After a year of strike action, Rishi Sunak has announced an increase in pay for junior doctors, teachers and police officers – and decided it should be migrants who foot the bill.
The public sector pay settlement, the prime minister confirmed, will be part-funded through a hefty hike in visa fees and the immigration health surcharge (IHS). The main rate of IHS is set to increase by 66% from £624 to £1,035 annually, while work and visit visa fees will increase by 15% and other visas by at least 20%.
For the tens of thousands of people on the ‘ten-year route’ to settlement (indefinite leave to remain in the UK, with the right to live, work, study, and seek citizenship), this news is incredibly worrying. Those on the route, introduced by Theresa May in 2012, already face eye-watering fees to maintain their legal status in the UK. Individuals are required to pay fees every two and a half years totalling almost £13,000 for an adult over the course of a decade, including the IHS. The new costs will see this amount rise by over £5,000 to at least £18,265 for an adult. For a family with multiple people on the route, this will be much higher: an adult with two children will now face forking out nearly £50,000, possibly more.
