Expected changes to immigration after election?

[binglebongle]

hi there.

my partner and are getting married in the Philippines in September (I'm UK, she's PH) and our plan is to apply for the spouse visa for her to come and live with me in the UK. We have everything we need in terms of docs, salary level, photos, proof of residence, bills etc and I know what we also need to get in advance like the language test, overcrowding survey etc.

During the election after reading both parties manifestos I honestly didn't know who to pick, because both tory and labour were rather vague about their immigration comments in their manifestos. The only thing I could pin down for sure was the tories said they wanted to make it more(!) difficult for non EU spouses to come to the UK.

I'm worried we're going to get caught up in any new crazy rules which come into force before we're able to make the application (We get married end of Sept, but I fly home in October. We should have the marriage cert by then, as apparently they can take a while in PH to issue). We can't change the month we marry, so we're stuck with whatever happens between now and then.

My worry is - what on earth could they potentially do? Raise the wage requirement, a hard cap on numbers / applications, change the language tests up or add (new terrible things) here? From what I've experienced so far, the UK immigration process for a married spouse seems to be some of the toughest in the world already. It's stressful enough working out all the logistics of the wedding itself, without doing the current runaround of getting all docs / letters / house stuff done at the same time.

What do you think might happen next? Or is it all hot air and they'll drop the immigration "hot topic" as quickly as they jumped onto it and hope nobody notices? Realistically they can't do much about EU immigration anytime soon and I'd hope that any non EU spouse changes take a while to come into force.

[vinny]

Conservative manifesto commitments on immigration, the EU and human rights.

[binglebongle]

Hi Vinny,

Some new info there, cheers! Although as far as non-EU spouse info goes, all I could see is what I've already seen in the manifesto (about mandatory language tests and "toughening", with no extra info about what said toughening could mean in practice). have changes to partner / spouse visa rules taken a while to hammer out in the past? Or is it a case of "announce something and it's live the next week"? never been particularly familiar with this area in the past, so it's hard to say if I should be going grey about it or not

[Casa]

It appears from the following passage that English language tests will only become tougher for family members during the probationary period;
"And to encourage better integration into our society, we will also require those coming to Britain on a family visa with only basic English to become more fluent over time, with new language tests for those seeking a visa extension."

Amendments to an existing Act don't happen 'overnight'. Bear in mind that Parliament will recess for the Summer and rise again in September. There will also be an forward implementation date for any changes and any applications made before that date will be subject to Rules existing at that time.

[secret.simon]

Amendments to an existing Act don't happen 'overnight'. Bear in mind that Parliament will recess for the Summer and rise again in September. There will also be an forward implementation date for any changes and any applications made before that date will be subject to Rules existing at that time.

Changes to the Immigration Rules are implemented by (typically a negative) Statutory Instrument (SI). That means they come into force within 40 days of their being laid in front of the two Houses, whether or not the Houses are sitting, unless either of the two Houses object to them.

It is extremely rare for SIs to be voted down. The Commons does not debate them (because the government has a majority and decides what gets debated in the Commons) and the Lords tend to "regret" them (have a debate on them, but allow them to stand, as they are not an elected Chamber). SIs and EU legislation are the two fields where the Lords have a greater expertise than the Commons.

That essentially means that an SI will become law without any strong challenge in Parliament.

The list of statutory instruments that are currently before the Commons.

As Parliament has not yet assembled after the elections, it is still showing the SIs as of the last day of the last Parliament.

So, you should have about 40 days advance notice of changes to the Immigration Rules.

[twrist]

It is worth noting that the Tories 'strongly argued' for the income threshold to be £40,000 when they were in coalition, but the LibDems negotiated it down to the 18,600 we have today. (Source: http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/ ... mmigration)

With a fairly safe majority, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the income requirement rise - perhaps not to that level, but stranger things have happened under Conservative governments.