Home Secretary James Cleverly has said the government is ending the “unreasonable practice” of foreign students bringing family members to the UK, as new visa curbs come into force.
Mr Cleverly said the government had a “tough plan to rapidly bring numbers down”, and that he was “ending the unreasonable practice of overseas students bringing their family members to the UK”.
The home secretary added: “This will see migration falling rapidly by the tens of thousands and contribute to our overall strategy to prevent 300,000 people from coming to the UK.”
Immigration minister Tom Pursglove said universities had seen “a surge in the number of dependants being brought by students, which is contributing to unsustainable levels of migration”.
In November, Tory MPs on the right demanded fresh action by Mr Sunak to cut immigration, as revised figures from the Office for National Statistics put annual net migration at a record figure of 745,000.
The ban – which affects all overseas students except those on postgraduate courses and certain scholarships – will slash migration by tens of thousands, Mr Cleverly claimed.
The move was announced in May by his now-sacked predecessor Suella Braverman, just as official figures showed net migration running at 672,000.
As of Monday, international students starting courses in Britain will no longer be allowed to obtain visas for their spouses and relatives unless they are on a postgraduate research program or a government-sponsored course.
