Do you think the new £38K income visa threshold for UK spouse visas is fair?

[zendeveloper]

It is set at the same level as for work visas.

Feels completely crazy to me, but then, I am also an immigrant (although the changes don't affect me), so probably too sensitive to the topic. Would be interesting to hear MN opinion.

Of course you could earn 38k in the NHS. It’s the middle spine point of band 6 upwards. Not if you were planning to be a band 5 your whole career, no, but it’s not impossible to achieve

It's also ignored that a huge number of over 55's no longer in employment have taken early retirement to help out with childcare of their grandchildren or caring for elderly relatives, most people I know in this situation aren't living the high life choosing not to work

This is my family, but not us because we are 200 miles away. But my sister and BIL do a lot of pick-ups and babysitting for their daughter and SIL, so they can work and have fun, and they enjoy their grandchildren. They also do a lot of helping for DM, who is well but 88 yo. It works, and we would help too, but it can't be casually shared around at this distance. However, they are off to spend Christmas in the sun with their other child and I shall drive 800 miles back and forth to collect and return x2 DM so she is looked after while they holiday.

Because it's not a question of whether they can afford to be married, but a question of whether they can afford to be married to the person they love if that person happens to be foreign, I guess?

I'd be interested to know how many people on spouse visas went into shortage occupations. We've already established that they can't get benefits for at least five years, pay the NHS surcharge - but spouse visas also cost significantly more than a Health and Care Worker visa, for example (and I'm pretty sure all shortage occupation visas) so it may not be that helpful to skills gaps...

There will be countless families like ours who met and married EU citizens (and had families) when there was freedom of movement.

This point I have sympathy with. Welcome to the world and life of all people in UK who are not British citizens. HO keeps upping fees etc etc and changing laws in a second. But I bet you didn't even know any of this before! Well, now you know! None is immune from the f!kery of the UK gov love.

But the rules for the spouse visa are ignoring the fact that many if not most couples/families can afford to live in the UK even if they don't meet the new financial threshold.

These rules don't take into account:

• Where you live
• The foreign spouse's work history and potential
• Family or third party support
• Equity you have in your primary residence.

Someone earning 38K in London is allowed to bring their spouse
Someone earning 32K in Penrith, Cumbria is not allowed to bring their spouse

Out of those two couples I bet the Penrith couple have more disposible income left at the end of the month to save for emergencies etc.

Also in these following scenarios, the immigrant spouse is going to be no more burden to the taxpayer than the person living in the South East who earns 38K.

Someone earning 22K in a small town in Scotland who owns their house outright and with a spouse who is experienced and employable and will easily be earning at least 30K when there - who could also downsize to a smaller property if necessary to free up assets for an emergency.

Someone earning 28K who is moving in with their parent who will be covering all housing and living expenses for the couple.

All very true, but the time and cost involved in setting different amounts based on where you live or any of the other factors you mention and then monitoring it (what if they immediately move to London?) would be impractical and hardly cost effective. Realistically there has to be a single limit.

I have tried not to answer you directly. However, you do realise it costs taxpayers billions to process HO applications ( and other applications like at DWP ) that the gov had to find something standard that caseworkers at HO can quickly check if it ticks the main boxes to say yes or no and, therefore cannot carefully look at your individual circumstances as that may come with a 10 year wait for processing? So we all have to accept the reality. But then I think you left teh UK many years ago (20?)? Everything has gone down in teh UK, hence this attitude to immigration and therefore to people which may include you.

Sorry for your situation.

The last ten posts explain why a government policy is so difficult to get right!

This speaks to what I just posted immediately above.

It is not supposed to be fair.

According to the House of Commons Library, visa fees are set at around twice the cost of the actual processing, and the profit used to subsidise the Border Force. So the visa system is entirely user-funded.

Yet, gov keeps being urged to speed up the processing which includes proposal for yet more tax payers' money to teh HO. Check teh news

It's far too high. And the assumptions in this thread are that it's all about foreign types bringing in foreign type spouses to take advantage of UK benefits etc etc.
But both my (white middle-class white British) children have married citizens of other countries. As young people, they are not yet earning that kind of money to be able to bring their spouses here to live with them.
The end result is that my son - an early-career barrister - has moved to Australia, and my daughter - a conservatoire trained professional musician - has moved to the US. The UK has lost two educated young professionals - who could have spent a lifetime contributing to the economy - by making it too hard for them to create a family life here.

