Statement of Changes in the Immigration Rules HC 382 was laid before Parliament on Thursday 22 July 2010), but most of the changes took effect the very next day - Friday 23 July 2010.
The Statement was accompanied by an announcement by Damien Green, the Minister of State for Immigration, which is accessible on the UKBA website.
Maintenance
As
indicated on this site the most striking change is the inclusion in the
Immigration Rules themselves (as opposed to only in the
Points Based System Policy Guidance) of the requirement that people applying for entry clearance or for leave to remain under the Points Based System (apart from as students) have to show that they have had the necessary amount of money required to show their ability to support themselves for a period of
three months.
This is achieved from Friday 23 July by the rewriting of paragraph 1A of Appendix C of the Immigration Rules. It now says:
"1A. In all cases where an applicant is required to obtain points under Appendix C, the applicant must meet the requirements listed below:
(a) The applicant must have the funds specified in the relevant part of Appendix C at the date of the application;
(b) If the applicant is applying for entry clearance, leave to enter or leave to remain as a Tier 1 Migrant (other than a Tier 1 (Investor) Migrant), a Tier 2 Migrant or a Tier 5 (Temporary Worker) Migrant, the applicant must have had the funds referred to in (a) above for a consecutive 90-day period of time, ending no earlier than one calendar month before the date of application;"
So this is the UKBA's means of dealing with what was decided by the Court of Appeal in Pankina. It seems that the Court of Appeal's wider conclusion – that what is contained in a changeable document or documents such as the Points Based System policy guidance is not law - is not to be implemented by the UKBA, or at least not yet.
(By the new paragraph 1A (c) of Appendix C students have to have the money stipulated in Appendix C for a period of just one month (28 days)).
The funds which family members of people in the UK with leave to remain granted under the Points Based System must possess in order to succeed in their applications to join or to stay with their family member are set out in Appendix E to the Rules.
Appendix E is therefore also amended so as to transfer the three month requirement from the relevant policy guidance into the Rules.
Students
By amending Rule 322, which provides grounds on which the UKBA can refuse applications for leave to remain, the Statement of Changes also makes it possible for students legitimately to start studying at a college different from that to which they are “tied” by their Certificate of Acceptance for Studies before they have the UKBA's permission to do so. The Statement's explanatory notes say that this is because the UKBA can't deal with all the applications for its permission quickly enough.
But students can only switch Sponsors like this if they are going to study at a college which has Highly Trusted Sponsorship status. If they're going to study at an A or B rated college they'll have to obtain the UKBA's permission before they do so.
In the same way that the result of the Court of Appeal's judgment in Pankina has been adopted into the Immigration Rules the Secretary of State has dealt with the Administrative Court's judgment in English UK by deleting and replacing paragraph 120 (a) of Appendix A.
The requirement that no course provided by a Tier 4 Sponsor can be at less than level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is now inserted by a new paragraph 120 (vi), whereby any English language course must be at this level or above.