The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the minimum income limit will tear apart families just like my own

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The Supreme Court has ruled a financial barrier lawful, barring entry to thousands of couples (PA)

My heart breaks today as the Supreme Court rules in favour of the Government’s financial requirement of £18,600 for British citizens to have their foreign spouses join them in the UK.

Theresa May should be disgusted with herself for bringing in such barbaric requirement in 2012, which is now known to have prevented as many as 15,000 innocent children here in the UK from being with their mothers or fathers.

When my husband’s visa was refused in 2012 I had just given birth to our daughter and he was earning £35,000 as an engineer; this is not a one-shoe-fits-all situation. Each visa application needs to be considered and processed as an individual case.

How the Supreme Court can say that the requirement does not infringe upon human rights to family life is beyond me. Perhaps they should try telling that to the children of those families affected.

If they're saying this requirement was brought in to protect our precious tax credits system, then why when they write “no access to public funds” on spousal visas is this not enough?

Lily Bayliss

Norfolk

An unfair majority

The Liberal Democrats have only nine MPs, yet there are 95 Libl Dems in the House of Lords. So a tiny party in the Commons has a huge number of representatives in the House of Lords. What have these people done that is so wonderful that they deserve to hold control over the Government of this country?

Why did we get rid of one set of unelected Lords just to replace them with another bunch of unelected Lords? It is well noted that the common man has no vote on who sits in the upper house of our Government. If this were seen in any other country we would be calling it undemocratic and a travesty that the common people have no say in government.

JH Moffatt

Bredbury

Pension justice

Following yesterday’s story about EU expat pensioners facing healthcare limbo post-Brexit, it is clear that something needs to be done to provide certainty for vulnerable elderly expats and soon.

Expat pension poverty is already a national shame. British pensioners, who live outside the EU, numbering around 550,000, are currently excluded from annual inflationary adjustments to their state pensions by the Government’s frozen pension policy. This leaves many with a declining real terms income and some in dire poverty.

There are growing fears that pension freezing will be extended to EU resident pensioners if the Government can’t reach agreement across highly contentious matters of reciprocal social security provision as part of the Brexit negotiations. This would affect 492,000 retirees living in Europe, including 108,000 in Spain, 65,000 in France and 42,000 in Germany.

Given the new global role Britain aspires to, it is surely time for the government to accept that British people should remain entitled to a fully uprated state pension based on their contributions, not their country of residence. This requires no negotiations, just the Government to do the right thing.

Nigel Nelson, International Consortium for British Pensioners

The cradle of divine religions

Far-right politician Geert Wilders erroneously claims that Islam is antithetical to Dutch values that are founded on Christianity, Judaism, freedom and humanism.

More brazenly, he asks for a total ban on Muslim immigration, and the shutting down of all mosques. This is a call for sedition and civil strife.

Christians are facing religious persecution in certain parts of the world. However, Islam preaches tolerance and the acceptance of others. It rejects extremism and isolationism. In many parts of the world Muslims have been sacrificing their lives to safeguard the rights of their Christian brethren, not out of courtesy but of duty to preserve their own cultural, humanitarian and religious heritage.

The Middle East is the cradle of divine religions and civilizations. It is our cherished obligations to stand united against those who peddle social discord and disharmony.

Munjed Farid al-Qutob

London