Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to remove barriers for families of non-UK Armed Forces personnel to stay in the UK.

HM Armed Forces personnel are exempt from immigration control in service. Those who do not naturalise as British during service, can apply for settlement under Appendix HM Armed Forces of the Immigration Rules on discharge when their exemption from immigration control ends, up to 18 weeks before their discharge, or for two years after.

HM Armed Forces personnel can be accompanied by their family members, and there are special Immigration Rules in place to ensure that those who serve, have served, or their family members are not disadvantaged due to that service. This takes into account the unique nature of their service, the Armed Forces Covenant, and the recruitment and retention of HM Armed Forces personnel in order to maintain national security.

A manifesto commitment was made to “strengthen support for our Armed Forces communities by putting Armed Forces Covenant fully into law”, and to “scrap visa fees for non-UK veterans who have served for four or more years, and their dependants.”.

We continue to keep this policy under review in the context of our wider considerations of various aspects of the immigration system.