The British government appears confused about what to do with Indians — while Prime Minister David Cameron and his senior ministers, particularly during visits to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, claim they are keen to increase trade, economic and educational ties with India, back home they do everything possible to make it more difficult for Indian visitors, including students and businessmen, to visit, work or study in the UK.
The UK regularly pays lip service to India, describing ties with it as a “special relationship”, a term otherwise used exclusively for the US-Britain relationship. Mr Cameron even called the relationship with India as “one of the greatest partnerships in the 21st century”.
UK government policies, however, influenced by local politics, are making it tougher for Indians to visit, work and study here. Indian visitors have now been placed in a “high risk” category by the UK, and will be forced to pay a £3,000 cash bond to get visas to enter Britain.
Visitors over 18 years applying for six-month visitor visas will be forced to deposit £3,000 with the UK authorities as part of a new scheme to control illegal immigration being rolled out in November. This will be forfeited if the visitors overstay in Britain, a report in the Sunday Times revealed. The bond, however, will not ensure automatic entry into the UK.
The UK home office has labelled India “high risk,” but has given no explanation why it included India in the same category as Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Britain grants 2.2 million visas annually, but the pilot scheme will target visitors from these six nations, labelled “high risk” because of high volume of visitor visa applications and “relatively high level of abuse and fraud”. Last year, 296,000 visitors from India were granted six-month visas, but the home office did not give any figures to demonstrate the so-called “abuse and fraud” by Indian nationals.
The Indian economy, expected to become the fifth largest in the world by 2020, is a great attraction for the UK. India already is the fifth largest investor in the UK, with 81 foreign direct investment projects, and bilateral trade between India and UK was £10.58 billion in 2011-12. Tata Sons is one of the biggest private employers in the UK with 50,000 employees spread over 19 group companies.
Prime Minister Cameron made India a priority on being elected in May 2010 and led huge delegations to India, the last one in February this year. The UK is keen to double overall trade with India to £23 billion by 2015.
London mayor Boris Johnson, who visited India in November, has criticised immigration restrictions placed by the Tory-LibDem government, calling them a “block on the growth, and we need to sort it out”.
The UK’s immigration policy has been in shambles as the Tory-led government has imposed newer rules and restrictions in order to cut immigration to the promised level of tens of thousands. The clampdown on student visas and revocation of the London Met University’s visa licence led to confusion and criticism of the move.
The number of Indian students coming to the UK has declined after the student visa system was made tougher by the Tory-LibDem coalition government.
Students from India studying in higher education institutions in the UK fell by 23.5 per cent last year, compared to 2010-11. Last year, the number of students from India dropped to 29,900 compared to 2010-11 when there were 39,090 Indian students studying in the UK.
UK visas are in any case among the costliest in the world — with a six-month multiple entry visa for general, family and business visitors costing Indians `7,600, and the price goes up to `26,450 (two years), `48,550 (five years) and `70,050 (10 years). The UK has also introduced a “super-priority” visa service in some Indian visa centres, for which a levy of £600, plus the standard fee for the type of visa being applied for, is charged. Also, long-term visitors to Britain, including those from India, need to undergo a pre-screening programme for tuberculosis.
The new visa scheme has been termed as controversial as it is targets only at people from non-white Commonwealth countries. Canada had to abandon a similar scheme over protests that it was discriminatory.
The ruling Conservative Party, that faces a challenge for the right-of-centre vote from the UK Independence party, is keen to show Britons it is tough on immigration. “This is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain,” home secretary Theresa May was quoted as saying. “In the long run we’re interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used our public services.”
The scheme will include all visa types, including work and student visas, and to all countries, but not of the 2.2 million people granted visas each year. However, visitors from the European Union will be exempt as they do not require visas.