Spouse Visas

EDM number 695 in 2007-08, proposed by David Howarth on 15/01/2008.
Categorised under the topics of Immigration and Marriage.

That this House condemns the Home Office ruling that a foreign national with a genuine and subsisting marriage to a British national who needs to regularise their stay in the United Kingdom must either return to their country of origin, accompanied by their British spouse and British young children, to apply for a United Kingdom spouse visa, which often entails a visit to a hostile environment which presents an unacceptable risk, or must travel alone and face an indefinite separation resulting in a stressful disruption to family life and support; welcomes the ruling of the Court of Appeal in AB (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department that a spouse who had married an overseas overstayer was entitled to have his right to a family life to be taken into account, although he was not a formal party to the proceedings seeking the removal of the overstayer; and calls for the Home Office to exercise the granting of discretionary leave to remain in the United Kingdom even when the requirements of the Rules are not met but where there are genuine reasons under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, relating to the right to respect for parents and family life, which make removal inappropriate.

This motion has been signed by a total of 50 MPs.