MIPEX in use

As of 9 July 2012, the United Kingdom now has the second most stringent financial requirements of all major Western countries for those who wish to reunite with a non-European Economic Area (non-EEA) spouse or partner. Only Norway has a higher income threshold. In Impact Assessment HO0065, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has estimated that 45% of British citizens and those persons settled in the UK would not be able to meet the Immigration Rules’ new minimum income threshold of £18,600 per annum. This translates into 45% of non-EEA nationals no longer being able to successfully apply to enter or remain in the UK as a spouse or partner. The Migration Observatory of Oxford University approximates that, of British citizens in employment, 61% of women and 47% of all British citizens in employment will not qualify to bring in a family member under the new changes. 

The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) has produced an informative chart which compares and contrasts the approximate income required for British citizens and those persons settled in the UK to reunite with their spouse or partner. For British citizens and non-EEA citizens who are settled in the UK, i.e. the sponsor, who want to reunite with a non-EEA spouse or partner who is applying from outside the UK, it is the sponsor’s income alone that will be considered by the UKBA. To reunite with not only a spouse or partner, but also with children, the minimum income threshold of £18,600 increases with each child dependant...

Some time ago, I promoted a debate in your Lordships' House about the migrant integration policy index. This research, produced by the British Council, was designed to compare legal provision across Europe on the integration of non-EU migrants. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, contributed to that debate. It was a remarkable piece of work at a time when there was an often confused debate about a cohesive society in which issues of multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism surfaced. There is a kind of schizophrenia on matters of immigration on one hand, and community cohesion and the pluralist society on the other. This is often backed up by the perception of the majority population that, despite all our history and all our pride in our tolerance, the majority are somehow not able to live as part of a community of communities.

It is here that MIPEX provides consistent and reliable stock-taking, with the ability to track policy advances and reversals. Over the years, commentators, both politicians and press, have pointed to the impact of globalisation and devolution as relevant to the process of migration. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the matter of education...

An important aspect of inclusiveness, as assessed in this section, concerns  the integration and civic participation of those who are not - or not yet - full citizens. The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) uses 148 different policy indicators to measure the extent to which public policies promote the integration of legal migrants in a range of countries internationally (currently 33)...the UK's scores fell well below the average for the Nordic countries from 2007 to 2010, with the UK also dropping from just above to just below the EU-15 average. This shift in the UK's score ratings, and its relative ranking, between 2007 and 2010 seems to have come about almost entirely as a consequence of policies aimed at greater management of inward migration, including the citizenship test discussed above. However, the decline in the UK's position was offset to a limited extent by legislative change through the Equality Act 2010...

We are pleased to note that some of the discriminatory features of citizenship laws were corrected during the period under examination. However, we are also concerned by a number of developments identified in this current Audit. First, it would appear that the citizenship test which has been introduced may have a discriminatory effect. Second, we are particularly worried about the resistance that successive UK governments have displayed towards lifting the blanket ban on prisoner voting...We believe this stance should be reversed promptly without further delay; and that the new system introduced should exceed minimum requirements, taking into account European best practice. Finally, we noted an apparent deterioration in the quality of the UK's arrangements for the integration of immigrants, and urge that the reasons for this change should be given more detailed consideration by UK policy-makers.

Keeping families apart - Migrants' Rights Network uses MIPEX to argue against proposed changes to the income threshold for family migration in the UK, which, if introduced could shut out 50% of the UK working population from bringing a spouse or partner to join them, with ethnic minorities, women and children particularly hit.

MRN argues that there is a wealth of evidence proving that tough changes to family migration rules in the UK could have the effect of alienating both British citizens and recent arrivals in the UK who have family overseas.