Overseas relatives of British families to lose visit visa appeal rightsExclusive: Leaked Home Office policy paper reveals legally risky plan for ministers to scrap right of appeal

guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 May 2011 12.16 BST Article history

Plans to scrap the right of appeal for family visit visas could prevent more than 80,000 people visiting British relatives. Photograph: Gregory Wrona/Alamy

Ministers are to scrap the right of appeal for more than 80,000 relatives of British families who are refused visas to visit them each year, according to a leaked Home Office policy paper seen by the Guardian.

Senior Whitehall officials have warned that the move is considered highly controversial, particularly within Britain's Asian communities, as well as being legally risky

Before anyone starts to panic, remember that this is only a policy document.

What that means, basically, is that it is merely a paper submitted for discussion. Government departments prepare, at the request of their ministers, many of these each year and most come to nothing.

Let's wait and see what happens to this idea. Personally I put little credence in a leaked discussion document which may very well come to nothing and would rather wait for an official announcement, if any.

The headline "Overseas relatives of British families to lose visit visa appeal rights" is completely wrong; no decisions have yet been made on this. I am surprised, and disappointed, that the Guardian has sunk so low as to produce such hysterical scaremongering.

The full article can be found here. (Members are reminded that when quoting a newspaper or other media article as a courtesy one should post a link to that article.)