LONDON: A significant increase in visa fees and health surcharge paid by applicants, including Indian students and other category visitors, is likely as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to increase the wages of public sector workers without hiking taxes and government borrowing.
Confirming a pay hike between 5 and 7 per cent across the board for teachers, police and prison officers, junior doctors and other public sector workers following an independent recommendation, he also warned striking workers such as junior doctors that this offer was “final” and further industrial action would not change that decision.
No more talks
“There will be no more talks on pay. We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision,” he warned. Addressing newsmen, Sunak 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,” he said.
“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 Immigration Health Surcharge,” he added.
Justifies the move
Justifying the move to raise the visa fees, he said that they had not been increased recently. The second action to meet the country’s higher wage bill will focus on government departments reprioritising their work, he added.
