May sets out bid to curb foreign criminals’ human rights weapon

Foreign criminals and illegal immigrants will no longer be able to use human rights laws to stay in the UK under reforms unveiled by Home Secretary Theresa May.

Foreign prisoners should face automatic deportation if they are jailed for 12 months or more, it was announced as the overhaul of Britain’s immigration system was set out yesterday.

From next year, migrants seeking to settle in the UK must be able to speak and understand English and will have to pass a “Britishness” test, demonstrating an understanding of life in the UK.

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Plans were also announced to restrict family migration by bringing in a £18,600 salary threshold which a non-EU spouse must earn before they can bring in a foreign partner.

Overall, the reforms are expected to save the taxpayer £570m in health costs over the next decade, £530m in benefits claims and £340m in education costs, the Home Office said.

Mrs May said she expected to see net migration fall from 250,000 to tens of thousands as a result.

The keystone of the reforms is a crackdown on foreign criminals citing the right to a family life – enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – to avoid deportation.

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Last year, 185 foreign prisoners successfully appealed against their deportation using the defence, according to the Home Office.

Mrs May is seeking the backing of MPs in a Commons debate next Tuesday for new guidelines, which will spell out how courts should apply the convention in assessing such cases.

In a clear warning to judges, she said the right to a family life was not absolute and added if they did not follow Parliament’s advice on the matter she would introduce laws to enforce it.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “For some time it’s been clear foreign offenders have been able to stay in the UK by abusing human rights legislation.

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“We’re changing the immigration rules to establish that if you are a serious criminal, and you have not behaved according to the standards we expect of you in this country, then claiming a right to a family life is not going to get in the way of your deportation.”

Deportation should become the norm for any foreign criminals jailed for at least 12 months and, for those sentenced to more than four years, the “public interest in deportation will outweigh the right to a private life in all but the most exceptional circumstances”, Mr Green said.

Persistent offenders, or criminals whose offences have caused serious harm, even if they are jailed for less than 12 months, can still be deported, he added.

Illegal immigrants who have been in the UK for at least 20 years will be able to apply to settle in the country on human rights grounds under the reform plans.

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Mrs May will scrap the current rules allowing settlement after 14 years, but anyone in the UK illegally for 20 years will still be able to apply to start a 10-year route to settlement, doubling the time it currently takes. The 20-year rule was needed to keep a degree of proportionality in keeping with British and European case law, Home Office officials said.

A clampdown on family migration is expected to cut the number of family visas by up to a third, with up to 18,500 fewer granted each year.

The effect is less than the 45 per cent predicted by Government immigration advisers because applicants will be able to count savings to reach the salary threshold.

To make it more difficult for sham marriages, the probationary period for new spouses will increase from two to five years, and as well as the minimum £18,600 to bring in a spouse, a non-EU citizen must earn an extra £2,800 if they have a child plus £2,400 for each additional child. The new “financial independence” rule is also designed to slash the number of immigrants claiming benefits.

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It also means overseas grandparents financially dependent on relatives in the UK will only be able to settle in the country if they can show, through age, illness or disability, they require long-term personal care available only with the relative in the UK.

The relative will have to accept responsibility for their maintenance, accommodation and care for five years and sign an undertaking that the applicant “will have no recourse to public funds”.

The Government will also make it impossible for aunts and uncles to come to the UK through the family route. And applications will have to be made from overseas and not while the applicant is a visitor in the UK.

Labour said the proposals would do nothing to address the failings in the UK Border Agency which meant fewer foreign criminals were being deported. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper questioned why Mrs May was offering guidance for judges rather than a new law, saying it risked “confusion and legal uncertainty”.

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Amnesty International said the idea that human rights are “blunt” and “immovable” was a misconception.

Tara Lyle, a policy adviser at Amnesty, said: “It is high time the sophistication of the law was mirrored in discussions on human rights by the Home Secretary, based on facts rather than pursuing populist headlines.”