British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak
By Our Reporter
The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has said Nigerians and foreign nationals coming into the United Kingdom will have to pay more for visa applications.
Also, the Immigration Health Surcharge paid by immigrants applying for visas will “increase significantly”, he said.
Sunak made the announcement on the increase in visa application fees on Thursday.
The prime minister said the increase would help bridge the gap after the county approved a pay increase in public sector wages.
He explained that the increment in visa applications and NHS surcharge had become imperative since the fees have not been increased recently.
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,” he said after announcing a wage increase.”
The surcharge – paid as part of a visa application – will go up to £1,035, while the cost of work and visit visas will go up by 15 percent.
The cost of study visas, certificates of sponsorship, wide entry clearance, leave-to-remain and priority visas, and others, will rise by at least 20 percent.
More than one million public sector workers, including teachers, police and doctors, have been offered pay rises of between 5 per cent – 7 per cent, the government says.
