UK to increase visa fee and health insurance charge for Nigerians and others

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a plan to increase the visa application fee paid by immigrants.

While delivering a speech regarding an increase in public sector wages, Sunak disclosed that part of the funding for the wage increase will be raised from the foreign migrants who come to the United Kingdom to live and work.

Fees for the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) will also be significantly increased for migrants. 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.

“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 IHS.”

The Prime Minister revealed that the new plan won’t lead to inflation because there would be no new borrowing or spending to fund the salary increment. 

He added; 

“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.”