Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the changes to the Immigration Rules in 2012, how many British citizens they estimate emigrated to take care of dependents due to a family member being refused an Adult Dependent Relative visa.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.

Dear Lord Durham,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many British citizens are estimated to have emigrated to take care of dependents due to a family member being refused an Adult Dependent Relative visa, following the changes to the Immigration Rules in 2012 (HL12280).

The Home Office would be best placed to provide information about Adult Dependent Relative visa refusals since 2012.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does publish estimates of the numbers of British citizens emigrating from the UK[1]. Table 1 shows the numbers of British citizens the ONS estimates to have emigrated from 2012 onwards. 2019 is the latest year for which data is available.

The ONS publishes statistics on reasons for migration. However, data are not collected on the numbers of citizens who have emigrated to take care of dependents due to a family member being refused an Adult Dependent Relative (ADR) visa. Therefore, the ONS are unable to estimate how many citizens emigrate for that purpose nor how many are due to the refusal of an ADR visa.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/longterminternationalmigrationcitizenshiptable201a

[2] Numbers in thousands