Post
by dandm » Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:22 pm
The relevant paragraph we've been reading is in the explanatory memorandum, under the sub-heading of "Policy Context" so at first I thought they were just maybe flagging future changes.
But the immigration rules are explicitly changed in the earlier statement of actual regulation change:
44. Delete paragraph 245CB(a) and (b) and substitute:
“(a) Leave to remain will be granted for:
(i) a period of 3 years, or
(ii) the period the applicant needs to take his total leave granted in
this category to 5 years,
whichever is the longer.
Per page 15 of 72.
I think the person on the helpline is maybe wrong, in that these rules were presented to parliament on the 16th of October. Either that or it has been presented but is still to be passed (should be a formality). I'm not 100% sure how the UK parliament works, perhaps a senior member can comment on this?
Either way I think the original poster misinterpreted the start date of the rule. If you look at the implementation section on page 2 you will see it states that:
The changes set out in paragraphs 6, 8 to 17, 20 to 22, 26 to 63, 65, 67 to 69, 99, 111
to 163, 165 to 167, 169 to 170, 172 to 184, 213, and 227 to 247 shall take effect from
6 November 2014, save that if an application has been made for entry clearance or
leave to enter or remain before 6 November 2014, the application will be decided in
accordance with the Rules in force on 5 November 2014.
The original poster maybe mistakenly used the bullet point number (7.28) from the explanatory memorandum which is attached to the bottom of the statement of changes, confusing it for the paragraph number of the actual rule change which is paragraph 44 not 7.28. So the changes to paragraph 245CB in the document aren't due to come in until the 6th of November by my reading.
I have a suspicion that even when this rule comes in we will have to wave the immigration rules at the people making the decisions as they often got section 245CB wrong in its previous guise.