Visa applicants to bear burden of UK’s hiked public-sector wages: Sunak

UK visa applicants will now have to shoulder the burden of the country’s increased public-sector wages, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said. Indians, who make up a bulk of visa applicants to the country, are likely to be majorly affected by the move.

The visa application fees and health surcharge paid towards the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants are set to rise “significantly to meet the country’s public-sector wage increase,” Sunak said on Thursday (July 13).

The British-Indian leader, who was under pressure to accept the recommendation of an independent review of pay for teachers, police, junior doctors, and other public sector workers, confirmed a hike between 5 and 7 per cent across the board.

However, he stressed that this would not be met with higher government borrowing for fear of further stoking high inflation. Therefore, the costs would need to be found elsewhere.

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Fees to go up across the board

“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,” Sunak told reporters at a Downing Street press conference.

“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,” he said.

“All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over GBP 1 billion; so, across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS,” he added.

Sunak justified the move, saying these fees have not been increased recently and the government believes it is appropriate given that the costs have risen since the last hike.

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The other source of money

The second action to meet the country’s higher wage bill is about asking government departments to reprioritise. He insisted this would not mean cuts to jobs and services but a re-focussing on different priorities.

The IHS, which applies to long-term migrants to the UK, including a discounted rate for students, starts from around GBP 470 for a year and rises to thousands of pounds for multiple-year visa applications.

The full details of which categories of visas will face hikes and when the new higher rates come into force are expected to be laid out by the UK Home Office in the coming months.

A govt under pressure

The Sunak-led Conservative Party government has been under intense pressure with disputes over the public-sector pay, leading to a series of strikes over the past year hitting schools and hospitals.

In fact, junior doctors in England began yet another five-day strike on Thursday after their demands for a 35 per cent pay hike were rejected.

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In his wage announcement, Sunak warned that his offer was “final” and further industrial action would not change that decision.

“There will be no more talks on pay. We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision. Instead, the settlement we’ve reached today gives us a fair way to end the strikes. A fair deal for workers and a fair deal for the British taxpayer,” he declared.

He welcomed teachers’ unions expressing their backing, saying the governments offer will allow teachers and school leaders to call off their strike action and resume normal relations.

(With agency inputs)