The devastating impacts the UK’s spouse partner migration rules are having on British children are set out today in preliminary findings based on child-centred interviews conducted by Coram laying bare how children are the biggest victims of the policy.
On the back of these findings, Reunite Families UK, Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) are urging the Migration Advisory Committee to put at the centre of its review the experiences of and impacts on the people currently on the route or prevented from being on the route due to its strict requirements, with particular reference to children.
A stricter minimum income requirement
In December 2023, the then government announced that the minimum income requirement [MIR] for UK and settled residents to sponsor their non-British partner would increase from £18,600 to £29,000 in April of this year. This policy change was made without any impact assessment, equality assessment, child rights impact assessment or any real regard for children’s welfare.
The independent Migration Advisory Committee is today closing its call for evidence into the financial requirements for family visas, part of a review commissioned by the government in September 2024, and Coram has collaborated with Reunite Families UK to set out preliminary findings charting the policy’s impact on children.
What do children think?
Below you can read some anonymised quotes from the children’s interviews, conducted by Coram’s Impact & Evaluation team, in which it is possible to see the wide-ranging impacts caused by the rules on children, affecting their mental health, creating anxiety and already causing worries for financial reasons at such a young age:
I feel so sad, without seeing my dad… [not having] mother around me. […] So, so sad.
It didn’t feel the same as him actually being there and being able to talk to him. It was just like, really hard for me to cope because he was just there, in front of me, on the phone, and I felt like I couldn’t say the things I could if he was actually in front of me.
The situation with our family made everything else that went wrong in my life feel 10 times worse and so it was stressful, and I think it had quite a big effect on my mental health.
[When I am nervous] my tummy is like… It hurts sometimes and like bubbles and make me feel scared.
Every now and then I’ll open it [cupboard] cause I’m looking for something and then I see her clothes and I smell her perfume… it’s just sad
Memories that I have with him make me happy but like sad. Memories like when we were in [non-resident parent’s country of origin] and we had to go back to England here. It was hard because like me, my brother and my mum were like crying a lot. So we were missing him and we were only like 10 meters away, just leaving
The quotes published today are taken from interviews conducted between October and November 2024 and reflect children’s experiences of both the MIR at £18,600, and also the worry and concerns for the increase introduced earlier this year. The number of children impacted by the new MIR will be even greater as increased numbers were already struggling to meet the previous requirement.
Key findings:
- The MIR and spouse and partner visa rules are causing children worry, stress, uncertainty and anxiety:
- Children reported physical symptoms of anxiety, sleep disturbances, selective mutism, and being unable to focus at school.
- Children also reported feelings of sadness, guilt and loneliness due to the stress and separation caused by the MIR. Often, feelings of loneliness came from missing the parent who could not live with them and were exacerbated by the resident parent having to work long hours to meet the MIR.
- Financial strain: Children are very aware of the extra financial strain on their family. Often this meant parents working long hours, children going without things their peers had, or the family not being able to visit the country their parent/s lived in or where they grew up. Some children reported trying to earn money themselves, to help with visa costs.
- Children report that separation had negatively affected their relationship with the non-resident parent/s with disrupted family relationships also having a negative impact on the child’s reported wellbeing.
- Children were often aware of the impact of the MIR and migration rules on family finances, wellbeing, and work-life balance.
- Some children found their family situation very hard to talk about. Some did not want to share how they were feeling with their parents because they didn’t want to cause them stress.
Dr Carol Homden CBE, CEO of the children’s charity Coram, said:
For over 12 years babies and children have been cut off from parents by a stringent financial test for British or settled people sponsoring their partner to join them from abroad. It is high time that the impacts on children of this policy are properly reviewed. As governments have long recognised, strong family relationships are of national importance. The impacts on children’s lives and futures must be central in decision-making.
Caroline Coombs, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Reunite Families UK, said:
Ever since we began RFUK in 2017, we have wanted to commission child-centred interviews because we know from personal experience and our membership that children are the most hidden victims of these cruel immigration policies.
For over a decade, couples and families have been separated and suffered as a result of these policies, but never has the government stopped to even consider what these harsh rules were doing to harmless children.
We urge the Migration Advisory Committee to put at the centre of its work the heartbreaking experiences individuals and our organisation are sharing with them and take this opportunity to make sure citizens and long-term residents of the UK and their children are no longer devastated by cruel policies.
Children’s rights must not be ridden roughshod over just because one of their parents is not British.
Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King’s College London and Coram trustee, said:
This report highlights the broader economic and social costs of the minimum income requirement. It’s very welcome that the Migration Advisory Committee is reviewing this and will be able to look at this issue in the round, taking into account the impacts on children. Nobody – not the government, not taxpayers and certainly not children – gains from children growing up divided from one of their parents.
Zoe Bantleman, Legal Director of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA), said:
These preliminary findings demonstrate the damage done to children when families are kept apart by the imposition of onerous financial requirements. Too often the voices and best interests of children are sidelined or ignored. We urge the Migration Advisory Committee to listen to their concerns and make recommendations that would assist the Government to uphold the international rule of law, by respecting private and family life and taking the best interests of children as a primary consideration.
You can read the full submission to the Migration Advisory Committee here.
