Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has announced an increase in visa application fees paid by newcomers to the country.
Sunak said in a statement on Friday that the sum paid for the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants would rise dramatically.
Sunak noted that the increase was acceptable and justified because these fees had not been raised in a long time.
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The PM said that because there would be no new borrowing or spending to support the hikes, this measure would have no effect on inflation.
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 those fees will 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.”
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According to Newsmen, the announcement comes just a few weeks after the US embassy announced an increase in fees for processing non-immigrant visa (NIV) applications.
According to a statement on the US embassy’s website, the increased fees for various visa categories will go into effect on June 17, 2023.
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