British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that there would be an increase in the visa application fee paid by foreign nationals coming into the United Kingdom.
The prime minister said the increase would help bridge the income gap in the UK after the county approved a pay increase in public sector wages.
Rishi speaking in a Press Conference at Downing Street on Thursday, 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 immigration health surcharge, the migrants who are coming to this country legally have to pay a fee to access the NHS” he said after announcing a wage increase.
“Neither of these fees have been increased recently and we think it is appropriate given the cost of everything have gone up.”
More than one million public sector workers, including teachers, police and doctors, have been offered pay rises of between 5%-7%,” the government says.
Under the proposals, police and prison officers in England and Wales would receive a 7% pay rise, while teachers and junior doctors in England would get 6.5% and 6% respectively.
