Alienation not integration: the massive new immigration fee increases are very bad social policy
Charging workers and students a lot to enter is fine; charging them a lot once they are here is not. Charging families is always wrong.
The government has today announced massive increases in immigration fees and the immigration health surcharge. This write-up appeared first on Free Movement but it’s definitely an immigration policy issue rather than an immigration law one so I’m cross-posting here.
The normal rate for the immigration health surcharge will increase from £624 to £1,035 per year. This will be paid by workers entering for a period of six months or more and the family members of migrants and British citizens alike. The discounted rate for students, children and youth mobility visa holders will be increased from £470 to £776 per year. The minister announcing the measure explicitly stated that this increase “would fund the pay rise for doctors” that was announced earlier.
Immigration and nationality fees will be increased as well. Work and visit visas will rise by 15%. Student visas, certificates of sponsorship, settlement, citizenship, entry clearance and leave to remain applications by “at least 20%”.
To give you an idea of what we are talking about, the cost of a settlement application will therefore rise to at least £2,885 per person. For a family of four, that will be over £11,500 in total. That family will also have paid something like £15,000 in immigration health surcharge costs, and that assumes no further price rises in the next five years. And their visa fees will typically have amounted to around £6,200, which again assumes no further increases in the meantime. They will have needed to pay for additional services from the Home Office and there’s the cost of a lawyer as well.
The cost is at least £33,000 before paying for your lawyer. That’s a lot of money to be forking out compared to your co-workers and fellow residents.
The cost of student and priority service applications outside and inside the UK will be equalised. It is currently cheaper to apply from within the UK for several visa types. This was justified as “covering more of the cost of the migration and borders system, allowing the Home Secretary to divert more funding to police forces to fund the pay rise for the police.”
You can see the current level of fees here. No announcement was made on timing of the increases.
It goes without saying that employers, universities, migrants already here, future migrants and the British and settled family members of migrants will be very, very unhappy about these increases.
Employers are already using ‘claw back’ clauses for migrant workers: the employer offers to pay the visa and health surcharge costs but insists on repayment if the employee leaves. One can see why an employer would do this, given how much the fees amount to. It’s a major investment. But it leaves the employee trapped and unable to leave the country or move to another job in the UK. I don’t know if public sector employers typically pay the fees or not; if they do pay the fees, it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The fees charged in the United Kingdom are already far, far higher than comparable European countries and the United States. The immigration health surcharge is essentially mandatory state health insurance, which is imposed because of the United Kingdom’s unique free-at-the-point-of-delivery system. A charge of £1,035 seems like a lot to me but I don’t know how it compares to private health insurance for other countries. Under the UK system, the same charge is levied on all migrants, irrespective of their age or health, whereas private health providers probably charge less to the young and healthy.
Personally, I do not think family members should be charged a lot to enter the country. It is an unfair tax on falling in love with a foreigner and any children will feel the effects as much or more than the adults.
I have no particular objection to students and workers being charged, though. They can make an informed choice about whether the charge is worthwhile and they can vote with their feet and not come. There is an international market for these migrants and if the UK chooses to price itself out of that market then so be it.
I really, really object to very high fees being charged once migrants have already entered the country, though. Affording these fees, particularly for families, can be financially and emotionally punishing and it seriously disadvantages those families compared to others. It actually holds them back from integrating, which is the opposite of good social policy.
And I really, really, really object to increasing the fees after the migrant has arrived. These sorts of unpredictable increases make it impossible for a migrant family to budget for the future. It is unlikely to force many to leave the country but it will without doubt make their lives much harder and it may force some into illegality. Imagine you cannot afford a settlement visa after five years of residence because the fee has increased beyond your means. You now have two children as well as a partner. You aren’t going to leave or uproot the whole family; you’ll just stay and hope for the best.
These fee increases are cheap for the government, both financially and politically. Migrants and their families will find the new fees very expensive indeed.