Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the minimum income requirement threshold after the UK leaves the EU.

The minimum income requirement is set at the level which prevents burdens on the taxpayer and promotes integration. We have kept the family Immigration Rules under review and made adjustments in light of feedback, including from the courts, on their operation and impact.

The overall assessment is that the minimum income requirement strikes a fair balance between an individual’s right to family life, the economic wellbeing of the UK and the community in general.

In last year’s immigration white paper, ‘The UK’s future skills-based immigration system’, the Government agreed to the principle that minimum salary thresholds should be retained for the new skilled worker route. These thresholds should help control migration, ensuring that it is reduced to sustainable levels, whilst ensuring that the UK can attract the talented people needed for the country to continue to prosper. Salary thresholds should also see skilled migrants continue to make a positive contribution to public finances.

In June 2019, the Migration Advisory Committee were commissioned to advise on a number of issues concerning potential future thresholds and the range at which they could be set. These include the mechanism for calculating future salary thresholds, salary threshold levels, whether there should be regional salary thresholds and the impact of exemptions from minimum salary thresholds. The MAC has been asked to report by January 2020. Further details of the commission can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/829234/Home_Secretary_Professor_Manning_-_Points-based_system.pdf