Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answers of 15 March 2016 to Questions 30647 and 30649, what the evidential basis is for the statement that her Department’s policy enables thousands of people each year to be reunited with their families in the UK; and how many extended family members seeking family reunion have been granted asylum in exceptional circumstances by the Entry Clearance Officer in each of the last three years.

James Brokenshire

In the last three years, over 13,000 family reunion visas have been granted under the Immigration Rules. This information is available in the quarterly statistics published by the Home Office and available on Gov.UK here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2015/list-of-tables#visas

A further 65 visas have been granted outside the Rules due to exceptional circumstances.

We have committed to making clearer in revised guidance the kinds of cases which may benefit from leave outside the Immigration Rules due to exceptional circumstances. The guidance will be updated by the end of April.