What you need to know
No 10 rejects calls to leave ECHR
Downing Street has insisted the UK will not seek to leave or suspend the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) amid growing calls for action.
The former Labour home secretary Jack Straw has called for the government to decouple its laws from the convention while Lord Blunkett, another former Labour home secretary, has called for Sir Keir Starmer to suspend the ECHR in order to deport thousands of illegal migrants.
Nigel Farage has said a Reform UK government would withdraw the UK from the convention if it wins the next election.
However, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “The government has been clear that Britain will remain a member of the ECHR and that shutting ourselves off from the international stage will make it harder, not easier, to return people, and you do not strike international agreements by tearing up international agreements.”
How number of family reunion visas has soared
The changes to the refugee family reunion route follows a fivefold increase in those coming into the UK on the visa.
In the year to June, a total of 21,967 family reunion visas were granted, the highest number on record since the figures began being collected in 2005. More than half of these were children.
The Home Office has attributed this increase due to the sharp increase in the number of people granted asylum in late 2023. Some 55,000 were granted asylum as the Home Office oversaw an acceleration in its casework to meet Rishi Sunak’s pledge to clear the asylum backlog. They have since started bringing their family members to the UK.
Cooper to tighten rules on migrants bringing families
Migrants granted asylum in the UK will be forced to wait several years before bringing their family to the UK under a fresh crackdown to be announced this afternoon by the home secretary.
Yvette Cooper will announce changes that will bring Britain in line with other European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria, where refugees must wait up to three years before they can be joined by family members overseas.
The move will add to measures already announced in the government’s immigration white paper in May, which will require a higher level of English language skills and tougher financial requirements for family members wanting to join refugees in the UK.
It will bring the rules for the family refugee reunion route with other visa routes, such as rules that require a British citizen to have a minimum income of £29,000 a year in order to bring a foreign partner to the UK.
