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.

So... you are pleased your government has let the cost of living get so out of control that people need to take extra shifts in care homes on top of their normal jobs?

As has been said about 1000 times on this thread, foreign spouses have zero recourse to public funds and we aren't doing anything with your benefits system apart from bolstering it with our NI payments.

"The "Not enough houses!" meme is the biggest con going."

England has fewer empty homes as a proportion of housing stock than any other developed country, and you'd know this if you did any research at all. It's the reason why our housing prices are so high - because housing supply is kept artificially low in order to raise the prices of homes.

To give you an idea - in the UK 0.9% of home are long term unoccupied. The figure for France is nearly 8%, Germany 8.1%, Netherlands 4%.

https://www.tomforth.co.uk/emptyhomesforgood/#:~:text=Across%20England%2C%200.9%25%20of%20homes,for%20Greater%20Paris%20is%206.5%25.

We need to build homes, vast numbers of them. And we need to build many, many more social homes for rent.

The government knows this but it suits them to keep planning laws as restrictive as they are to suit the preferences of home owners, who are their core voters. A surprising number of MPs are also landlords and it suits them to keep the rental market in its current profoundly dysfunctional state.

The Conservatives also know it can use anger over immigration as an electoral tool - trashing public services, failing to address the housing needs of the country, this is all grist to the mill for this terrible, inept government.

If we want to make the dodgiest type of marriage harder, there are all sorts of low hanging fruit we could tackle instead, like requiring foreign spouses to be at least 24, speak the language to a certain level, have a degree or appropriate post-school vocational training in something, and so on. Denmark does this and I think it works well and is felt by most people to be fair and reasonable.

Moving to another country to live as the foreign spouse (I am actually in this position, outside the UK) is a big step. You should be old enough to know your own mind and have some work and language skills so that you don’t becoming isolated and dependent. Even for those who are 100% not bothered about immigration issues, 18yo cousins from villages in Pakistan being brought in as wives is not great for them or for society.

I think some checks on people arriving in the UK purely in order to get married is fair enough (proving it is a genuine relationship is a little intrusive but not that hard), but when you have people who have been married for years but living in another country, or who already have children together, I think refusing them the right to live together in the home country of one of the partners is a violation of human rights.

A lot of British people met and married eu citizens at a point in time when we had the right to live and work freely within the eu with an understanding that they could easily live in either persons country and move between them as they wished. This has now been taken away due to brexit making it very difficult for lots of British citizens to return with their families. This is incredibly unfair. Yea the government gave a window of a couple of years to allow you to move back with your eu but that was very short to suddenly make that decision and move and came during Covid when it was extra difficult.

It will be challenged like the HO approval to marry was

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652602

Petition is finally live for anyone wishing to sign.

I think not only does this increased requirement breach the human rights of British children to a family life if they have a foreign parent, it also discriminates against British women and mothers as they're less likely to be able to meet the income requirement to bring in their spouse than men who are British citizens. It should be challenged specifically on those grounds.

Not to mention the NHS surcharge, paid when applying and renewing visas, which Is quite extortionate and set to rise again!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/17/legal-action-planned-over-uk-cruel-income-threshold-visa-rules

I don't know yet where to donate but I will be.

I think there's an argument for people already here but having to renew visas not to have to hit this threshold.