Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom has declared that there will be a rise in visa application charges for immigrants. Additionally, he emphasized that the surcharge paid by visa applicants for the state-funded national health service (NHS) will witness a significant increase.
This announcement follows the recent decision by the United States embassy to augment fees for processing non-immigrant visa (NIV) applications. According to an official statement on the embassy’s website, the revised fees for various visa categories will be enforced starting from June 17, 2023.
Sunak justified this decision, stating that it is entirely justified as these fees have remained unchanged for a considerable period.
He said: “If we’re going to prioritise paying public sector workers more, that money has to come from somewhere else because I’m not prepared to put up people’s taxes and I don’t think it would be responsible or right to borrow more because that would just make inflation worse
“So, what we have done are two things to find this money. The first is, we are going to increase the charges that we have for migrants who are coming to this country when they apply for visas and indeed something called the immigration health surcharge (IHS), which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS.
“All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over £1 billion. So, across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS.”
Sunak assured that this measure would have no negative impact as there will be no additional borrowing or spending to finance these increments. He expressed that the government deems it suitable considering that the costs have escalated since the previous adjustment.
In a tweet, Sunak said: “I just announced a fair way to end the strikes – and already all teaching unions are backing it. It’s a fair deal for workers. And a fair deal for the British taxpayer. This is a breakthrough for parents and families across the country.”