Migration income rules keeping mother and baby apart say MPs

A breast-feeding mother separated from her British baby was among the cases the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration heard during its inquiry into the rules that came into force on in July last year.

A minimum earnings requirement for Britons wishing to sponsor a non-EU spouse is one of the key changes “tearing British families apart”, the cross-party committee found.

Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather MP said: “During the course of the inquiry, we heard from many families in which British children are being made to grow up away from a parent, or where families had been forced to move overseas in order to be together. Whatever the objective of the policy, children shouldn’t suffer as a result.”

The committee’s inquiry looked at the new minimum income requirement of £18,600 for British nationals and permanent residents seeking to sponsor a non-European Economic Area spouse or partner. The figure is £22,400 to sponsor a child and a further £2,400 for each further child.

In more than 175 submissions from families affected by the rules, 45 claimed their inability to meet the income threshold had led to the separation of children, including British children.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre, a charity specialising in laws that affect children, reported the case of a non-EU woman who was abroad while her British husband and two sons, aged five months and 18 months, were in the UK.

The mother had to stop breastfeeding her five-month-old baby.

The committee heard from a number of UK sponsors in full-time employment at or above the national minimum wage who reported that they were unable to meet the income requirement.

Wider evidence suggested that nearly half – or 47 per cent – of the UK working population last year would fail to meet the income level required.

The income requirement has had a particular impact on people outside London and the South East.

Baroness Hamwee, chairwoman of the inquiry and Liberal Democrat home affairs lead in the House of Lords, said: “We were struck by the evidence showing just how many British people have been kept apart from partners, children and elderly relatives.

The group has called for a review of the income requirement and its impacts on families in the UK and overseas.