Rightwing Conservative MPs express concern at Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on family visa threshold – UK politics live

Good morning. The political year is more or less over, but it’s never too late for a U-turn, and the Home Office slipped one out last night that may have repercussions going into the new year.

Just over two weeks ago the government announced a series of measures to limit legal migration which it estimates will reduce numbers by 300,000. It was a muscular package with significant impacts for the economy, and it was broadly welcomed by Conservative MPs, particularly rightwingers who are alarmed at figures showing net migration at record levels.

But one aspect of the plan attracted considerable controversy – the proposal to raise the minimum income for family visas from £18,600 to £38,700, meaning any Briton who marries a foreigner would have to be earning that amount to actually live with them in the UK. This plan was only expected to reduce migration numbers by a figure in the tens of thousands (out of 300,000), but it was the proposal with the biggest direct impact on the Telegraph-reading classes (or, to be more accurate, their children), and Rishi Sunak soon came under pressure to change his mind.

As Peter Walker reports, the Home Office responded in an announcement that came quite late yesterday. The family visa threshold is going up to £29,000 in the spring next year. The government says it is still planning to increase it to £38,700 at some point. But it is not saying when, which is leading many people to conclude that the timetable it has in mind is “never”, or at least “not before the election”.

The increase from £18,600 to £29,000 is still significant, and will still stop thousands of couples who thought they would be able to live together in the UK from being able to do so. But it will not be seen in those terms by rightwing Tory backbenchers who already had their doubts about Sunak, and some of them have been speaking out.

Jonathan Gullis, a prominent member of the New Conservatives faction, posted a message on X saying this was “deeply disappointing”.

Sir John Hayes, chair of the Commons Sense group of Tory MPs, told the Today programme he wanted to see the government raise the threshold to £38,700 quickly. He said:

The policy remains to increase the threshold to £38,000, what they’re talking about is implementing it in phases …

What I’m saying is that needs to be done very quickly because you need certainty, you need certainty for individuals, certainty for employers. And if we’re going to £38,700, which seems to be very sensible, then that needs to be done with speed so that people know where they stand.

David Jones, the deputy chair of the European Research Group, told Politico the announcement was “alarming”. And, as Dan Bloom reports in his London Playbook briefing for Politico, a spokesperson for Robert Jenrick, who recently resigned as immigration minister, said the plans announced by the Home Office at the start of the month should be “implemented now, not long-grassed to the spring or watered down”. The spokesperson added: “More measures are needed, not less.”

The other main news today is the revised growth figures for the third quarter of the year, showing the economy shrank. Previous figures showed zero growth in the July to September period. Phillip Inman has the story here.

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