Call to tighten foreign marriage rules

Stricter rules for those who want to marry a foreign partner are needed to ensure confidence in the immigration system, campaigners have warned.

Migration Watch UK called for a crackdown on marriages arranged for immigration purposes.

The group said full interviews should be carried out with those wanting marriage visas, with a focus on those with a low average age of marriage.

Tougher earnings and language conditions should be brought in before a visa is granted, it added. The number of people given leave to enter the UK as spouses rose from 21,000 in 1992 to 47,000 in 2006, before falling to 31,000 in 2009.

Most foreign spouses come from Pakistan or India, and, together with those from Bangladesh, they accounted for almost one in three foreign spouses in 2009.

In its report, Migration Watch UK claimed that the "virtual abandonment" of the interview process in recent years "leaves the door wide open for marriages where one or both parties have come under pressure to marry against their will".

Last month MPs called for the government to criminalise forced marriage in a bold step that would show it should not be tolerated in society.