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On 20 September 2023 the House of Lords is due to debate the Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s report ‘All families matter: An inquiry into family migration’. The report was published on 28 February 2023 and the government responded to the report on 9 June 2023.

1. What issues did the committee identify?

In its report, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee stated that it had considered family migration policies in the “widest possible sense, looking at general trends in the design of family immigration pathways, as well as looking at the impact of family migration policies on families and on society as a whole”. Therefore, consideration ranged from family visas to other routes of family migration, such as sponsorship of a family member by a refugee.

Summarising its views on these migration pathways, the committee criticised the government’s policies as being at odds with the principles of protecting and promoting family life:

“Strong, supportive families make for more stable communities”, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a speech setting out his priorities for 2023. By being overly restrictive, family migration policies weaken families and undermine communities. Ten years after a major set of reforms, we assessed family migration policies. We found that, complex and inconsistent, they fail both families and society.

Families are failed. The desire to join family members is natural and understandable, but the Immigration Rules force families to live apart. The Home Office portrays family separation as a choice on the part of the family— we profoundly disagree that it is a matter of choice.

The committee highlighted specific issues including:

  • The committee found that family migration rules are narrow, complex and inconsistent across the different pathways (for example, regarding terms of entry and conditions for different family members). In addition, claims were often expensive, lengthy, and managed or communicated badly by the Home Office.
  • The principle of acting in the best interests of a child is not “systematically integrated” into immigration policy and practice. The committee argued there were “gaps in provision for children and families to be reunited or achieve a secure status”. It also said that the Immigration Rules “almost never allow child refugees to sponsor the immigration of their family members”. The committee said this was harmful to children and that there was no evidence the policy discouraged families from sending children on unaccompanied journeys.
  • The immigration pathway for adult dependent relatives (ADR) is “essentially closed”. The committee said this increases stress for potential sponsors and damages family life.
  • Financial requirements in pathways did not appear to be achieving their aims. The committee claimed the requirement “does not promote social cohesion, nor does it protect public finances. It achieves the opposite”.
  • Current policies fail to promote social cohesion and could have negative impacts on the labour market and the NHS. For example, the committee argued that family migration has “only a minor impact on public finances”, whereas the current policies were forcing some professionals to choose to leave the country. In addition, the committee argued that the policies created extra pressure and complexity for local authorities.

The committee did accept the need to balance respecting family life and protecting societal interests, and said it recognised that “strict criteria and vetting of applications is necessary in order to secure public support”. However, it argued that “policies that respect family life also benefit society”.

2. What did the committee recommend?

The committee argued that by reuniting families, the Home Office can “boost fiscal contributions, retain essential skilled workers, and prevent families from falling destitute”. On this basis it made a number of overarching recommendations, including reducing the complexity of family migration rules, making claims more flexible, and increased funding and training for Home Office staff.

On the need to simplify the rules, the committee gave its backing to the 2020 Law Commission report ‘Simplification of the Immigration Rules’ and urged the government to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations quickly. It stated that Parliament should be “actively involved” in this. The committee also said changes by the Home Office should include:

[…] making evidential requirements more flexible and less burdensome. Wherever possible, applicants should be given a variety of ways to demonstrate that they meet a requirement and the evidential requirements should be more accommodating of minor errors.

The Home Office should reintroduce a right of appeal against a negative decision on a family visa application, including on grounds other than human rights claims.

The committee also made a number of specific recommendations, including:

  • Family migration policies should be “updated to reflect the diversity of contemporary families” and should take a similar approach to that used in family law. For example, British citizens, permanent residents and refugees should have the right to reunite with adult children and extended family members (for example, siblings, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, etc). The government should also harmonise which relatives are eligible across pathways.
  • Mechanisms should be introduced to ensure that the best interests of the child are treated as a primary consideration at all stages of immigration proceedings. Family reunion for child refugees should be “extended and brought within the Immigration Rules to create an effective path to family reunion for child refugees”.
  • The route for ADR should be reformed. This should include a reduction in the threshold for dependency and the range of eligible relatives extended “within tight definitions to secure ongoing public confidence and support”. The committee argued that “instead of focussing on the availability of care in other countries, the ADR route should concentrate on the ability of the sponsor to care for their dependent relative. Where the dependent relative cannot be cared for by their family abroad, applications should normally be granted”.
  • The financial requirement should be made more flexible, with a focus on the “likelihood of future income of the family unit rather than on the sponsor’s past income”.
  • Service standards of claims should be improved, with better Home Office communication and fewer delays. For example, it called for family visa applications to be completed within 12 weeks. It also called for application fees to be reduced and help to ensure people are supported with the legal process (for example, supporting legal practices and charities to provide accessible, good quality legal advice).
  • Family visitor visa applications should be granted unless there are “compelling reasons for rejection” in a certain case. In addition, the Home Office should “reintroduce the right of appeal against a negative decision on a family visitor visa application”.

