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Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister has announced that visa application fees are set to go up significantly as part of efforts to raise over a billion pounds to plug revenue shortfalls.
Sunak during an address at Downing Street (July 13) listed a number of government priorities amid an economic downturn among others halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt, whiles noting a big pay award for teachers in a bid to avoid an intended strike.
He said of the pay award: “This is a significant pay award and it is costing billions of pounds more than the government budgeted for.”
In order to find money to plug the revenue gap, he announced two measures related to migrants as the route to raise necessary funding.
“We are going to increase the charges for migrants when they are applying for visas to come to this country and indeed something called the Immigration Health Surcharge, which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS,” he told the press.
He said payments arising from the two tax measures will come up to over billion pounds in revenue, before emphasizing his point and justifying the planned hike in both fees.
“So, across the board, visa application fees are going to go up significantly… none of these fees have been increased recently and we think it is appropriate given that cost of everything has gone up,” he added.
The Foreign Office will be expected in the coming days and weeks to roll out the said increases.
The United States recently announced hikes in certain visa categories for non-immigrant visas. Visa fees have traditionally been criticized as a means of fleecing applicants as Embassies make huge sums from even rejected applications.
