…says money realized will be used to increase salaries of workers
The British government has announced increment in its visa applications and health surcharge paid by immigrants.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who had been under pressure to accept the recommendation of an independent review of pay for teachers, police, junior doctors and other public sector workers, disclosed this at a briefing.
“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.
“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.
“So, all of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds. So across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS.”
The UK government faced intense criticism regarding public sector pay, leading to strikes across schools and hospitals.
Junior doctors in England commenced a five-day strike last Thursday when their request for a 35% pay hike was turned down.
However, following this, the government conceded to the suggestions put forth by pay review bodies.
Consequently, police officers are expected to receive a 7% raise, teachers a 6.5% raise, and striking junior doctors, who are in the initial stages of their careers in the NHS, will see their pay increase by 6%.