3. What did the government say in response to the recommendations?

In a response published on 9 June 2023, the government defended its position on family migration and how claims are dealt with. It stressed the importance of striking a balance between the “right to family life and the need for effective immigration control and public spending”. However, it did state that recent actions have shown that it does exercise flexibility and discretion when exceptional circumstances apply.

Responding to the committee’s specific point about impact on NHS staffing, the government highlighted the health and care visa launched in August 2020. It said:

[This made] it easier, cheaper, and quicker for health workers to come to the UK to work compared to other immigration routes. Visa applicants, and their dependent partner and children pay a lower fee, are subject to quicker processing time and also have a dedicated UK Visas and Immigration team that assists them with the application process. In addition, visa holders, and their dependent partner and children are exempt from paying the immigration health surcharge.

Addressing each of the committee’s recommendations in turn, the response included the following points:

  • It rejected the suggestion of harmonising the conditions available under different pathways, saying that it was right that they should vary.
  • Extending family reunion beyond immediate family members could place further pressure on local authorities. Regarding ADR, the response said that there were routes for those who have a genuine need to be physically close to and cared for by a close relative in the UK. It said that extending this would increase costs for the NHS.
  • The government pays due regard to the best interests of children in immigration decisions, as required under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. It said Home Office staff are trained to be aware of legal and safeguarding obligations to protect children’s concerns. Regarding child refugees being able to sponsor family members, the government argued this would “risk creating incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their families and risk hazardous journeys to the UK. This plays into the hands of criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people and goes against our safeguarding responsibilities”.
  • It defended the minimum income requirements, stressing that people should not come to the UK at the taxpayer’s expense. Regarding the committee’s recommendation to consider future income, it said that this change “would not be as reliable and potentially be harder for applicants to evidence and caseworkers to assess”. It also said that, although fees were kept under review, it had no plans to reduce or alter fee requirements for settlement or for indefinite leave to remain. It said that some fees were higher to help fund the wider immigration system.
  • It said the Home Office was working on a “notification system” that will inform applicants when all their details have been received and will give information including expected decision date. It said this would be in place later in 2023.
  • Regarding support for other organisations, the government stated that the Home Office supports the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), which has a “statutory duty to promote good standards of immigration advice and to ensure advisers are fit and competent”. It said that it believes the OISC is already well positioned to “cover the needs of advice seekers”. It also said that Home Office caseworkers received appropriate training and supervision.
  • It defended the system for family visa applications, stating that to be granted one an applicant must “satisfy the decision maker on the balance of probabilities that they meet all the requirements of the immigration rules”, including that they planned to leave the UK at the end of their visit. The government said it was important all applicants were considered on the same terms to maintain the integrity of the visits system. It also rejected the call to reintroduce appeals on decisions, stating that applicants can instead make a new application addressing any concerns raised, raise a complaint, or apply for judicial review.

Finally, regarding the Law Commission’s recommendations, the government said it had accepted all in whole or in part. It stated that teams were working through these, but that it was an iterative process. It said:

We have made good progress on implementing recommendations, not only by simplifying and bringing consistency to the language, drafting and structure of the Rules themselves, but by working across policy and delivery teams to identify opportunities to clarify our policy and processes. The key principles we apply are suitability for the user, comprehensiveness, accuracy, accessibility, consistency, durability. This will help users, including families, better navigate the immigration system and make the right application at the right time, and help decision makers to apply the Rules consistently and expeditiously.

4. Additional information

There have been legislative developments in the area of immigration since the committee’s report was published. The Illegal Migration Act 2023, which was passed by Parliament in July 2023 and introduced after the committee published its report, contains some provisions relating to children and families. For example, section 14 of the act ended the secretary of state’s duty to consult the Independent Family Returns Panel, the body that provides advice on the safeguarding and welfare plans for the removal of families with children, in every family returns case. In addition, the act gives the secretary of state the power to remove people aged under 18 from the country if they entered illegally and did not come “directly from a country where their life and liberty was threatened” in limited circumstances. One of the available circumstances set out in the act is where they are removed for the purposes of reunion with a parent.

Coverage of the legislation and its parliamentary scrutiny can be found in:

4.1 Further reading

Cover image by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash.