Nigerians are displeased, as they would have to pay more as the United Kingdom raises visa fees and imposes a health premium.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has stated that the surcharge paid for the state-funded national health service (NHS) by visa applicants from all around the world will “increase significantly.”
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Sunak, speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Thursday, said migrants will also have to pay more for visa applications.
Nigerians make up a larger percentage of immigrants in the UK, therefore it is expected that they would be mostly affected as a result of this trend.
The British-Indian leader, who was under pressure to adopt the suggestion of an independent review of compensation for teachers, police officers, junior doctors, and other public sector workers, confirmed a salary increase of 5% to 7% 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 willing to raise people’s taxes and I don’t think borrowing more would be responsible or right because that would just make inflation worse,” Sunak added.
“So, in order to find this money, we did two things. The first is that we are going to raise the fees that we charge migrants who come to this country when they apply for visas, as well as the immigration health surcharge (IHS), which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS.
“All of those fees will be raised, raising more than £1 billion.” As a result, visa application fees will rise dramatically across the board, as will IHS fees.
Sunak went on to say that this was “completely correct,” given that the fees had not been raised in a long time.
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He stated that the administration believes it is appropriate given the surge in prices since the last increase.
According to Sunak, this action will have no effect on inflation because no new borrowing or spending will be undertaken to support the hikes.
