Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 15 January 2024 to Question 8266 on Visas: Married People and to his oral contribution of 4 December 2023 on Legal Migration, Official Report, column 41, for what reason the Migration Advisory Committee was not consulted on those proposals.

The Government engages regularly with interested stakeholders including through a number of its advisory groups, when developing its policies. We did not invite representations from stakeholders specifically on the MIR prior to the announcement of 4 December 2023.

The decision to raise the MIR was taken to ensure that migration policy is supportive of the wider ambition for the UK to be a high-wage, high-productivity, high-skill economy, and help to ensure that migrants make a net positive contribution to the public finances in addition to ensuring that families would not need to have recourse to welfare and had sufficient resources to participate in British life.

Previous advice and evidence provided by the Migration Advisory Committee regarding net-fiscal contributions and access to benefits was considered when making this decision. We did not seek further advice from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) before making the decision to increase the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) element of the family Immigration Rules.

A child who is applying for permission after 11 April 2024 to join their parent who, prior to 11 April met the lower threshold and was granted permission, will be subject to transitional arrangements and must meet the same threshold as their parent (£18,600 plus the child component, capped at £29,000). Where they meet the threshold alongside the other requirements of the 5-year route, they will be granted on the 5-year route to settlement.