London, July 14, 2023- Rishi Sunak, the U.K. Prime Minister, has announced an increase in visa application fee paid by immigrants.
He also said the surcharge paid for the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants by immigrants would “increase significantly.”
“First 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 which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS,” he said.
Sunak said if the government was to prioritise paying public sector workers more, the money had to come from somewhere else because he is not prepared to increase people’s taxes and does not think it would be responsible or right to borrow more as it would only worsen inflation.
“All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds. Across the board visa application fees are gonna go up significantly and similarly for the immigration health surcharge for migrants who are coming to this country legally….” he added.
According to Sunak, this move will have no effect on inflation because there would be no new borrowing or spending to fund the increases.
He said the government believes it is appropriate given that the costs have risen since the last hike.
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 major breakthrough for parents and families across the country.”
The announcement was after the United States embassy said it was increasing fees for processing non-immigrant visa (NIV) applications.
The US embassy, according to a statement on its website said the new fees for various visa categories would be implemented from June 17, 2023.
