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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Labour has ordered a review of Tory plans to make British workers earn £38,700 or more in order to bring their spouses to the UK.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has given the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) nine months to report back on what the minimum income requirement for family visas should be.
Under plans announced last year by Rishi Sunak, the threshold was hiked from £18,600 to £29,000.
It was scheduled to rise to £34,500 and then £38,700 by early 2025 as part of the previous government’s plans to cut net migration by 300,000 a year.
But in a letter on Tuesday to MAC chair Professor Brian Bell, Ms Cooper said: “This Government is committed to bringing down net migration and creating a fair and coherent system – including on family migration policy.
“I would like you to review the financial requirements, and in particular, regarding the level of the Minimum Income Requirement, the previous Government’s proposals to increase it and any other related considerations that you believe are relevant.”
Ms Cooper stressed that Labour is also committed to bringing down net migration, which rose to a record high 764,000 under the Conservatives. And she said that, when Professor Bell reports back she will consider the recommendations and decide whether they should be implemented.
Tory ministers previously delayed the jump to a £38,700 salary threshold, above the £34,963 median gross annual salary, amid fears the change could have split up families living in the UK.
Ms Cooper’s review could mean plans to hike the minimum salary threshold to £38,700 could be scrapped altogether. The measure was expected to reduce net migration by tens of thousands.
Ahead of the election, Sir Keir Starmer promised to cut migration figures he dubbed “sky-high”, but refused to put a target on his ambition.
Sir Keir said employers had become “too reliant” on workers from overseas and “should always have a choice of recruiting a British worker first”.
Campaign group Reunite Families welcomed the review of salary thresholds for family visas.
Co-founder and executive director Caroline Coombs said: “For too long, hidden in plain sight, the policy has devastated the personal life of countless loving couples and families who were denied the possibility of being together in the UK just because they didn’t earn the right amount or couldn’t meet the increasingly impossible hurdles put in front of them in order to do so.”
It has launched a legal challenge to the policy change, and as part of this it received a separate response from the Home Office confirming the previous increase to £29,000 will also be reviewed.
Ms Coombs added: “The increase already introduced is the perfect example of policies made to grab headlines and driven by the imperative to been seen taking swift action on net migration.”
