Fees and health surcharges paid by visa applicants, including Indians, to the National Health Service (NHS) will increase significantly, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced. The hike may reportedly be around 15 per cent to 20 per cent although no official confirmation has been given yet.
Through the hike, Rishi Sunak aims to support UK's public sector wage increase, which includes teachers, police, junior doctors, and other public sector workers as he said that there was a general rise of 5 to 7 per cent across the board. The UK government would not rely on increased borrowing to cover these costs due to concerns about inflation, 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," Rishi Sunak said.
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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," he added.
{{/usCountry}}“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 added.
{{/usCountry}}"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 explained.
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The government confirmed that work and visa fees will rise by 15%. All other visa fees will rise by at least 20%. The immigration health surcharge was first introduced in 2015 at £200 per application. It doubled to £400 in 2018 and rose to £624 in 2020.