ILPA and the Law Society met with contacts at the Home Office to discuss outstanding issues in relation to COVID-19. In particular, we raised queries relating to:
- The legal basis for exceptional assurance;
- Publishing and archiving accessible guidance, rather than frequent updates to the GOV.UK website;
- Consequences of marriages not going ahead;
- The switching provisions;
- Measures for those stranded outside the UK on e.g. expired visas;
- Whether the Minimum Income Requirement concession applies only to “a temporary loss of employment income”, e.g. it does not apply to someone who has been made redundant; and
- Right to work checks
The Home Office will formally respond to our table of outstanding issues, which we sent to them on 12 November 2020. We will publish these queries and the Home Office responses at the earliest opportunity. The next meeting will take place in January 2021.