- Wednesday, March 05, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
UK home secretary Suella Braverman, who is currently serving her second stint under the second prime minister, is set to make it harder for foreign students to bring their spouses to the country in the wake of concerns over a growing number of “dependent visas” handed out in the past few years, The Scotsman reported.
Data from the home office published earlier in 2022 showed that the number of foreign students’ dependents has grown five-fold in just three years — from 13,664 in 2019 to 81,089 in the year that ended in June this year.
The report added that the ministers are particularly concerned that the figures are inconsistent across nationalities. For instance, citizens from Nigeria accounted for 40 per cent of all dependents in the 12 months till June when Nigerian students make up only seven per cent of all foreign students in the same period.
Braverman is reportedly considering to raising the minimum income threshold for the foreign students bringing their dependents to the UK in order to bring down the overall visa numbers, The Times reported first.
Presently, students planning to bring a spouse, partner or child with them to the country must earn at least a monthly income of £680 for each dependent.
Braverman, who took over as the home secretary under prime minister Rishi Sunak only six days after she stepped down under the premiership of Liz Truss, is reportedly also mulling to raise the minimum income threshold for the British citizens seeking a family visa for a spouse or children.
Currently, a couple must prove that they have a combined annual income of at least £18,600 enough funds to support any children who do not possess British citizenship.
The home secretary’s plan for reducing the number of foreign visas would also witness a rise in minimum salary thresholds for workers filling jobs on the shortage-occupation list, The Scotsman added.
The shortage-occupation list gives employers a greater flexibility to rope in specialists such as mechanical engineers, architects, and vets from overseas. Many of the salary thresholds have not been raised for a decade, and are as low as around £18,000 for some of the professions.
It comes after Sunak last month vowed to crack down on net migration after figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed record number of arrivals last year.
Net migration touched an all-time high of 504,000 in the year ending in June, propelled by 476,000 foreign students.
According to a spokesperson for Sunak, the government would be “considering all options” to bring down the number, including beginning a cap on visas for overseas students.
However, the plan has also met criticism with people raising concerns over Britain’s soft power and the cost that its universities would face.
According to Universities UK, which represents 140 universities across Britain, measures that would make it harder for foreign students to study in the UK would eventually shoo away valuable post-graduates who make a “huge contribution to research and the skilled economy”.
In November, Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said introducing a cap on foreign student numbers was “nonsensical” and suggested little more than “crude political thinking”, the report added.
