Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to remove the application fee for family reunions under paragraph 319X of the Immigration Rules.

Within the published visa tables, decisions on applications made under paragraph 319X of the Immigration Rules are included in the ‘Dep. joining or accompanying: Other’ category, which also includes applicants in other routes covered by this category. The latest figures available are up to July to September 2019 and can be found in the Visa table Vis_D02 of the managed migration detailed datasets, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/managed-migration-datasets.

The Home Office sets visa, immigration and citizenship fees at a level that helps provide the resources necessary to operate the Border, Immigration and Citizenship (BIC) system. Fee-setting criteria is set out in Section 68(9) of the Immigration Act 2014, full details of which can be reviewed via the following link: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/22/section/68.