour is seeking to intervene, so I will give way to him.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. He, of course, describes a very common situation in the area that we share in northern Lincolnshire, where, sadly, these cases are too numerous to mention. Is it not the fact that at the heart of this is family life being unfortunately disturbed and great distress caused because of rules that are probably well intentioned but have unforeseen consequences?

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not disagree with the intention behind the rules. Wanting to cut down on sham marriages—absolutely. Wanting to put rules in place so that people come here and integrate better—absolutely. Wanting to make sure that people are not a burden on public funds—yes. But for my constituent, who lives in a lower wage area with a higher disposable income than somebody in the south of England, who is not able to bring his family in, and whose wife has a job offer that is not taken into account, the rules, well intentioned though they may be, fall down.

I am keen to hear the Minister’s response, so I end with a couple of points that I would like to see out of this. I have rebelled against my own party on the idea of regional pay, of which I am a passionate opponent, so I will just throw out for the Minister the idea of a regional variation and ask him to consider it without it necessarily being my idea. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) from a sedentary position may be offering it up as his own idea. We need to have some consideration of people’s disposable income and outgoings, for all the reasons that I have highlighted.

In a previous debate, the Minister, who is good and competent and cares about this area of policy, mentioned the possibility of considering whether job offers for applicants could be taken into account. Of course we need to ensure that fake job offers and so on are properly accounted for, but I would appreciate an update on that.

On behalf of my constituent, Gary Smith, I just make the plea to the Minister to look at this income-related element again. As I have said, this is a constituent with a wife to whom he has been married for five years, with a child whom they share. They are unable to come together at the moment. He does not want his wife to come here and claim benefits; he wants her to come here to work and to contribute to our local economy. I look forward to the Minister’s response.