Immigration Rules: Sponsors

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, as she always does. If I understand the Government’s ideological position on this issue, they want to support families and very much approve of carers taking on responsibility for elderly parents or others within their family network. The rule that we are talking about operates to prevent that from happening.

The second case features Mr Z and Ms Z who came to see me in my constituency surgery a few weeks ago. They were married in the UK in March 2011. She is a British citizen and her husband, who had been living and working in the UK for six years under a valid work permit, is South African. He was in highly paid professional work in the UK, but soon after they married, he was made redundant. Although he could probably have secured another job at a similarly high salary in the UK, they decided to take a chance and move to Cape Town for a couple of years.

After two years in South Africa, however, they have decided that they want to return to the UK, but the rules changed while they were away. He will not be allowed to join his wife in the UK unless she earns more than £18,600—despite the fact that he is a highly skilled computer programmer who could expect to earn perhaps £60,000 a year in the UK. Before they left for Cape Town, my woman constituent was earning £26,000 a year as a pub manager. As she has been out of work for two years in Cape Town, however, there is a gap in her CV, so she is unlikely to be able to walk straight back into a manager’s position, although she aspires to do so in a couple of years’ time. Wages in the pub trade are not particularly high, so it is likely she will start on a salary below £18,600. As I said, they would have a joint income as a family of about £75,000 because her husband could get a well-paid job, but under the new rules it is based on her income, so he would not be able to join her.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend cites a number of cases. I think this whole process is unfair because it is quite clear that families who can afford to maintain themselves without making any demands on public funds are being kept apart. My hon. Friend has cases of people returning to the UK, and just this week I have had two constituents contact me about similar issues. One case was a man returning here from India who has £82,000 in a UK bank. Clearly, he and his wife could properly maintain themselves. However, savings do not count. The man is self-employed, but will not have the long record of employment needed to meet the £26,000-plus requirement, so he is unable to have his wife here with him. The other person—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but this is supposed to be an intervention, not a speech.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

I think that the Government are trying to avoid circumstances in which spouses or fiancées, for instance, are used as a form of chain migration. I have seen that happen, and I accept that the system is open to abuse and should not be abused in that way. I have come across instances in which people first apply for permission for a spouse to join them in this country, and then extend the application to elderly parents, or perhaps younger brothers and sisters. I accept that we have to manage migration to this country, and that we ought to control such situations. However, none of the cases I have cited involves anything like that.

People are increasingly working and studying abroad. People are going off to university in other countries, meeting their partners there, and then not being able to return to the United Kingdom with their partners until they have established themselves on the career ladder. It is not uncommon now for graduates to start work—if they can start work; they may be on unpaid or paid internships or low-paid jobs for the first couple of years after graduating—but to be unable to bring their partners into this country. I recognise the need to ensure that new migrants to the UK do not increase the burden on the British taxpayer, but many couples survive on less than the average income without being a burden on the taxpayer.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The earning capacity of the spouse from overseas cannot be taken into account. I received a tragic e-mail today from a man who wrote “I cannot get the money. I fell in love with my wife. What can I do? I am really scared.” His wife speaks fluent English, and is a qualified science teacher in Algeria. She would have been able to contribute to science education in my constituency, but she is not going to be able to come here.

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[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for giving me an opportunity to set out the Government’s thinking. As she was speaking, I was thinking through a number of responses, and I hope I can also respond to the multiple instalment story from the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who finally got it all out, I think.

Let me first set out a bit of background to put this matter in context. As part of our general reform of the immigration system across all the routes coming to the United Kingdom, we undertook a major overhaul of the family routes. There were three aims: to prevent burdens on the taxpayer, to promote integration, and to tackle abuse. The hon. Member for Bristol East’s focus has been on the financial requirement, which is the minimum income threshold of £18,600 a year to be met by those wishing to sponsor a partner of non-European economic area nationality to settle in the UK, with higher levels for those who also sponsor dependent non-EEA national children.

The point of the requirement is to prevent burdens from falling on the taxpayer and to promote successful integration. To put the story round the other way and to throw it back at the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), people can come here to establish their family lives, but we ask that they should not expect the taxpayer to fund that.

The hon. Lady raised the point about no recourse to public funds, which has always been in place, and suggested that was a sufficient protection for the taxpayer. The problem with that is twofold. First, under the immigration rules only some things the taxpayer funds are classed as public funds. The things that are not considered as public funds are NHS costs, social care, contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance, incapacity benefit, maternity allowance, retirement pension and statutory maternity pay. A range of funds, therefore, are not excluded under the no recourse to public funds measure. If someone comes to the UK under no recourse to public funds, we would still have to provide health care to them, therefore, which may well be a burden on the taxpayer.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Most of the benefits to which the Minister has referred are contribution-based, and therefore are not relevant. On health care, however, I think most of our constituents would be quite happy if there were a requirement looking at some way of paying for health care, because part of the point of this is that there are lots of cases where people will have enough money on any system, but not on this rule.

[Mr Harper]

Let me come back to that. The specific cases that the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Bristol East raised can I think be dealt with elsewhere in the immigration rules; that comes back to the point about representations.

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[Mr Harper]

I do, and that goes back to the central point of the debate.

I was about to give a little background to how we arrived at the particular sums of money involved, because that is helpful—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the Minister take this opportunity to commit to making sure that in every country, applicants who are trying to come here to join a spouse can actually get the qualifications he is going to require of them?

[Mr Harper]

My understanding is that people are able to do that. I can tell from the way the hon. Lady is looking at me that there is a point behind her question, so if she will do me the courtesy of dropping me a line, I will examine the argument she is making and get back to her, rather than diverting the debate away from its central point.

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[Mr Harper]

Under the tier 2 rule, it has to be a skilled job and they have to undergo a resident labour market test. So if he has a particular employer in mind, the rules may be a little more inflexible in the sense that he may not be able to say a specific employer, but if he has skills to offer, there are many occupations in which there is a shortage of people. If it is an occupation on the shortage occupation list, the employer is not required to undergo a resident labour market test. There are therefore opportunities in certain cases for someone to come here.

The hon. Member for Slough highlighted the issue of savings. Despite the fact that I managed to throw together some maths A-levels, that was a long time ago so I will not try to do the maths in my head. Savings can be used to make up the difference. We look at the amount of savings above £16,000, which is the threshold that is generally disregarded for income-related benefits. If someone holds savings for the period that they are hoping to come to the United Kingdom, which would be 30 months, the savings count as long as the applicants have them under their control for at least six months.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Even if they are self-employed?

[Mr Harper]

I believe that the answer is yes. If inspiration does not strike me before the end of the debate to confirm that, I will write to her.

In the immigration rules laid today, we have made some changes to the evidential requirements. For example, we had cases in which people were in receipt of tax-free stipends from universities. The net amount was below £18,600 and the rules were previously unclear about whether people could gross it up. I had a couple of cases raised with me and I thought it self-evident that people should be able to gross it up. So we have made it clear that that is indeed the case.