Students fare well in New Charging Regime for Immigration and Nationality Fees
Tony Millns, Chief Executive of English UK, reported good news for students and visitors to the UK on his return from a pre-announcement briefing on Wednesday with Bill Rammell, the Minister for FE, HE and Lifelong Learning at the Department for Education and Skills, and Liam Byrne, the Minister of State for Nationality, Citizenship and Immigration, Home Office.
The new charging regime, which incorporates the cost of outsourcing visa service provision, meeting the needs of introducing a points-based system and strengthening the Government’s compliance and enforcement capability, will treat students and visitors as special cases. Whilst the fees for migrant worker visas and work permits will rise substantially, those for students and visitors will include the cost of the outsourcing in a single, flat-rate fee and will therefore only see an increase since 2006 of less than the rate of UK inflation. In fact, in some markets – China, for example - the overall costs for students and visitors to the UK will actually marginally decrease. This year over 85% of applications are expected to come via the outsourced visa handling operations.
So, what does this all mean in terms of actual prices? The student visa fee will go from £85 to £99, including the administration and handling fee (£15 on average, depending on the market). The visitor visa will rise from £50 to £63 all in. Leave to Remain fees will increase from £250 to £295 for postal applications, while the fee for same-day personal applications for extending Leave to Remain will stay at £500.
Among other matters discussed was the Government’s continued commitment to improving customer service and to the ongoing monitoring of demand levels to track the impact of the new charging regime. Liam Byrne also remarked on the need to move towards a system of ‘intelligent pricing’ based on an evaluation of the gain to an individual of migration to the UK. This would seem to be a positive move for students in the future. So, all in all, a better result than expected and a tribute to the lobbying by the education and tourism sectors through the Joint Education Taskforce and the Tourism Alliance over the last year.
Please find below a summary of research findings which were used to inform the proposed changes to visa charges.
