Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, has proposed raising the cost of immigrant visa applications.
Sunak said that part of the funds for the salary hike will come from foreign migrants who come to the United Kingdom to live and work while delivering a speech about an increase in public sector wages.
Additionally, migrants would pay much higher fees for the National Health Service (NHS), which is sponsored by the government.
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.
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“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 stated that the new plan will not trigger inflation because no additional borrowing or spending will be undertaken to support the salary increase.
Rishi Sunak 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.”
