Editor’s note: Updated 2/1/24. This article was originally published on the 21st December 2023. On that day, changes were proposed to the minimum income level, and the article has now been updated to reflect this.
Recently, the government announced sweeping reforms to visas to prevent what they call ‘the abuse of the immigration system.’ This comes in the face of record high legal net migration, which was last year estimated to be at approximately 745,000 people; the highest figure on record.
These changes are going to have a huge impact on the lives and livelihoods of people who engage with the immigration system; with this in mind, we wanted to take some time to explain these changes, why they’re being brought in and what the effect will be, in keeping with Society Matters own values of understanding the people behind the process. These aren’t just statistics. These are people.
For a British citizen to bring a partner/family member to live in the UK from abroad, they currently must earn a minimum income of £18,600, intended to show that a person can support their partner/relative and minimise the ‘burden’ placed on the state. The Government in early December announced that from spring 2024, they would raise the minimum income level needed to qualify. It was initially set at £38,700 – a sharp 50% rise from the £18,600 currently required.
However, after warnings that the new rules risked separating families, the government quickly lowered the minimum to £29,000. It said the amount would increase in the future – first to £34,500 and then £38,700. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the full amount would be reached “in early 2025”. Critics of the policy have warned we are just kicking the can further down the road causing further anxiety for families in the UK.
Critics have also already argued that this significant rise will disproportionately impact groups who tend to earn less such as women, younger people who are earlier in their career and geographic areas outside of London and the wider South East (in which salaries tend to be higher).
It’s worth noting that people who come from overseas to work in the health and social care sector will be exempt from a rising salary threshold. However, they will no longer be able to bring dependents (i.e. family/children) with them. The government estimate that approximately 100,000 Health and Social Care Worker visas were issued last year, with a following 120,000 to their dependents. Care companies have argued that this will simply exacerbate pre-existing staff shortages, with Skills for Care estimating around 150,000 vacancies in social care alone.
Whilst the government argue that social care will still remain an attractive sector to those outside the UK, we don’t feel that this expectation matches reality. It is well-documented that the social care sector is amongst the lowest paid in the UK with the Trades Union Congress estimating that 60% of social care workers earn below the Real Living Wage of £12 per hour. How likely is it that someone will uproot themselves for a job paying not a great deal more than minimum wage and now have to leave their families behind? The government have long talked of a reform of the social care system for staff to boost retention and make social care an attractive employment choice, but with a lack of any concrete workforce planning to this effect, there is a real risk that these changes will only worsen a system in crisis.
For those who work outside the health and social care sector and want to come work in the UK via the ‘skilled worker’ visa route, the changes are more substantial. The minimum salary threshold will rise from £26,200 to £38,700 from Spring 2024. The Migration Observatory argues that this will disproportionately impact what they call ‘middle-skilled’ jobs like chefs or butchers.
Additionally, the government are also proposing to scrap the ‘20% discount for shortage occupations’ – these allowed employers to recruit overseas workers for shortage occupations but pay them at a 20% discount compared to what they would need to pay British workers. Whilst this was meant to help ‘plug the gaps’ in the employment market, the government now argue that this scheme has led to an over-reliance on cheaper migrant workers.
Finally, significant changes are planned to the ‘graduate’ visa route with a tightening of restrictions. A graduate visa enables a person to stay in the UK for two years to seek work following completing a course in the UK. Similarly, to the changes discussed above, they will no longer be able to bring dependents with them, with the exception of research courses (PhDs/doctoral level).
Universities have already criticised the move, arguing that this will make the UK a less desirable place to study with a consequent effect on the number of admissions. It’s worth remembering that university undergraduate tuition fees have remained frozen at £9,250 per year for several years now. This has led many universities to increasingly rely on international student recruitment (where they can charge considerably higher fees) to plug that funding gap as they deal with a funding shortfall amid rising inflation.
There are major concerns that implementing these changes, this will only worsen the funding crisis that many universities are experiencing.
These changes the government are making are supposedly to curb ‘abuse’ of the system and, altogether, are estimated to reduce future net migration figures by around 300,000. Criticism the government has faced largely focuses on the idea that whilst they want to reduce migration there is nothing yet in place to mitigate the effects that reduced migration will have on communities and public services – whether that’s funding shortfalls in education or exacerbating the social care crisis. Ultimately, these changes represent a system that isn’t prepared to look at people as people, more akin to numbers on a spreadsheet.