Offering the option of a third-party sponsor wouldn't be a huge burden administratively.

It works in the US system - the US also takes into account family size of the US citizens so if you have dependents the financial threshold gets larger which actually makes more sense too because the UK system only increases the threshold for non UK kids. So a family of 5 UK citizens needs to prove the same financial support as a couple without kids.

I'm not trying to get people to feel sorry for me - by the time we want to move I'm sure we will be able to work something out and we've lived apart before for months in emergencies so I know we can cope.

We spent the whole first year of our marriage apart because the US system while financially fairer was/is very very slow because of the sheer numbers of applicants.

But this is a horrible situation for many British families - some stuck in countries they want/need to leave and some stuck living without one of the parents for years.

I do take your earlier post point about there being many terrible elements to the immigration system for non-British applicants too. But this situation is the one I know the most about so trying to counter some of the 'well it's just tough shit' posters.

Can you share one of the stories you're talking about? I've had a (fairly brief) search but can't see anything on this.

Hit the nail on the head!

I don't think they will ever engage with third party sponsors - lots of problems with families attempting to make up businesses or other income to gain entry to the UK in the past. People get desperate and do all sorts, gifting money, or showing "assets" to gain entry.

It is very burdensome to check all this stuff and leads to appeals. The Home Office already has experience of trying and failing to manage bank statements or trying to check if sponsors do have money and don't do this any longer.

I will, when I find it. I think it was Labour highlighting why teh system is not working i.e broken ( and instead of addressing the infrastructure shortage and manpower issues, the conservative UK gov punish the people in that system). Anyway labour was urging gov to spend more taxpayers' money so that caseworkers who currently make ONE decision a week, each, can make more decisions each week. Look out for Lab manifesto on immigration- I am sure they will pledge this in there as well.

This was a gracious response. I wish you well.

Isn't that referring to the processing of asylum claims (where the huge delays are causing other costs to the Blessed Taxpayer) rather than visa processing, which is (more than) user-funded?

The "one decision a week" is something I've only been able to find in relation to asylum claim processing.

Agreed.

HO reserves that scrutiny to would be terro-rists to keep teh citizens living in teh UK safe- that's even more a priority than citizens who left years ago- sorry. HO is not only there for spouse's applications you know! They have many mandates each of which requires money, so a lot to balance there.

Do you guys even know what our terror threat level teh country is in right now?

By third-party sponsor, I simply mean a UK citizen other than the spouse who makes the financial threshold and will sign a contract to reimburse the government if the foreign spouse ends up resorting to public funds before they get their permanent residency or citizenship.

So in my case, my Dad would happily do that for us if we needed it.

That is my situation also and we chose to leave the UK because I just don't trust the Home office and the UK government quite frankly.

Now the UK has lost a software engineer and an agricultural specialist, both occupations with a shortage. It's incredibly short-sighted.

Darling, I am not here to help with your research. The point is simple: the system has to be fair and equal to all and you do that with standard tick boxing exercises than forensic analysis. That's for would be terro-rists to keep the country safe!

Evaluation on individual circumstances would lead to more and never ending appeals as people will pick anything and everything to appeal against, like teh asylum seekers do as they are subject to much more wide international protections for obvious reasons. Right now, the playing field is similar and appeal judges know what test to use to all appeal applications as it is the same for everyone.

@wordler / unfortunately I don't think the Home Office would be tempted. They have their fingers burnt a lot by people who make financial declarations but those cannot be used, for example, the income disappears or the individual refuses to pay. The UK citizen is by then back in the UK and cannot be deported (rightly) and the spouse will have an Article 8 claim. So this is not much of guarantee.

A spouse in the position you describe I think is already non access to benefits, but even if it were otherwise, the Home Office would struggle to enforce this which is why they choose bigger fees upfront for all visas.