The minimum income required for family visas should not be raised to the same level needed for skilled foreign workers, a Home Office ordered review has warned.
Increasing the salary threshold for people wanting to bring a loved one from abroad to the UK is likely to conflict with human rights law, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) said on Tuesday.
The advisory body suggested the minimum income requirement should be lower than the £29,000 it currently sits at and this amount was high compared to other high-income countries it reviewed.
Its analysis suggested that a threshold of £24,000 to £28,000 could give more priority to economic wellbeing, such as reducing the burden to taxpayers, than on family life.
The MAC also suggested a criteria of £23,000 to £25,000 to ensure families can support themselves but not necessarily require them to earn a salary above minimum wage.
Skilled foreign workers are only eligible to come to Britain if they secure a job earning £38,700 or more a year, compared to the £29,000 required for British citizens or settled residents looking to bring their partner to the country.
The previous government planned to introduce the higher threshold for family visa applicants, bringing it in line with skilled migrants.
However, Labour paused the measure and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered the MAC to complete a review and propose a minimum income requirement that balances economic wellbeing and family life.
But in its report, set out on Tuesday, the committee's report said: "Given the family route that we are reviewing has a completely different objective and purpose to the work route, we do not understand the rationale for the threshold being set using this method.
"We do not recommend the approach based on the skilled worker salary threshold as it is unrelated to the family route and is the most likely to conflict with international law and obligations (e.g. Article 8)."
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is the right to private and family life that can be applied to migration cases in the UK.
It analysis found a high proportion of applicants for partner visas are women and 90% are under the age of 44.
The largest nationality to use the route, applying from outside the country, is Pakistan.
Chairman of MAC, Professor Brian Bell, said: "While the decision on where to set the threshold is ultimately a political one, we have provided evidence on the impacts of financial requirements on families and economic wellbeing, and highlight the key considerations the government should take into account in reaching its decision."
While the committee said it is not possible to predict how different threshold changes would impact net migration, it said lowering the amount to £24,000, for example, could mean an increase of around one to three percent of projected future net migration.
The committee advised against raising the threshold for families with children as, despite them facing higher living costs, the impacts on family life appear "particularly significant" for children.
It also recommended keeping the income amount required the same across all regions of the UK, but said but the government could consider calculating a threshold based on data from the UK excluding the capital, if it was concerned about fairness towards non-London residents.
The MAC said their review was "greatly hindered" by insufficient data and urged for better data collection by the Home Office on characteristics of each applicant to be linked to outcomes to inform further policy decisions.
Caroline Coombs, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Reunite Families UK, said: “Any threshold even at minimum wage would still separate many groups of people who just want to be a family here in the UK.
“When the increase was first announced in 2023, we never saw a logical connection between the Skilled Worker Threshold and the level of the minimum income requirement.
“The two routes should never have been conflated in the first place and so we welcome the recommendation that these routes have different objectives and purposes.
“We were struck by the MAC’s acknowledgment that any decision on the MIR is a political decision. For this reason, we are calling on the Home Secretary to have the political courage to change a system that has been hidden in plain sight destroying the lives of British and settled residents and their children for over a decade.”
