Q8
Lord Ricketts: I am so sorry not to be with you in person. Before I come to my question, as a former ambassador to France, I am glad to see that the relationship with the French is now working much better on the small-boat crossing issue. I am sure that working closely with the French, as you are doing, is the right way forward.
My question is on the adult dependent relative pathway for immigration. The figures we have been given for grants of settlement on that pathway show that it has fallen from over 1,700 in 2011 to zero in 2021. Several witnesses have told us that the Home Office’s own examples of how to use that pathway suggest that it will be granted only if a relative is no longer able to dress, eat, cook or bathe without assistance. Is that indeed the Home Office policy? If so, does that not really mean that the pathway is shut, because it must be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for people to make a long journey if they satisfy the criteria that I have set out?
Suella Braverman: Yes, the rules on adult dependent relatives aim to ensure that only those who need to be physically close to and cared for by a close relative in the UK are able to settle here. That is a high bar, I accept that, but I think it is right. Those who do not have such care needs can be supported financially in the country where they live by their relative in the UK. Basically, those most in need of care remain most likely to qualify, compared to those who simply have a preference to come and live in the UK with a relative here. That is an important element of our rules, and their lawfulness was upheld by the Court of Appeal in May 2017 in the case of BritCits v the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
There is an important dimension here: we reformed the route for adult dependent relatives given the significant NHS and social care costs that can be associated with these cases. The Department for Health estimated that a person living to the age of 85 costs the NHS on average around £150,000 in their lifetime, with more than 50% of that cost arising from the age of 65 onwards, and that does not take into account any of the social care costs met by local authorities. So grandparents and other adult relatives may visit the UK for up to six months on a visit visa, and they can keep in touch with family members, but I believe that the way the rules are set at the moment strikes the right balance between compassion and openness and a pragmatic approach to the resources that we can realistically afford in such cases.
Lord Ricketts: If you have set the bar so high that zero people came through that route in 2021, and I think only single digits did for a couple of years before, are you not effectively making it impossible, because the sort of people who qualify simply will not be able to come to the UK?
I wonder if you will also accept the importance for the well-being for children and grandchildren of being reunited with their grandparents. I declare an interest as a grandparent. There must be benefit in having family reunification with elderly relatives. There is the example of doctors. The BMA passed a resolution at its conference this year that was strongly critical of what it called the “stringent requirements”. We have had a lot of evidence of doctors leaving the NHS because they cannot bring their elderly relatives here, and they move to other countries where there is a policy that allows them to do that. Is there not a national interest, at this time of crisis in the health service, in doing everything we can to keep foreign-born doctors working here by allowing them to bring healthy elderly relatives who will not be a burden on the NHS?
Suella Braverman: I am not against families spending time together across transnational boundaries. The fact that we have cheap travel and genuine opportunity for families to be reunited is a great feature of modern life. We have to have a balanced approach, which is why taking into account the costs that bringing over an elderly relative may impose on our National Health Service is an important factor. That does not stop grandparents or other elderly relatives visiting their grandchildren in the UK. As I said, you can get a visit visa for six months at any one time, and that is a great way for families and intergenerational relationships to be fostered and kept alive.
Lord Ricketts: Thank you.
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