Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Oral Statement of 4 December 2023 on Legal Migration, Official Report, column 41, and the report by the Migration Observatory entitled Family fortunes: The UK’s new income requirement for partner visas, published on 1 February 2024, whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of the increased Minimum Income Requirement on (a) women and (b) people belonging to specific ethnicities.

Any discussions that take place between Cabinet Ministers are confidential.

A full regulatory Impact Assessment will be developed, and the Government will publish an Equality Impact Assessment on this change, and both will be published in due course. We will continue to monitor the policy throughout its implementation.