Foreign workers and families who are thinking of relocating to the United Kingdom now have to grapple with the reality of paying humongous fees for visa processing and healthcare.
This is even as those already living there say they face debt or even poverty following a spike in visa fees and the international healthcare surcharge that migrants have to pay.
From October 4 the Home Office started charging between 15 and 35 per cent more for visas to visit, live, study and work in the UK.
As reported by various British media, overseas student visa fees are rising by 35 per cent from £363 (N330,344.46) to almost £500 (N455,019.92); while workers applying to live indefinitely in the UK – including doctors and their families and spouses of British citizens – face a 20 per cent increase, with a visa fee of roughly £3,000 [N2,729,585.30] per person.
Some families will have to fork out £28,000 [N25,476,442.35] to move to the UK as a result of the changes, and it’s feared migrants already working in the UK may end up undocumented if they cannot afford their next visa.
According to reports, “It’s the first significant increase in visa fees in many years, with the Home Office claiming the extra revenue will pay for vital services and allow more funding to be prioritised for public sector pay rises.”
Critics who fault the fee hikes say migrants are being turned into an unlimited magic money tree for the Home Office to continue to exploit.
An unnamed 49-year-old Nigerian man who has lived in the UK for 23 years estimates the cost to keep his family in the UK under the new visa fees will be around £15,000 – £1,000 more than before the fee hike.
He said his children were born in the UK but do not yet qualify for citizenship, nor he or his partner.
“I’m already getting really stressed and worried about the situation because right now I haven’t even got a grand left in the account to try and prepare for this,” he told the Standard.
“People have got British kids here, they’ve been here for years, they’ve been paying their dues. Why are we being treated different?”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is right and fair to increase visa application fees so we can fund vital public services and allow wider funding to contribute to public sector pay.”
Income generated from visa fees can only be used to fund the migration and borders system, the Home Office said.
The healthcare surcharge has not increased since 2020 but the cost of providing healthcare has increased, the Home Office added; noting that there is little evidence that fee increases have significantly affected demand on work, study and tourism routes.
But immigration lawyer Rose Carey, Partner and Head of Immigration at Charles Russell Speechlys, said the spike in fees is “short sighted” and even “counterproductive”.
“At a time when the UK economy is struggling, we need to be doing things to open the UK for business.
”By increasing visa fees, it’s going to make it even harder for people to come to the UK to set up businesses and move their workers into the UK easily,” Carey said.
